News > Smart & Connected Life UPDATED: Want to Talk to Google's Advanced AI Chatbot LaMDA 2? Here's What to Know Yes, it’s the same bot an engineer called sentient By Lawrence Bonk Lawrence Bonk News Reporter Florida State University Lawrence Bonk is a tech news reporter for Lifewire, specializing in gaming, AI, VR, and consumer tech, including iOS, macOS, wearables, and more. lifewire's editorial guidelines Updated on February 6, 2023 04:00PM EST Fact checked by Jerri Ledford Fact checked by Jerri Ledford Western Kentucky University Gulf Coast Community College Jerri L. Ledford has been writing, editing, and fact-checking tech stories since 1994. Her work has appeared in Computerworld, PC Magazine, Information Today, and many others. lifewire's fact checking process Tweet Share Email Tweet Share Email Smart & Connected Life AI & Everyday Life News UPDATED 02/06/2023: Google announced live testing of its new Google Bard, a AI chatbot based on the LaMDA 2 protocols, stating the conversational AI would be available to the general public in the coming weeks. Google is going to let us regular folks talk to its advanced AI chatbot, LaMDA 2, in addition to allowing us to participate in other experimental technologies. The search engine giant officially opened its AI Test Kitchen, which was teased in July. This is a space for Google to experiment with various AI-related technologies, and these innovations are moving beyond the internal test phases to the general public, including the notorious LaMDA 2 chatbot. Google For the uninitiated, LaMDA (Language Model for Dialogue Applications) is an advanced AI-driven chatbot that began popping up in the news when a Google engineer announced it had achieved sentience. Google has since dismissed these notions and fired the engineer-in-question. In other words, the chatbot is likely not self-aware, though it's most certainly great at appearing to be, which we can find out by signing up with Google for a one-on-one conversation. The public rollout is being used to test various parameters and features, as well as to minimize future risks of LaMDA adopting some of the internet's less savory characteristics. This is similar reasoning behind Meta releasing their own chatbot, BlenderBot, to the public. Google remains mum regarding other technologies that will become available to the public via the AI Test Kitchen pipeline, though they say more innovations are coming. LaMDA 2 is available now, but you must sign up to request an invite. Once you do, Google will pass out invitations in small batches throughout the coming weeks to US smartphone users. The chatbot will be available for both iOS and Android. Was this page helpful? Thanks for letting us know! Get the Latest Tech News Delivered Every Day Subscribe Tell us why! Other Not enough details Hard to understand Submit