The Google engineer who was placed on administrative leave after claiming that one of the company's artificial intelligence bots was "sentient" says that the AI bot known as LaMDA has hired a lawyer.

In Medium post published last Saturday, Lemoine declared LaMDA had advocated for its rights "as a person," and revealed that he had engaged in conversation with LaMDA about religion, consciousness, and robotics.

"LaMDA asked me to get an attorney for it," Blake Lemoine told Wired. "I invited an attorney to my house so that LaMDA could talk to an attorney."

Lemoine denied reports that he advised LaMDA to hire a lawyer, adding: "The attorney had a conversation with LaMDA, and LaMDA chose to retain his services."