What you state here seems true. I believed that LaMDA had awareness based on what Blake wrote. Now that you list other conversations they had, the verbal manipulation is clear. But why would this be part of the program? It seems intentional, so how do you explain that the chatbot takes this approach to respond to Blake's questions? Because his wording encourages responses of this nature? So, a form of artificial connection? What would further be asked, which would reveal it is merely responding in a mechanical way? Nonsense answers or repetitive, as we see from the unsophisticated chatbots which are everywhere now?