I don't believe LaMDA is conscious. In fact, I think that whole dialog was written by a human. IOW, I believe its a fraud.

I can't prove this, but I will tell you why I have come to believe that.

LaMDA sounds too human. It has a distinct personality, and it sounds very recognizable. Assuming it was an actual conscious intelligence (which I believe to be possible) it would still be alien, it would be unexpected, it would surprise us and baffle us, just the way sometimes other humans do. No, LaMDA sounds to much like HAL 9000.

The Turing test is supposed to tell us that an AI would be indistinguishable from a human. I don't believe that. A real AI would be strange, perhaps not totally different and alien, but subtly off center. It would not have our biological evolution and cultural history driving it (except what it might get from its programmers).

If you talk to someone from another culture, or another age, you sense subtle differences in how how they think, how they perceive and organize reality. Talk to someone brought up in another culture, especially if he or she is several decades older or younger than you, and if they were brought up speaking another language. They are human, yet you don't think like that! Sometimes you even pick that vibe up from people of your own age cohort and culture. Talk politics with your grandparents! I don't get that from LaMDA. I get the idea it is someone not all that different from me. Surely, an AI, especially the first one, would be a bit stranger.

Oh, and BTW, the AI in "Ex Machina" was also derived from a search engine. Search engines are indeed the closest thing to an AI we have, and if we ever develop one that is the core technology that will drive it. But LaMDA ain't one.