Google’s Bard AI Bot Blunder: $100bn Market Value Drop!
Google’s latest attempt to prove it’s still on top of the artificial intelligence (AI) game seems to have backfired. In a recent ad for its new AI bot, Bard, Google managed to get a fact wrong, causing its stock to plummet and leaving investors unimpressed.
The ad, which was released on Twitter, showed Bard answering a question about the James Webb Space Telescope. Unfortunately, Bard’s answer was incorrect, and astronomers on Twitter were quick to point out the mistake. As a result, Google’s parent company, Alphabet, saw its shares drop by over 7%, wiping a staggering $100bn off the company’s market value. Ouch!
To make matters worse, investors were underwhelmed by a recent presentation Google gave on its plans to incorporate AI into its products. It seems like Microsoft’s ChatGPT software has been giving Google a run for its money, with the new Bing search engine using the technology in an even more advanced form.
While investors are generally supportive of the push for AI, skeptics have warned that rushing out the technology raises risks of errors or skewed results, as well as issues of plagiarism. And it looks like Google has learned this lesson the hard way.
In response to the Bard blunder, a Google spokesperson emphasized the importance of a rigorous testing process and said that the company is launching a Trusted Tester program to ensure Bard’s responses meet a high bar for quality, safety, and roundedness in real-world information. Let’s hope that the next time Bard is asked a question, it gets the answer right.
Google’s focus on AI technology is part of a broader trend in the technology industry. As competition between Google, Microsoft, and other tech giants heats up, concerns about the impact of AI on employment and other areas are likely to persist. Nevertheless, we can’t help but wonder if this race for AI supremacy will eventually lead to a “bot-off” where different chatbots compete in answering trivia questions, composing haikus, and telling dad jokes. We can only hope!