Well, that didn’t take long. Google only just debuted Bard, its AI-powered chatbot, on Monday. But that was apparently enough time for the bot to lose parent company Alphabet around $100 billion in market value.
The dive happened on Wednesday after the chatbot provided inaccurate information to a prompt during a promotional video posted to Twitter.
Bard is singing, but its the wrong song
Bard is an experimental conversational AI service, powered by LaMDA. Built using our large language models and drawing on information from the web, it’s a launchpad for curiosity and can help simplify complex topics → https://t.co/fSp531xKy3 pic.twitter.com/JecHXVmt8l
— Google (@Google) February 6, 2023
Global news agency Reuters first spotted the error in Google’s advert when Bard was given a relatively straightforward prompt.
“What new discoveries from the James Webb Space Telescope can I tell my 9-year-old about?” it was asked. The three answers it listed seemed fine at first, until you do a little digging.
A quick (regular) google search will tell you the first exoplanet, named 2M1207b, was photographed in 2004 by the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT). The James Webb Space Telescope was only launched in December 2021. Bard completely missed the mark on this one.
The AI uprising might take a few years
Left on the backfoot, a Google spokesperson said, “This highlights the importance of a rigorous testing process, something that we’re kicking off this week with our Trusted Tester program.” Some of that ‘rigorous testing’ would’ve gone a long way before the video was posted and viewed 1.5 million times.
As much as we like to poke fun at it, Microsoft’s AI integration with Bing and the sources it includes with its answers are starting to look a whole lot better. So are Microsoft’s share prices.
Who will make the next misstep in the fight for the best AI? We couldn’t tell you right now, but we’ll be there to point and laugh with you when it happens.
Source: Reuters
