Google’s Bard: AI chatbot makes $100bn mistake
An error during Google’s demonstration of its new ChatGPT rival instantly wiped 9% off the tech firm’s value
Shares in Google’s parent company Alphabet dropped by 9% this week after a botched demonstration of its new AI chatbot, which instantly wiped £100bn (£82bn) from its value.
Alphabet had tweeted a video of Bard, its newly announced rival to ChatGPT, which it described as a “launch pad for curiosity” that could simplify complex topics.
In the video, the bot was asked to tell a nine-year-old about the James Webb Space Telescope and its discoveries.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Bard replied that it was the first telescope to take pictures of a planet outside the Earth’s solar system. But astronomers quickly pointed out that the feat was first achieved in 2004 by the Very Large Telescope.
“Why didn’t you factcheck this example before sharing it?” Dr Chris Harrison, from Newcastle University, replied to the tweet.
Google has been “under pressure since late last year”, said the BBC, when Microsoft-backed OpenAI unveiled ChatGPT. The software “became a viral hit”, the site said, for helping people pass exams, write poems, dream up jokes and answer questions.
Microsoft announced this week that it will incorporate ChatGPT into its Bing search engine, “which has lagged Google for years”, said the BBC.
Google investors appear to have been rattled by the Bard demonstration, because of the error and because they “were disappointed as Alphabet failed to provide detail on how it will compete with Microsoft in this area”, This Is Money said.
The sharp dip in Alphabet’s stocks was directly mirrored by a leap in Microsoft’s share price, which rose by 3%.
The “costly blunder” was brought about by Google’s “haste” to catch up with Microsoft in the AI chatbot field, said Quartz.
Google still has a huge advantage over Microsoft in terms of its reach, tweeted Jim Fan, an AI research scientist at Nvidia. ChatGPT has built a user base of 100 million people as of 1 February, which, while impressive, is nowhere near the reach of Google, whose search engine crossed the 1 billion users mark years ago. “Unlike ChatGPT, Google doesn’t need to gain users. It just needs to roll out to its existing search box,” Fan said.
Whichever way it goes, the competition between the two experimental chatbots is going to be, in Fan’s words, “a dance of giants”.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Arion McNicoll is a freelance writer at The Week Digital and was previously the UK website’s editor. He has also held senior editorial roles at CNN, The Times and The Sunday Times. Along with his writing work, he co-hosts “Today in History with The Retrospectors”, Rethink Audio’s flagship daily podcast, and is a regular panellist (and occasional stand-in host) on “The Week Unwrapped”. He is also a judge for The Publisher Podcast Awards.
-
Nigeria's worsening rate of maternal mortality
Under the radar Economic crisis is making hospitals unaffordable, with women increasingly not receiving the care they need
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
'Elevating Earth Day into a national holiday is not radical — it's practical'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By Harold Maass, The Week US Published
-
UAW scores historic win in South at VW plant
Speed Read Volkswagen workers in Tennessee have voted to join the United Auto Workers union
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
AI is causing concern among the LGBTQ community
In the Spotlight One critic believes that AI will 'always fail LGBTQ people'
By Justin Klawans, The Week US Published
-
When even art is artificial
Opinion The AI threat to human creativity
By William Falk Published
-
Why is Microsoft breaking up Teams and Office?
Today's Big Question The company had previously divided the software in Europe, but will now make this change globally
By Justin Klawans, The Week US Published
-
The push for media literacy in education amid the rise of AI
In the Spotlight A pair of congresspeople have introduced an act to mandate media literacy in schools
By Justin Klawans, The Week US Published
-
The complex environmental toll of artificial intelligence
The explainer AI is very much mostly not green technology
By Devika Rao, The Week US Published
-
Artificial history
Opinion Google's AI tailored the past to fit modern mores, but only succeeded in erasing real historical crimes
By Theunis Bates Published
-
AI is recreating the voices of mass shooting victims
The Explainer The parents of these victims are using the AI to try and lobby Congress for gun control
By Justin Klawans, The Week US Published
-
The murky world of AI training
Under the Radar Despite public interest in artificial intelligence models themselves, few consider how those models are trained
By Austin Chen, The Week UK Published