Crux: Google’s parent company Alphabet lost 9% or over $100 billion in market value after its new chatbot shared inaccurate information in a promotional video.
The launch of Google’s new AI chatbot, Bard, has been marred by a significant setback, causing a loss of $100 billion in market value for the tech giant.
The mistake was pointed out by experts in Bard’s first demo, leading to widespread criticism and negative attention on social media.
What happened? Google shared a GIF that showcases Bard’s response to the query, “What new discoveries from the James Webb Space Telescope can I tell my 9-year-old about?” Bard provided three bullet points in response, one of which claimed that the telescope “captured the first-ever images of a planet outside our solar system.”
However, several astronomers on Twitter argued that this information was incorrect and that the first exoplanet image was actually captured in 2004, as stated on NASA’s website.
The third suggestion by Bard that “JWST took the very first pictures of a planet outside of our own solar system” was not accurate, according to experts. Grant Tremblay at the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics said that “I’m sure Bard will be impressive, but for the record: JWST did not take “the very first image of a planet outside our solar system”. The first image was instead done by Chauvin et al. (2004) with the VLT/NACO using adaptive optics,” he wrote on Twitter.
Bruce Macintosh, the director of the University of California Observatories and part of the team that took the first images of exoplanets, also detected the error and wrote: “Speaking as someone who imaged an exoplanet 14 years before JWST was launched, it feels like you should find a better example?” These observations were first reported by New Scientist.
Speaking as someone who imaged an exoplanet 14 years before JWST was launched, it feels like you should find a better example?
— Bruce Macintosh (@bmac_astro) February 8, 2023
Alphabet shares dive: Alphabet, the parent company of Google, saw its stock value drop by over $100 billion following a recent incident involving an AI chatbot. Meanwhile, Microsoft’s share price instead rose 3%.
Did Google launch Bard too soon?
This week, Google unveiled its own experimental conversational AI service called Bard, set to rival the wildly popular ChatGPT which reached 100 million users in just two months.
Google’s rush to release its AI chatbot in an attempt to catch up with OpenAI resulted in embarrassment and loss for the company. Google has not issued a formal statement regarding the incident, but sources close to the company indicate that they are working to address the issue.
The incident has sparked concern over the reliability and accountability of AI technology. The incident serves as a reminder that AI is still in its infancy and that there is much work to be done to establish clear guidelines and standards for the use of these technologies.
In an effort to avoid similar issues, Google’s competitor Microsoft, which recently launched its AI-powered Bing search engine, has shifted the responsibility to the user. “Bing is powered by AI, so surprises and mistakes are possible,” reads the interface for the new Bing teller users: “Make sure to check the facts, and share feedback so we can learn and improve!”
Sharing his observations on Twitter, German journalist Holger Zschaepitz said that it seems that Google is “falling behind in the AI race” with Microsoft.
Looks like #Google is falling behind in the AI race w/Microsoft. Alphabet shares plunge following Google’s A.I. event while Microsoft stock received a flurry of price-target hikes after the company announced its AI-powered Bing search engine and Edge web browser. pic.twitter.com/u81vvEnoLn
— Holger Zschaepitz (@Schuldensuehner) February 8, 2023
