Google AI chatbot Bard sends shares plummeting after it gives wrong answer | Google

from google reply to ChatGPT got off to an embarrassing start after its new AI-powered chatbot gave the wrong answer in a promotional video, as investors wiped more than $100bn (£82bn) from the value of the parent company of the search engine, Alphabet.

Wednesday’s sale came amid fears that Microsoft, which is rolling out a ChatGPT-powered version of its Bing search engine, will hurt Google’s business. Alphabet shares fell 9% during regular U.S. trading but were flat after hours.

Experts pointed out that promotional materials from Bard, Google’s Microsoft-backed ChatGPT competitor, contained an error in the chatbot’s response to: “What new findings from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) can I tell my child nine years about?”

Bard’s answer includes an answer suggesting that the JWST was used to take the very first images of a planet outside Earth’s solar system, or exoplanets.

The error was pointed out by experts, including Grant Tremblay, an astrophysicist at the US Center for Astrophysics, who tweeted: “Not to be a jerk ~well, actually~, and I’m sure Bard will be awesome, but to memoir: JWST did not take ‘the very first image of a planet outside our solar system’”.

Bruce Macintosh, the director of the University of California Observatories, tweeted: “Speaking like someone who imagined an exoplanet 14 years before the launch of JWST, I feel like you should come up with a better example ?

Google said the error, first reported by Reuters, underscored the need to test new systems. Bard has been handed over to a team of specialist testers and has not yet been rolled out to the public.

“This underscores the importance of a rigorous testing process, something we’re launching this week with our trusted testers program,” a Google spokesperson said. “We will combine external feedback with our own internal testing to ensure that Bard’s responses achieve a high level of quality, security, and grounding in real-world information.”

Bard is based on a so-called big-tongue AI model, a type of neural network, which mimics the underlying architecture of the brain in computational form. It is fed large amounts of text from the Internet as part of a process that teaches it to generate responses to text prompts. However, this can also lead the chatbot to repeat errors from the information it absorbs.

Google also gave a live presentation in Paris on Wednesday that didn’t include details on how and when it would integrate Bard into its core search function. A day earlier, Microsoft hosted an event where it announced it was launching a public version of its Bing search with ChatGPT features built-in.

Gil Luria, senior software analyst at DA Davidson, said: “Although Google has been a leader in AI innovation over the past few years, they seemed to have fallen asleep on the implementation of this technology in their product. of research.

“Google has been scrambling over the past few weeks to catch up on search, which rushed the announcement and caused the embarrassing mess of posting a wrong answer during their demo.”

Alphabet, whose core business is Google, just had a disappointing fourth quarter as advertisers cut spending. Microsoft is a key corporate backer behind ChatGPT, the San Francisco-based OpenAI, and its decision to integrate ChatGPT technology into its products, including search, has forced Google, also a big investor in AI, to Act.

“People are starting to ask the question: is Microsoft going to be a formidable competitor against Google’s truly bread-and-butter business?” said King Lip, the chief strategist at BakerAvenue Wealth Management, which owns Alphabet and Microsoft shares.

Lip warned that concerns about Alphabet might be overblown, saying, “I think Bing is still a long way from Google’s search capabilities.”