Google’s new AI chatbot, Bard, caused a stir on Wednesday, February 8th, 2023, after an ad showcasing the bot went viral for the wrong reasons. The promotion video, which was released on Twitter on Monday, asked the bot about what to tell a nine-year-old about discoveries from the James Webb Space Telescope. Unfortunately, the bot’s answer was incorrect, and astronomers quickly pointed out the mistake on Twitter. As a result of the error, shares in Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company, fell by more than 7%, knocking off $100 billion from the firm’s market value.
According to Reuters, the inaccurate information in the promotional video, combined with a lackluster presentation about the company’s plans to deploy artificial intelligence in its products, fed worries that Google is losing ground to rival Microsoft. Alphabet shares were down 9% during regular trading but were flat after hours, while Microsoft shares rose by around 3% before paring gains and were also flat in post-market trading.
Alphabet Inc. Shares Tumble After AI Event
Google officially announced Bard on Monday, confirming prior reporting by CNBC, and the company said it would begin rolling out the technology in the coming weeks. The event promoting Bard took place just one day after Microsoft hosted its own AI event, showcasing new AI technologies in its competing search engine, Bing. According to CNBC, shares of Google’s parent Alphabet closed down more than 7% on Wednesday following the event.
Key Points:
- Google’s new AI chatbot, Bard, caused shares in Alphabet Inc. to fall more than 7%, knocking $100 billion off the company’s market value.
- An ad showcasing Bard went viral for the wrong reasons after the bot answered a question incorrectly.
- The inaccurate information in the ad and a lackluster presentation about the company’s plans to deploy AI in its products fed worries that Google is losing ground to rival Microsoft.
- Alphabet shares were down 9% during regular trading but were flat after hours, while Microsoft shares rose by around 3% before paring gains.
- Google officially announced Bard on Monday and said it would begin rolling out the technology in the coming weeks.
- The event promoting Bard took place just one day after Microsoft hosted its own AI event, showcasing new AI technologies in its competing search engine, Bing.
Alphabet loses 10X on Bard What Microsoft Invested in OpenAI
It wasn’t even a month ago that Microsoft announced it was expanding its relationship with OpenAI investing an additional $10 Billion whose artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT has lit up the internet since its introduction in November, amassing more than a million users within days and touching off a fresh debate over the role of AI in the workplace.
If Microsoft wanted to damage Google’s market share by adding artificial intelligence to search, it couldn’t have worked out better. Rumors swirled about Google Founders returning to Google to figure out how to integrate ai into Google Search with Search Engine Journal Reporting:
- Google’s founders have approved plans to add chatbot features to the search engine in response to the success of OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
- ChatGPT provides an alternative way of searching for information and could threaten Google’s search business.
- Google is accelerating the development of AI and plans to launch a version of its search engine with chatbot capabilities this year.
Companies shouldn’t “rush” anything. While Google may have had artificial intelligence well before ChatGPT was released, they obviously weren’t ready to do a simple demo. ChatGPT has certainly made plenty of mistakes and quoted inaccurate information too, but perhaps not on such a big stage with so much to lose.
In conclusion, Google’s new AI chatbot Bard caused quite a stir on Wednesday, and the company is now searching for ways to reassure people that it is still out in the race for the best AI technology. A Google spokesperson said the error highlighted “the importance of a rigorous testing process” and that the company would “combine external feedback with our own internal testing to make sure Bard’s responses meet a high bar for quality, safety and roundedness in real-world information.”