Google's AI chatbot Bard botches answer; Alphabet loses $100Bn value

After a presentation of Google's brand-new artificial intelligence chatbot, Bard raised worries that the tech titan has fallen behind in the contest for the foreseeable future of internet search, Alphabet Inc. had its worst one-day decline in more than three months, where it lost around $100 billion. Since the introduction of ChatGPT, the enormously popular chatbot created by developer OpenAI and hailed by many in the tech sector as the future of search, Google has been under criticism. 

Taking to Twitter, Google wrote, "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." They also shared a short video that showed how the AI works. 

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)

Google's Bard AI blunder noted

While promoting the bot, known as Bard, on Twitter on Monday, the bot was asked about what to tell a nine-year-old about discoveries from the James Webb Space Telescope. The AI responded "the telescope was the first to take pictures of a planet outside the earth's solar system, when in fact that milestone was claimed by the European Very Large Telescope in 2004. This mistake by the AI was quickly noted by astronomers on Twitter. "Why didn't you fact-check this example before sharing it?" asked Chris Harrison, a fellow at Newcastle University, replied to the tweet. 

Investors were also underwhelmed by a presentation the company gave about its plans to deploy artificial intelligence in its products, reported BBC. "The importance of a rigorous testing process, something that we're kicking off this week with our Trusted Tester programme", said one of the Google spokespersons. Further, he added, "We'll 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." Notably, Google's parent company Alphabet cut 12,000 jobs in the last month which is about 6% of its workforce worldwide, amid layoffs at a number of leading tech giants.