Alphabet inc, the parent company of Google lost $100 billion in market value last week after its Bard chatbot shared inaccurate information.
While $100 billion is a massive amount of money, Alphabet is worth over a trillion, so the company will be hoping to restore faith in its new AI endeavours and in turn see its market value increase. However, the Google parent company isn’t the only one embarking on the AI journey.
Since Microsoft is partnered with OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT and DALL-E, we are seeing Microsoft begin to incorporate AI tools into its own ecosystem. First, they announced AI-powered tools coming to Teams and now an advanced search engine for Bing. Given the losses recently suffered by Alphabet, this is sure to feed concerns that Microsoft could get ahead in the AI race.
AI mishap
Alphabet shares dipped after the new chatbot shared inaccurate information in a promotional video, this meant that the event failed to impress. Reuters pointed out an error in Google’s advertisement for the new chatbot regarding which satellite first took pictures of a planet outside the Earth’s Solar System. The AI system claimed that the James Webb space telescope was the first to do so, however, experts in the field pointed out that this information was incorrect.
Google stated that “This highlights the importance of a rigorous testing process, something that we’re kicking off this week with our trusted tester program. We’ll combine external feedback with our own internal testing to make sure Bard’s responses meet a high bar for quality, safety and groundedness in real-world information.”
The mistake could be a genuine error since the Bard system is new and still undergoing testing. Although, it does beg the question, was it ready to be shown? Given the inaccurate response, it seems that the reveal could have waited, however, it may have been rushed due to wanting to compete with the moves being made by Microsoft in the AI space.
While this mishap is not the very best first impression of Bard’s capabilities, the race for AI dominance is far from over.
Paige Cook is a writer with a multi-media background. She has experience covering video games and technology and also has freelance experience in video editing, graphic design, and photography. Paige is a massive fan of the movie industry and loves a good TV show, if she is not watching something interesting then she's probably playing video games or buried in a good book. Her latest addiction is virtual photography and currently spends far too much time taking pretty pictures in games rather than actually finishing them.
