Bard, Google’s new AI technology, gave a false answer in a demo, causing Alphabet’s stock to drop massively.
On Monday, Google announced its AI chatbot Bard, a ChatGPT competitor from OpenAI, that will be available in the coming weeks. However, in the promotional video, the technology made a mistake by providing false information as a result of the request.
Google has published a GIF in which the chatbot answers the question: “What new discoveries of the James Webb Space Telescope can I tell my 9-year-old child about?”. Bard offered three options, including the claim that the telescope “took the first photographs of a planet outside the solar system.”
Astronomers immediately reacted to the presentation, who wrote on social networks that the first picture of the exoplanet was taken back in 2004. This is confirmed by an article published on the NASA website.
“I’m sure Bard will still amaze us, but for the record: JWST did not take the “first image of a planet outside our solar system,” wrote on Twitter astrophysicist Grant Tremblay.
Bruce McIntosh, Director of the University of California Observatory, also indicated for error:
“I speak as someone who photographed an exoplanet 14 years before the launch of JWST. Don’t you think you can find a better example?
As Tremblay rightly pointed out in the following tweets, the main problem with AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Bard is their tendency to confidently provide incorrect information as fact. Chatbots often “hallucinate” — that is, make up data — as they are essentially auto-complete systems.
Of course, there are already tons of misinformation on the internet, but the problem is compounded by the desire of Microsoft and Google to use these tools as search engines – where chatbot responses take on the authority of an “omniscient machine.”
Microsoft, which recently showed off its new AI-powered search engine Bing, has tried to fix these issues by putting the responsibility on the user.
“Bing is powered by artificial intelligence, so surprises and errors are possible. Be sure to check the facts and share feedback so we can learn and improve!” Microsoft said in a statement.
Google spokesperson Jane Park says:
“This highlights the importance of the rigorous testing we are starting this week. We will combine external feedback with our own internal testing to ensure that Bard’s responses meet the high bar for quality, security, and real-world validity.”
The promotional video with the error was viewed by 1.6 million people on Twitter. And some time after its publication, Alphabet shares fell 9%, and the market value decreased by $ 100 billion. Last year, shares of parent company Google lost 40% of their value, but rose 15% since the beginning of this year (excluding losses on Wednesday ).
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) February 6, 2023
Opera announced the integration of ChatGPT into the browser
Source: Reuters, The Verge
