Shares of Google's parent company lost more than $100 billion in market value on Wednesday after its Bard chatbot ad showed inaccurate information and analysts said its AI search event lacked details on how it will answer Microsoft's ChatGPT challenge.
Reuters was first to point out the error in Google's advertisem*nt, which debuted Monday, about which satellite first took pictures of a planet outside the Earth’s solar system. Shares of the company's parent Alphabet fell 8% or $8.59 a share to $99.05 and was one of the most actively traded on U.S. exchanges.
Also read:Tech titans clash! Google’s Bard vs Microsoft’s ChatGPT, which one is better?
The tech giant posted a short GIF video of Bard in action via Twitter, describing the chatbot as a "launchpad for curiosity" that would help simplify complex topics, but it delivered an inaccurate answer that was spotted just hours before the launch event for Bard in Paris.
"This is a hiccup here and they're severely punishing the stock for it, which is justified because obviously everybody is pretty excited to see what Google's going to counter with Microsoft coming out with a pretty decent product," said Dennis Dick, founder and market structure analyst at Triple D Trading.
Google's event came one day after Microsoft unveiled plans to integrate its rival AI chatbot ChatGPT into its Bing search engine and other products in a major challenge to Google, which for years has outpaced Microsoft in search and browser technology.
In the advertisem*nt, Bard is given the prompt: "What new discoveries from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) can I tell my 9-year old about?"
Bard responds with a number of answers, including one suggesting the JWST was used to take the very first pictures of a planet outside the Earth’s solar system, or exoplanets. This is inaccurate, as the first pictures of exoplanets were taken by the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT)
in 2004, as confirmed by NASA.
A Google spokesperson told Reuters: "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 error was spotted hours before the Paris launch, where senior executive Prabhakar Raghavan promised that users would use the technology to interact with information in "entirely new ways".
Raghavan presented Bard on Wednesday as the future of the company, telling audience members that by using generative AI, "the only limit to search will be your imagination".
"Google has been scrambling over the last few weeks to catch up on search and that caused the announcement yesterday to be rushed and the embarrassing mess up of posting a wrong answer during their demo," said Gil Luria, senior software analyst at D.A. Davidson.
At the time of writing, the ad had been viewed on Twitter.
Disclaimer: Business Today provides stock market news for informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice. Readers are encouraged to consult with a qualified financial advisor before making any investment decisions.
FAQs
Shares for Google's parent company, Alphabet, dropped 9% Wednesday after its AI chatbot, Bard, gave an incorrect answer. Google's parent company, Alphabet, lost $100 billion in market value on Wednesday after its new artificial intelligence technology produced a factual error in its first demo.
What was the wrong answer on Google Bard? ›
Experts pointed out that promotional material for Bard, Google's competitor to Microsoft-backed ChatGPT, contained an error in the response by the chatbot to: “What new discoveries from the James Webb space telescope (JWST) can I tell my nine-year old about?”
Why did Google lose $100 billion dollars? ›
Google shares lose beyond $100 billion after AI chatbot Bard flubs answer in ad, ET BrandEquity.
How much did Google lose because of Bard? ›
Google shares lose $100 billion after company's AI chatbot makes an error during demo.
Is Google Bard 100 accurate? ›
In 78 out of 100 topics, the chatbot conveyed false (and potentially harmful) opinions. These are the results of only one study, but they show you shouldn't take Bard's responses at face value. It's also important to remember Google still defines Bard's answers as “experimental.”
Why is Google giving me the wrong answer? ›
Have you noticed lately that some of your Google searches have steered you wrong? There's a reason for that. Spammers are using artificial-intelligence tools to create an ocean of content, and Google's algorithms are ranking some of those robot-generated pages ahead of the information you actually need.
What is the controversy with Google Bard? ›
Google launched Bard anyway. The trusted internet-search giant is providing low-quality information in a race to keep up with the competition, while giving less priority to its ethical commitments, according to 18 current and former workers at the company and internal documentation reviewed by Bloomberg.
Why is Bard so inaccurate? ›
Some of Bard's early issues may be due to AI hallucination. Some also may simply be the fact that Bard was trained on a lot of bad information and misinformation that has been published about SEO. Always remember: It doesn't matter whether content comes from AI or a human – bad information is bad information.
Who owns Bard AI? ›
Gemini, formerly known as Bard, is a generative artificial intelligence chatbot developed by Google.
Why is Bard inaccurate? ›
Just like any other AI chatbot, Bard is prone to hallucination, a term used to describe the model's tendency to confidently respond with inaccurate information. Even OpenAI's mightiest GPT-4 large language model is not immune to this problem.
The company posted a GIF of its new AI Bard in action which showed the chatbot giving a factually inaccurate response to a prompt. In the GIF, the chatbot is prompted, "What new discoveries from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) can I tell my 9-year old about?"
Is Google Bard more powerful than ChatGPT? ›
While you can use Bard and ChatGPT interchangeably for most situations, Bard is better at answering user queries and giving more definitive responses. ChatGPT, however, does a better job of generating long-form content and provides more detailed and complex responses to user prompts.
Who owns the most Google? ›
Top 5 Largest Institutional Shareholders
- Vanguard Group – 904,799,079 – 7.28%
- BlackRock – 770,420,817 – 6.20%
- State Street Corp – 413,134,392 – 3.32%
- FMR LLC – 344,140,631 – 2.77%
- Geode Capital Management – 225,660,182 – 1.82%
- Larry Page – 389,051,160 – 3.12%
- Sergey Brin – 363,474,028 – 2.92%
- Eric E.
While ChatGPT excels at summarizing text, Bard performs better in answering questions with up-to-date information. ChatGPT uses GPT-3.5, while Bard employs Google's LaMDA, making ChatGPT more adept at text-based processing and Bard better suited for conversational tasks.
Is Google Bard free or paid? ›
Google is rolling in Bard and Duet AI into Gemini, which will now come with a paid premium tier that will give access to the company's biggest and most advanced large language models.
What is the question which Google Cannot answer? ›
Questions that are too open ended: Google cannot answer questions that are too open ended, such as "What is the nature of reality?" or "What is consciousness?" Questions about hypothetical situations: Google cannot answer questions about hypothetical situations, as these are not based on reality.
How much did the Bard wrong answer cost? ›
A Factual Error by Bard AI Chatbot Just Cost Google $100 Billion.
What are the questions Google can't answer? ›
When was the first nuclear reactor opened? One second. Google has no answer for questions about effort, worth, desire, character. We have these answers inside of us.
Does ChatGPT give wrong answers? ›
DAYTON, Ohio (WDTN) — A recent study from Purdue University found that ChatGPT, a popular AI app, presents wrong answers 52% of the time. The findings follow researchers asking the program questions from a popular computer programmer website. Incorrect answers were delivered to more than half the questions.
