Owner of Google, Alphabet, lost £82 million ($100 billion) in market value yesterday (8 February) after its new chatbot AI Bard shared inaccurate information in a promotional video.
According to Reuters, Google’s advertisement for the technology included an error when asked about which satellite first took pictures of a planet outside the Earth’s solar system. As a result Alphabet shares dipped by as much as 9% during regular trading.
Bard’s error was discovered just before Google’s live-streamed presentation yesterday, which also failed to include details of when it would integrate Bard into its core search engine service.
“While Google has been a leader in AI innovation over the last several years, they seemed to have fallen asleep on implementing this technology into their search product,” D.A. Davidson senior software analyst, Gil Luriaat, said. “Google has been scrambling over the last few weeks to catch up on Search and that caused the announcement yesterday (Tuesday) to be rushed and the embarrassing mess up of posting a wrong answer during their demo.”
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The news comes a day after Google’s rival Microsoft unveiled a new version of its search engine Bing, introducing OpenAI’s ChatGPT technology to the software. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella believes that the ‘AI arms race’ has begun, stating “the race starts today.”
An offshoot of Artificial Intelligence, software like that of Chat GPT and Bard, use algorithms and preexisting content to create text, images, code, video and more.
“This technology will reshape pretty much every software category that we know,” Nadella added.
The ‘Generative Artificial Intelligence’ tech has taken the world by storm since its launch in November last year. Many marketers have questioned whether ChatGPT has the potential to replace copywriting roles filled by humans.
