Single Mistake By Google’s Chatbot ‘Bard’ Costs Alphabet $100 Billion Loss. Alphabet shares slid as much as 9% during regular trading with volumes nearly three times the 50-day moving average.
Alphabet Inc lost $100 billion in market value on Wednesday after its new chatbot provided incorrect information in a promotional video and a company event failed to impress, fueling concerns that Google’s parent firm is losing momentum to competitor Microsoft Corp.
During regular trading, Alphabet shares fell as much as 9%, with volumes roughly three times the 50-day moving average. After a few hours, they had reduced their losses and were nearly level. Despite losing 40% of its value last year, the stock has gained 15% since the beginning of this year, excluding Wednesday’s losses.
Reuters was the first to spot an inaccuracy in Google’s advertising for chatbot Bard, which launched on Monday, regarding which spacecraft was the first to photograph a planet outside the Earth’s solar system.
Google has been hot on the heels of OpenAI, a firm backed by Microsoft for approximately $10 billion, which debuted software in November that has impressed consumers and become a fascination in Silicon Valley circles for its remarkably accurate and well-written responses to simple queries.
Google’s live-streamed presentation on Wednesday did not offer any information regarding how and when Bard will be integrated into its basic search function. Microsoft staged an event the day before, emphasising the fact that it had previously provided to the public a version of its Bing search with ChatGPT functions integrated.
Google, situated in Mountain View, California, discovered Bard’s inaccuracy soon before the presentation.
“While Google has been a pioneer in AI innovation over the previous several years,” said Gil Luria, senior software analyst at D.A. Davidson. “Google has been trying to catch up on Search over the previous few weeks, which caused the announcement yesterday (Tuesday) to be rushed and the humiliating gaffe of posting the wrong answer during their presentation.”
Microsoft stock increased roughly 3% on Wednesday and was unchanged in after-hours trading.
Alphabet tweeted a brief GIF video showing Bard in action, saying that it would help explain complex concepts, but it instead provided an incorrect response.
Bard is asked in the advertisement, “What new discoveries from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) can I teach my 9-year-old about?” Bard responds with a number of answers, one of which is that the JWST was used to take the first images of planets outside the Earth’s solar system, known as exoplanets. However, the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) captured the first images of exoplanets in 2004, as confirmed by NASA.
“This emphasises the necessity of a thorough testing procedure, which we’re launching this week with our Trusted Tester programme,” said a Google spokeswoman. “We’ll combine external feedback with our own internal testing to ensure that Bard’s solutions reach a high standard for quality, safety, and grounding in real-world data.”
Formidable Competitor
Alphabet had a disappointing fourth quarter as marketers cut back on expenditure.
To stay up with OpenAI and competitors, the search and advertising powerhouse is reportedly bringing in founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page.
“People are beginning to question whether Microsoft will be a real competitor today versus Google’s truly bread-and-butter business,” said King Lip, chief strategist at Baker Avenue Wealth Management, which owns Alphabet and Microsoft stock.
Lip, though, cautioned that Alphabet’s concerns may be exaggerated, stating, “I think still Bing is a long, far cry away from Google’s search skills.”
Following tens of thousands of job layoffs in recent weeks and corporate pledges to scale back on so-called moonshot initiatives, the new ChatGPT software has injected optimism into technology corporations. AI has become a fascination for tech CEOs, who have referenced it up to six times more frequently on recent conference calls than in previous quarters, according to Reuters.
The allure of AI-powered search is that it can provide results in simple language rather than a list of links, potentially making browsing faster and more efficient. It’s unclear what effect this will have on targeted advertising, which is the lifeblood of search engines like Google.
Chatbot AI systems can pose risks to organisations due to inherent biases in their algorithms, which can skew findings, sexualize photographs, or even plagiarise, as users testing the service discovered. Microsoft, for example, launched a Twitter chatbot in 2016 that swiftly began creating racist comments before being shut down. Furthermore, an AI utilised by the news site CNET was discovered to produce factually wrong or plagiarised pieces.
The Bard commercial has been viewed over a million times on Twitter at the time of writing.
One Reply to “Google’s Chatbot ‘Bard’ Costs Alphabet $100 Billion Loss”
Comments are closed.