Google’s highly anticipated AI chatbot tool, Bard, has faced criticism for an inaccurate response it generated in a recent demo.
The demo was posted by Google on Twitter and showed a user asking Bard about new discoveries from the James Webb Space Telescope. Bard responded with a bullet point that claimed the JWST took the first pictures of a planet outside of our solar system.
However, this claim is incorrect and was actually taken by the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope nearly two decades ago in 2004.
This blunder highlights the challenges Google faces as it integrates AI technology into its search engine. The potential for inaccurate information spreading has been a concern with these types of language models and Google has announced plans to open Bard up to “trusted testers” before releasing it to the public. Shares in Google’s parent company, Alphabet, fell 7.7% and wiped $100 billion off its market value after the inaccurate response was first reported.
Google is competing with the popular AI chatbot, ChatGPT, and is using AI technology to revolutionize the way people search for information online. The company held an event in its Paris office recently where it detailed plans to offer more complex and conversational responses to queries. Despite the setback, Google remains optimistic about the future of AI technology and the “next frontier of our information products.
