Google Bard, the company’s ChatGPT competitor, has flubbed its debut by providing the wrong answer to a question.
Microsoft unveiled its version of an AI-powered Bing yesterday, incorporating a new and improved version of the OpenAI tech behind ChatGPT. Google is working on its own competitor, Bard, but its debut leaves a lot to be desired.
According to Reuters, Google’s advertisement for Bard includes the following question:
*”What new discoveries from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) can I tell my 9-year old about?”
Unfortunately, one of Bard’s answers suggests the JWST is responsible for the first photograph of a planet outside our solar system when, in fact, the first such picture was taken in 2004 by the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT).
Investors were quick to take note of the mistake, driving Alphabet’s stock down 9% after the news broke. The selloff wiped out at least $100 billion from Alphabet’s value, underscoring the high stakes surrounding AI deployment.
Google is clearly playing catch-up to Microsoft in the adoption of AI in its search business, and it doesn’t bode well that Bard is getting such a basic question wrong right out of the gate.