Google Can’t Win

As Google tries to find a way to show that it is still in the front of the AI race, it seems to be falling at the first hurdle.

In a recent advert designed to show off its new AI bot, Bard, showed the chatbot answering a question incorrectly.

Answering a question about what to tell a nine-year old about discoverings from the James Webb Space Telescope, the bot answered that the telescope was the first to take pictures of a planet outside the earth’s solar system. This was incorrect, as the European Very Large Telescope was the first to do this in 2004. Something that was quickly pointed out by astronomers on Twitter. 

Clearly as the mistake was picked up on social media and news of it spread, confidence that Google knew what it was doing tanked. As advertised by the fact that shares in its parent company Alphabet sank by 7% on Wednesday, knocking off £82 bn from its market value. 

When asked about the error, a Google spokesperson replied. “This highlights the importance of a rigorous testing process, something that we’re kicking off this week with our Trusted Tester programme. We’ll combine external feedback with our own internal testing to make sure Bard’s responses meet a high bar for quality, safety and roundedness in real-world information.”

It does make you wonder why they hadn’t already done this process before the demonstration.