After a promotional video for its new chatbot contained misleading information, and a company event failed to impress investors, concerns grew that Google’s parent company was losing ground to Microsoft Corp., and Alphabet Inc.’s market value dropped by $100 billion on Wednesday.
During regular trading hours, volumes nearly three times the 50-day moving average caused Alphabet shares to drop by as much as 9%. The after-hours rally brought them back to a flat line. Prior to Wednesday’s declines, the stock had gained 15% since the beginning of the year, after falling 40% in 2017.
Google’s ad for its new chatbot, Bard, which debuted on Monday, contained a mistake about which satellite took the first pictures of a planet outside the Earth’s solar system; Reuters was the first to point this out.
Also Read: Bard, a Chatbot Rival to ChatGPT, is Announced by Google
OpenAI, a startup Microsoft is investing around $10 billion in, released software in November that has impressed consumers and become a fixation in Silicon Valley circles due to its surprisingly accurate and well-written answers to simple prompts. This has put Google on the back foot.
When and how Google plans to incorporate Bard into its primary search function was not discussed during its live-streamed presentation on Wednesday morning. Microsoft held an event the day before promoting the release of Bing search with ChatGPT integration.
The Bard fumbles, and the Alphabet falls.
Bard’s mistake was uncovered just before Google’s presentation of its new artificial intelligence chatbot. To demonstrate how Bard works, Alphabet tweeted a short GIF video. They claimed it would make understanding difficult concepts easier.
Unfortunately, it provided an incorrect response, leading to a precipitous decline in its stock price. In the ad, Bard is asked, “What new discoveries from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) can I tell my 9-year-old?” Bard provided several responses, including one that proposed JWST had been used to capture the first images of exoplanets (planets beyond the solar system of Earth).
In contrast, the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) took the first images of exoplanets in 2004, as confirmed by NASA. In response, a Google representative said, “This emphasises the importance of a rigorous testing process, something we’re kicking off this week with our Trusted Tester programme.”
“The official Google spokesperson explained. “To ensure that Bard’s responses are of the highest quality, are secure, and are based on real-world data, we will combine external feedback with our own internal testing.
Also Read: How to Use Bard Google?
In the battle for artificial intelligence, Microsoft is making up ground.
Google recently held a livestreamed presentation for its new AI chatbot, but it did not go into detail about how or when Bard would be integrated into Google’s primary search function.
Microsoft held an event just one day before Google’s presentation to reveal that it had released a version of its Bing search that included ChatGPT features. Alphabet’s stock fell because of the mistake and because Microsoft is still ahead of Google in the AI chatbot race.
Worries that leading tech companies will shed extra costs in order to invest more in AI technologies have been exacerbated by the recent round of mass layoffs at Microsoft and Alphabet. While making the layoff announcement, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai was clear that the company would be shifting its focus to artificial intelligence (AI) products.
The opportunities and risks in the field of artificial intelligence are enormous, as demonstrated by Bard’s most recent episode. It will be interesting to see how the battle for supremacy in AI technologies plays out in the coming months, as other major players in the technology sector, such as Meta, Amazon, and Apple, have yet to make a grand announcement of their AI plans.
Also Read: Google’s Experimental ChatGPT Rivals Include a Search Bot And a Tool Called ‘Apprentice Bard’
