Google gaffe takes shine off Bard
We have a new type of misinformation to look forward to!
On Monday, Google announced its AI bot Bard to rival the much-talked-about ChatGPT.
In a promotional GIF published on Twitter, the following question was asked: “What new discoveries from the James Webb Space Telescope can I tell my 9 year old about?”
Bard responded with three bullet point answers, the last of which was: “JWST took the very first pictures of a planet outside of our solar system.”
Bard is an experimental conversational AI service, powered by LaMDA. Built using our large language models and drawing on information from the web, it’s a launchpad for curiosity and can help simplify complex topics → https://t.co/fSp531xKy3 pic.twitter.com/JecHXVmt8l
— Google (@Google) February 6, 2023
Astronomers took to Twitter and hastily debunked the claim, revealing it was actually the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in 2004.
The repercussions were seismic. Shares in parent company Alphabet plummeted by almost 8% on Wednesday, slashing $100 billion (£82 billion) off its market value.
Perhaps it’s indicative of the pressure Google is under to respond to Microsoft-backed ChatGPT, which is already being integrated into the Bing search engine.
It also highlights the danger of AI tools and how vulnerable humans are to becoming overly trusting of them.
Don’t assume and presume. Double-check, triple-check, and fact-check!
