According to Reuters, Alphabet (the parent company of Google) lost $100 billion in market value on February 8.
The cause was a misstep during the launch of the company’s newly unveiled AI chatbot, which provided an incorrect answer to a basic question in a promotional video released alongside the launch event. This blunder raised concerns that Google’s parent company might fall behind rival Microsoft in the race for artificial intelligence.
Alphabet’s stock dropped by as much as 9%, with trading volume surging to three times the usual rate. This led to the tech giant’s market capitalization evaporating by $100 billion. Prior to this incident, Google had high expectations for Bard, an AI chatbot that directly competes with Microsoft’s ChatGPT.
AI chatbot causes Alphabet to lose $100 billion.
In the introductory video, Bard was asked: “What new discoveries can I tell my 9-year-old child about from the James Webb Space Telescope?” Bard provided several answers, one of which was: “The James Webb Space Telescope has been used to take the first pictures of a planet outside of Earth’s Solar System, also known as an exoplanet.”
However, according to NASA’s confirmation, the first images of an exoplanet were taken by the Very Large Telescope of the European Southern Observatory in the Southern Hemisphere (ESO) in 2004.
In response to this error from the AI chatbot tool, a Google spokesperson stated: “This highlights the importance of a rigorous testing process, which we will begin implementing this week with our Trusted Tester program. We will incorporate feedback from external sources and internal testing to ensure that Bard meets high standards of quality, safety, and real-world applicability.”
Currently, Bard has not been widely released for general users and is still in the testing phase. Even Google CEO Sundar Pichai had to send an email mobilizing the entire workforce to participate in Bard’s testing process. Therefore, there is still much work to be done to help Google’s AI chatbot compete with Microsoft’s ChatGPT and make a breakthrough in internet search.
