Shares in Google plummeted on Monday after its AI chatbot, Bard, made a major error during a battle with Microsoft’s rival product.
The incident occurred at the annual Artificial Intelligence Conference in San Francisco, where Google and Microsoft were competing to demonstrate their respective AI chatbots. The competition was fierce as both companies had invested heavily in developing their products and wanted to prove that they could outperform each other.
Google’s Bard was up first and it seemed to be doing well until it suddenly made an unexpected mistake. During the demonstration, Bard responded incorrectly when asked a question about quantum computing by one of the judges. This caused confusion among those present and sent shares in Google tumbling as investors feared that this would damage the company’s reputation for innovation and reliability.
Microsoft took advantage of this opportunity by quickly demonstrating how its own AI chatbot handled the same question correctly without any issues or errors. This impressed many of those present who praised Microsoft for its quick thinking and ability to capitalize on an opportunity presented by its competitor’s misstep.
In response to these events, Google issued a statement apologizing for what happened but also emphasizing that such mistakes are part of the learning process when developing new technologies like artificial intelligence (AI). They also pointed out that while there is still much work left to do before AI can become truly reliable, they remain committed to pushing forward with research into this field so that they can continue innovating and providing customers with cutting-edge technology solutions.
Despite this apology from Google however, investors remained unconvinced as shares continued falling throughout Monday afternoon before eventually stabilizing later in the day at around 10% lower than pre-incident levels – representing billions of dollars lost due to just one mistake from an AI chatbot!
This incident serves as yet another reminder of how important it is for companies investing heavily into new technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) not only have robust processes in place but also ensure proper testing has been conducted prior launching any product or service publicly – especially if there is potential financial risk involved! It will be interesting now too see how both companies respond going forward; whether they double down on their efforts or take some time away from development while reevaluating their strategies moving forward? Only time will tell…
The Guardian
