Enlarge image
Google's new chatbot is called Bard: "Don't think it will have any significant impact in the long term"
Photo: IMAGO/Jakub Porzycki / IMAGO/NurPhoto
The share price of Google parent Alphabet temporarily fell by several percentage points on Wednesday after problems with the company's new chatbot became known.
Reuters reported that Alphabet stock lost $100 billion at one point and plummeted by as much as 9 percent.
On Thursday morning, the price rose again slightly.
Google presented its ChatGPT competitor »Bard« on Monday.
However, in a company promotional clip, when asked about interesting discoveries made by the James Webb Space Telescope, the bot replied that it had taken the first photograph of a planet outside our solar system.
In fact, the first image of a so-called exoplanet comes from the Very Large Telescope VLT in 2004, as confirmed by NASA.
A Google spokeswoman told The Verge that the process shows the importance of a rigorous testing process.
One of these was started with the so-called Trusted Tester program.
"We will combine external feedback with our own internal testing to ensure that Bard's responses meet high standards of quality, security and realism," the spokeswoman said.
The AI hallucinates
In fact, the case reveals a known problem that can also be observed regularly with ChatGPT.
Such programs based on artificial intelligence often provide amazing or useful answers, but also false information again and again.
In the professional world, this is called "hallucinating".
The company OpenAI, which developed the software, also concedes that “ChatGPT sometimes writes answers that sound plausible but are wrong or nonsensical”.
Google itself has long been developing software based on artificial intelligence that can talk to people.
For years, however, the company hesitated to publish it.
Only the recent success of ChatGPT seems to lead to a rethink in the company.
"Bard" got off to a bad start, said Thomas Hayes, a manager at wealth manager Great Hill.
"I can understand the price reaction, but I don't think it has any significant impact over the long term."
hpp/dpa
