Google’s stock dropped 8%—or $120 billion—after a live demo of its new chat-based AI assistant, Bard, went pear-shaped.
The question for Bard was simple enough: What new discoveries from the James Webb Space Telescope can I tell my 9 year old about?
Bard offered a number of answers, one of which was “took the very first pictures of a planet outside of our own solar system.”
Astrophysicist Grant Tremblay followed up on Twitter by saying”Not to be a well actually jerk, and I’m sure Bard will be impressive, but for the record: JWST did not take ‘the very first image of a planet outside our solar system’”.
This mistake has shone a light on the credibility risk inherent within chat-based AI and their underlying Language Learning Models. However, I’m confident these wrinkles will be ironed out relatively quickly. What’s more interesting is (1) how fickle the market can be, and (2) the importance of checking, and double checking, and triple checking before any demo—let alone one of the most important demos of the decade.
Google’s stock will bounce back, I’m sure of it. But they’ll definitely sense check better next time.