Google Loses $100 Billion After Bard Chatbot Shares Inaccurate Demo Response
Alphabet's market value drops by $100 billion after Google's new Bard AI chatbot provides a factually disputed answer in a promotional video. The error highlights the risks tech companies face when rushing AI products to market.
Alphabet loses over $100 billion in market value after its new AI chatbot, Bard, shares a disputed fact in a promotional demo video. The stock market reacts negatively to the error, causing Google's parent company to see its shares dip by as much as 9% in a single day. This massive financial hit shows how high the stakes are in the current race to compete with OpenAI's ChatGPT.
The controversy stems from a question about new discoveries from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Bard confidently claims that the JWST takes the very first pictures of an exoplanet, but NASA records show the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope actually captured the first exoplanet image back in 2004. This factual inaccuracy in an official Google demonstration immediately raises doubts about the chatbot's reliability.
However, the situation remains slightly ambiguous because the JWST did take the first images of a specific exoplanet called LHS 475 b earlier this year. Bard's response appears to stem from a misinterpretation of this specific discovery rather than a complete fabrication. Regardless of the technical nuance, the public perception of an AI "mistake" is enough to severely punish Alphabet's valuation as investors worry about the company rushing unfinished technology to market.