At a demonstration of Bard, Google’s ChatGPT rival, the new bot spouted incorrect information sparking concerns Google’s dominance in Search is under threat. Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company, saw its share price plummet the most it has in three months, as investors grow wearier of Google’s biggest revenue generator and the competition that Microsoft’s Bing could bring – ChatGPT has now been integrated into the alternative search engine.
Read: Google unveils its answer to ChatGPT, called Bard
Google hosted an event in Paris this week, where it shared more details about its progress integrating artificial intelligence into search. Investors were obviously not impressed with the demonstration. As part of the demonstration, Bard was asked about new discoveries from the James Webb Space Telescope. In its one response, it said the telescope was used to take the first pictures of a planet outside the Earth’s solar system, which is obviously not true.
Bard is currently only available to a select few trusted testers. ChatGPT also has some well documented inaccuracies in its responses, but the market looks at Google’s dominance in Search with a much keener eye than what the competitors are doing.
“That is why you see such a reaction, because this is the money generator, the cash cow in Alphabet’s portfolio,” said Mandeep Singh, an analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence.
Google released a statement regarding Bard’s response, saying that it “highlights the importance of a rigorous testing process.” The company said it will combine external feedback with its own internal testing to ensure Bard’s responses “meet a high bar for quality, safety and groundedness in real-world information.”
“They did this in haste,” Singh said. “You don’t expect it from a company that is so dominant, and really has always been able to fend off any challenges as far as their core search business.”
