Google unveils Bard, its alternative to ChatGPT and loses $100 billion 😱

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Last week, some leaks reported that Google was preparing its alternative to chatGPT. Well, it’s now official, Google is working on its conversational AI, named Bard.

Bard, the alternative to ChatGPT Made By Google🤖

So it was not just a rumor. It is through a statement on the Google blog that its CEO Sundar Pichai introduced Bard, its conversational AI. As with ChatGPT, by entering a complex query, the AI will be able to provide an answer while understanding the context of the query. Google’s web expertise is also put to use because unlike ChatGPT which relies on data going back to 2021, Bard will be able to draw its information directly from the web to provide fresh and high quality information.

For now, Bard is not available to the public, but only to a few beta testers. External feedback combined with Google’s internal testing will allow the web giant to ensure a high level of quality, security and anchoring in real-world information once Bard is available to the general public. In the meantime, we will have to be patient.

The $100 Billion Blunder 😱

Many observers believe that Google’s statement, dated February 06, was made in haste, because Microsoft had announced a surprise presentation on AI for February 07. Perhaps Google did not want Microsoft to be at the center of attention. Except that in the rush, Google made a huge blunder.

In the video above, the Google AI is asked « What new discoveries from the James Webb Space Telescope can I tell my 9 year old child about? ». Question to which the AI provides 3 answers, one of which is at the origin of a controversy: « JWST took the very first pictures of a planet outside our own solar system ». Except that it is false. Indeed, the first image of an exoplanet was taken in 2004, 17 years before the launch of the James Webb telescope.

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".

the first image was instead done by Chauvin et al. (2004) with the VLT/NACO using adaptive optics. https://t.co/bSBb5TOeUW pic.twitter.com/KnrZ1SSz7h

— Grant Tremblay (@astrogrant) February 7, 2023

This was enough to make the stock market panic. The value of Google has dropped by 100 billion dollars. Ouch

Google's Bard AI chatbot had a wrong answer on a marketing image and Google lost $100 billion in market value today as a result. The market is worried Google is behind Microsoft after a lackluster AI event today. The AI search war is truly on pic.twitter.com/XIMB1TeKrT

— Tom Warren (@tomwarren) February 9, 2023

It must be said that the competition is increasingly present on the AI market, especially with Microsoft. We just have to wait for the final version of Bard, to know if Google will have improved its AI.

Source : Google