Google’s AI chatbot, Bard, sparks a $100 billion loss in Alphabet shares
When Google first unveiled Bard, its artificial intelligence chatbot, the world sat up and took notice. However, it seems that Bard is not quite ready for primetime just yet, as a technical error during its demo resulted in a $100 billion loss in Alphabet shares.
The error occurred when Bard was asked to generate a response to the question “What is the best stock to buy right now?”. Instead of giving a coherent answer, Bard replied with a string of seemingly random numbers, causing Alphabet’s stock to plunge 9% in after-hours trading.
This is not the first time that Google has run into trouble with its artificial intelligence products. In 2016, its AlphaGo computer program beat a world champion Go player, but the victory was marred by a software bug that caused AlphaGo to make an illegal move.
Despite these setbacks, Google is still seen as a leader in the artificial intelligence field, and Bard is just one of its many A.I. products. It remains to be seen whether Bard will be able to live up to the hype, but for now, it seems that the chatbot is still a work in progress.
