Embarrassment for Google as Bard caught giving factually wrong answers ahead of launch

Google found itself in an embarrassing situation after its newly launched AI chatbot Bard – which the tech company says is its answer to ChatGPT - was caught giving out wrong information in a promotional clip of the bot. 

This also led to Alphabet, Google's parent company, stocks diving by 9%, according to media reports. 

Google posted a promotional GIF of Bard in action, claiming it would help simplify complex topics. The GIF showed the bot being asked ‘what new discoveries from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) can one teach their 9-year-old about’.

Bard is an experimental conversational AI service, powered by LaMDA. Built using our large language models and drawing on information from the web, it's a launchpad for curiosity and can help simplify complex topics → https://t.co/fSp531xKy3 pic.twitter.com/JecHXVmt8l

— Google (@Google) February 6, 2023

The GIF then showed the responses.

However, one of the responses was pointed out as inaccurate by the netizens. The response said that JWST was used to take the very first pictures of a planet outside the Earth’s solar system, or exoplanets. The first pictures of exoplanets were, however, taken by the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in 2004, as per the comments in the thread.  

The fiasco happened just hours before the live launch event for Bard in Paris.

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