AI blunders like Google chatbot's will cause trouble for more firms, say experts

The type of factual error that blighted the launch of Google's artificial intelligence-powered chatbot will carry on troubling companies using the technology, experts say, as the market value of its parent company continues to plunge. Investors in Alphabet marked down its shares by a further 4.4% to $95 on Thursday, representing a loss of market value of about $163bn (£140bn) since Wednesday when shareholders wiped around $106bn off the stock. Shareholders were rattled after it emerged that a video demo of Google's rival to the Microsoft-backed ChatGPT chatbot contained a flawed response to a question about Nasa's James Webb space telescope. The animation showed a response from the program, called Bard, stating that the JWST "took the very first pictures of a planet outside of our own solar system", prompting astronomers to point out this was untrue. Google said the error underlined the need for the "rigorous testing" that Bard is undergoing before a wider release to the public, which had been scheduled for the coming weeks.