An advert for Google Bard, the tech giant鈥檚 experimental conversational AI, inadvertently shows the tool providing a factually inaccurate response to a query.
It is evidence that the move to use artificial intelligence chatbots like this to provide results for web searches is happening too fast, says at the University of Oxford. 鈥淭he possibilities for creating misinformation on a mass scale are huge,鈥� she says.
Google announced this week that it was that will be integrated into its search engine after a testing phase, providing users with a bespoke written response to their query rather than a list of relevant websites. Chinese search engine Baidu has also announced plans for a similar project, and on 7 February, Microsoft launched its own AI results service for its Bing search engine.
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Experts have warned 快猫短视频 that there is a risk such AI chatbots could give inaccurate responses as if they were fact, because they craft their output based on the statistical availability of information rather than accuracy.
Now an advert on Twitter from Google has shown Bard responding to the query 鈥渨hat new discoveries from the James Webb Space Telescope can I tell my 9 year old about?鈥� with incorrect results (see image, below).
The third suggestion given by Bard was 鈥淛WST took the very first pictures of a planet outside of our own solar system鈥�. But聽 at the Harvard鈥揝mithsonian Center for Astrophysics pointed out that this wasn鈥檛 true.
鈥淚鈥檓 sure Bard will be impressive, but for the record: JWST did not take 鈥渢he very first image of a planet outside our solar system鈥�. the first image was instead done by Chauvin et al. (2004) with the VLT/NACO using adaptive optics,鈥� .
鈥淚ronically, if you actually search 鈥榳hat is the first image of an exoplanet鈥� on the original Google, the old-school Google, it gives you the correct answer. And so it鈥檚 funny that Google, in rolling out their huge multibillion dollar play into this new space, didn鈥檛 fact check on their own website,鈥� Tremblay told 快猫短视频.
, the director of the University of California Observatories and part of the team that took the first images of exoplanets, also noticed the error, : 鈥淪peaking as someone who imaged an exoplanet 14 years before JWST was launched, it feels like you should find a better example?鈥�
V茅liz says the error, and the way it slipped through the system, is a prescient example of the danger of relying on AI models when accuracy is important.
鈥淚t perfectly shows the most important weakness of statistical systems. These systems are designed to give plausible answers, depending on statistical analysis 鈥� they鈥檙e not designed to give out truthful answers,鈥� she says.
鈥淲e鈥檙e definitely not ready for what鈥檚 coming. Companies have a financial interest in being the first ones to develop or to implement certain kinds of systems, and they鈥檙e just rushing through it,鈥� says V茅liz. 鈥淪o we鈥檙e not giving society time to talk about it and to think about it and they鈥檙e not even thinking about it very carefully themselves, as is obvious by the example of this ad.鈥�
A Google spokesperson told 快猫短视频: 鈥淭his highlights the importance of a rigorous testing process, something that we鈥檙e kicking off this week with our Trusted Tester program. We鈥檒l combine external feedback with our own internal testing to make sure Bard鈥檚 responses meet a high bar for quality, safety and groundedness in real-world information.鈥�
