Report Details Google’s Embarrassment Over AI Flub

A CNBC report describes the reactions that frustrated Google employees had in the wake of this week’s AI flub.

As you may recall, Google tried to preempt this past week’s Microsoft Bing AI event by preannouncing some of its own AI advances in Bard two days before a rushed event at which it divulged more information. But Google overlooked a mistake in the rushed PR push: Bard claimed that the James Webb Space Telescope “took the very first pictures of a planet outside our own solar system.” But that’s not true.

Windows Intelligence In Your Inbox

Sign up for our new free newsletter to get three time-saving tips each Friday — and get free copies of Paul Thurrott's Windows 11 and Windows 10 Field Guides (normally $9.99) as a special welcome gift!

"*" indicates required fields

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

The flub is a classic example of one of the key concerns with AI-generated content: mistakes confidently presented as facts that are instantly accepted by a gullible consumer base who assumes the sources are authoritative. But it also undermined Google’s presumed lead in this technology and showed it to be vulnerable. And Googlers were quick to put the blame on CEO Sundar Pichai.

CNBC said that Google’s employees describe the AI announcements last week as “rushed,” “botched” and “un-Googley” in the firm’s internal forum, called Memegen.

“Dear Sundar, the Bard launch and the layoffs were rushed, botched, and myopic,” one thread reads. “Please return to taking a long-term outlook.”

“Sundar, and leadership, deserve a Perf NI,” another thread noted, referring to the lowest category in the company’s employee performance review system. “They are being comically short-sighted and un-Googlely in their pursuit of ‘sharpening focus.’”

“Rushing Bard to market in a panic validated the market’s fear about us,” another read, in what is perhaps the core concern of the employee base. And as a result of Google’s missteps, its stock price crashed. “Firing 12,000 people rises the stock by 3 percent, [but] one rushed AI presentation drops it by 8 percent,” another thread bemoaned.

Tagged with

Share post

Please check our Community Guidelines before commenting

Windows Intelligence In Your Inbox

Sign up for our new free newsletter to get three time-saving tips each Friday

"*" indicates required fields

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Thurrott © 2024 Thurrott LLC