AI is all the rage now, isn’t it? With Microsoft and Open AI being center stage as the world of creepy robot tools unveils, Google had to keep up by rushing its own chatbot — Bard.
According to a report, Google employees practically begged the company not to release the chatbot. Bloomberg did the dirty work by citing eighteen current (and previous) Google employees about what went down with Bard. They shared words—as well as screenshots of internal conversations.
In one of the internal messages, an employee warned that Bard gave frequent dangerous words of advice on numerous topics like scuba diving or how to land a plane properly. Others stated that Bard is useless and shouldn’t have launched.
In Bloomberg’s report, they state that Google went as far to overrule a critical risk evaluation submitted by the internal safety team, deeming it unsafe for use. As an experiment, they opened up the bot for use anyway.
Ethical concerns being swept under the rug is unfortunately nothing new when it comes to companies all around the board—and this isn’t Google’s first rodeo when it comes to ignoring serious issues within the company. Though Google is desperate to compete against rivals, is it necessary to take risks that have serious consequences? Well, they’ve never let it stop them before. Interestingly enough, the company prides itself publicly on being “safe” and “ethical” despite what’s going on under the table.
In late 2020 and early 2021, Google fired two employees after finding a research paper written by them that exposed the flaws in AI language systems like Bard. It isn’t surprising that the multi-billion dollar company prioritizes business ahead of employees and the safety of internet users, but it’s the grim reality of competition.
In the spirit of AI controversies, Google is also merging two “world-class” AI teams- Brain team and DeepMind. In efforts to accelerate their AI progress, the company is focused on combining the two successful talents as one focused team. It remains to be seen if this merge will be handled responsibly either.
Macie LaCau is a passionate writer, herbal educator, and dog enthusiast. She spends most of her time overthinking and watering her tiny tomatoes.
