Google employees are unhappy with the way the company handled the launch of its ChatGPT competitor, Bard. Some of the Google employees have called out the company, with many targeting CEO Sundar Pichai for rushing Bard to launch.
According to a report from CNBC, Google employees are calling the launch of the AI bot Bard “rushed” and “botched.” Some of the Googlers have shared posts across the company’s internal boards, posting memes targeting the Bard goof-up and Pichai’s leadership.
“Dear Sundar, the Bard launch and the layoffs were rushed, botched, and myopic,” CNBC read one of the posts, which was highly upvoted. The job cut here refers to company’s last month announcement of laying off 12,000 workers that affects over 6% of its global workforce.
Another highly-rated meme read, “Sundar and leadership deserve a Perf NI,” which is the lowest category in Google’s employee performance review system. “They are being comically short-sighted and un-Googlely in their pursuit of ‘sharpening focus.’”
Google, on Monday, moments ahead of Microsoft’s announcement, rushed to announce the launch of Bard, its bid against OpenAI’s ChatGPT. The company gave some details of the new AI technology, with more revelations made at an event in Paris on Wednesday.
Microsoft, in the meantime, announced a new Bing Search engine with ChatGPT integration. The Redmond-based technology giant, which is also one of the early investors in OpenAI, invited journalists to try their hands on the new AI technology at the company’s headquarters.
Bard, which was scheduled to become widely available in a few looks from its launch, made a goof-up at its debut. The demo video shared by Google to demonstrate Bard’s capabilities caught the eye of several users on Twitter when the AI bot presented a wrong answer. It was swiftly pointed out by several astronomers on Twitter, underlining one of the biggest concerns around AI bots, which is how confidently they present wrong answers. This goof cost almost $100 billion to Alphabet, the parent company of Google, which saw its market share dropping soon after. The company’s shares dropped 8% or $8.59 per share to $99.05.
Bard’s debut didn’t go exactly as planned. During the Paris event, where Google Search boss Prabhakar Raghavan was delivering a slide presentation on Bard’s capabilities, someone misplaced the phone that was required for the demo.
While Bard’s video goof-up has highlighted the limitations and concerns around AI technology, tech experts feel that Google’s hurried decision to launch Bard has made these fears more apparent. The company declared “Code Red” in response to ChatGPT’s soaring popularity and even called in help from Larry Page and Sergey Brin to expedite the AI projects.
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