Google UKs Managing Director Debbie Weinstein has issued a cautionary message to users regarding the reliability of Googles AI chatbot, Bard. The AI chatbot, launched in February this year, was initially seen as an alternative to conventional search engines, including Googles own search engine. However, Weinstein emphasized that Bard is still a work in progress and may not always provide trustworthy answers, and urged users to cross-check Bards responses using the traditional Google search engine to ensure accuracy and reliability.During an interview with the news outlet BBC, Weinstein acknowledged that Google is aware of the trust users place in the search engine for accurate and reliable information. She emphasized that Bard is not the ideal source for finding specific information, stating that users should continue to rely on Googles traditional search engine for that purpose.You can now pick up where you left off with your past Bard conversations and organize them the way you like. Weve added the ability to pin conversations, rename them and have multiple conversations going at once. Try it here → https://t.co/CwdKHwmDCa pic.twitter.com/9V6Hgphrt6— Google (@Google) July 21, 2023This is not the first time concerns have been raised about Bards reliability. In April, financial news outlet Bloomberg reported that an internal document revealed 18 current and former Google employees expressing concerns about Bards provision of low-quality information. The report suggested that Google was in a race to keep up with the competition, giving less priority to its ethical commitments.Google Bard workers underpaid, overworked competition with OpenAI blamedMore recently, those responsible for training Bard have come forward to express their dissatisfaction with working conditions. Contract workers said that they were overworked, underpaid, and stressed while reviewing Bards answers, as per the report by Bloomberg.The workload and complexity of tasks reportedly increased due to competition with OpenAI, the makers of another popular AI tool ChatGPT. Workers without adequate training were asked to verify answers on diverse subjects such as medicine and law. The review process involved tight deadlines, sometimes as little as three minutes, to evaluate Bards responses.One contractor conveyed, “As it stands right now, people are scared, stressed, underpaid, and dont know whats going on.”“And that culture of fear is not conducive to getting the quality and the teamwork that you want out of all of us,” the contractor added.In addition to these concerns, a Google contract worker expressed worries to the US Congress via a letter in May, warning that Bard could become a faulty and dangerous product due to the tight deadlines imposed on contractors, who were paid as little as US$14 per hour to review content.
