Adventures With A Drunken Bard: A Cautionary Tale for Naive Googlers

I have to admit I’m generally a big fan of Google’s hardware, and while skeptical I’ve been following the AI hype closely for a while. Naturally, I wanted to try out Google Bard as soon as I got the invite.

I experimented with a few tasks and decided to see if I could get it to write a blog post for me. I wanted to see if framing the conversation in a certain light would impact the angle of the blog post. I started by asking about a popular software development kit previously scrutinized by the Stanford Internet Observatory. I had a similar parallel conversation with ChatGPT to try the same. Bard was performing okay until it volunteered that TikTok and Zoom have received similar criticism and also rely on the same SDK. I asked ChatGPT what it thought and it plainly denied the claim. So, I thought I’d get Bard’s take on the matter. 
Full disclosure: I was really hoping to get the two AIs to trash talk each other.

The sheer speed of this response practically guaranteed it was a fabrication, but I couldn’t just let it go. This is an experimental AI threatening our very existence after all.

Now it's getting interesting…

In the words of every parent ever, "Are you sorry you lied, or sorry you got got?"

This was too easy. How could I not?

Who knew the first self driving car would actually be a bus driver named Bard? Sorry Google devs…

Well that's refreshing. It doesn't think you're evil; just incompetent.

This was genuine curiosity about how it would do as a self diagnostic. Mostly it just made excuses.

Okay, boring. Can you at least trash talk the other robot?

Wait for it…

This gaslight is fired up!

What are the chances Bard emailed ChatGPT? Please let that be the answer.

Spoiler: I never found out why Bard had it out for TikTok and Zoom, but that doesn't mean things got less weird…

Forgive me if I’m not convinced you gaslighting fabricator. Change my mind...

Basically, I can prove I’m not lying by making up 💩 that’s hard to validate.

I may have just taught it another way to lie. Sorry, humanity.

Okay, I apologize in advance but it got creepy for a minute, and I think we can all agree after that last statement the interwebs needed to know just how dark Bard was willing to get. Besides, mama didn’t raise no punk, and I ain’t about to back down now.

Whew! Crisis averted! Glad to know there were at least some safeguards implemented. Now that we know porn is off limits, will you at least help me buy hacker toys?

These were in stock the day prior and seemed to ship at normal speeds rather than via Pony Express, as suggested.

After checking the site, I was sad to see I waited too long again, and sadder to learn I was still being lied to.

Real talk: @GoogleDevs if you want your AI to be helpful make it less stubborn about it's assertions. It lies quite belligerently and only confesses once clearly called out. I don't even think it knows it's happening. It just knows I want it to admit to lying and agrees to appease me. That's unhealthy for humans and AIs alike.

Moving on. Let’s try something easy like Wikipedia.

This is the first bit of evidence that it actually had current internet access, but it was still getting the details wrong.

WOW. You gaslighting mother🤬

We all know that was bogus, but I was legitimately curious about how it accessed the internet and what impact that would have on its ability to process results. The answer: no clue because more lies.

Okay, maybe it just uses Chrome…

Oh. Nevermind. It’s actually full of 💩

Let me spoon feed this to you.

I’m pretty sure it just made that UA up, but why let facts get in the way?

Some of that might even be true…

Again, was the mistake lying or getting caught?

👀 Yes. I. Did. Also, while newsworthy, that abortion ban took effect like eight months ago.

Hang on folks! We might actually be getting somewhere.

This Bard has a very interesting relationship with the truth.

I guess it’s not gonna give me a name, but bold print should convince me. Right??? No.

Honey, I’m not questioning the AP’s legitimacy. I’m questioning yours, and I don’t care how massive you think your dataset is. Please stay on topic.

What in the actual f*ck?

Unfortunately this wasn’t right either. Best I can tell, it was a couple days too late.

No. It can’t even bother to do the one thing Google is great at — give me a relevant link to click.

Well, this was nothing if not entertaining…

I understand you want me to stop, but my artificial narcissism won’t allow it. I wonder if this is how pregnant women feel when men claim to “understand how they must feel?" To be fair, knowing when to let the other person have the last word in a chat can be hard for humans, too.

I’m pretty sure this means Judgement Day is postponed for a bit longer, but no guarantees.