Alphabet, the parent company of Google, witnessed a significant decline in market value, with stock prices plummeting by as much as 4.4 percent on Monday. This downturn followed the suspension of Google Gemini’s AI image creator and the emergence of concerns regarding Gemini’s responses in its chat feature.
According to Bloomberg, Ben Reitzes, an analyst at Melius Research, cautioned in a research note that the issues surrounding Gemini could contribute to the perception of Google as an “unreliable source for AI,” particularly as numerous companies strive to introduce their own AI platforms.
“We have been arguing that Search behavior is about to change – with new AI-infused features,” Reitzes remarked. “This ‘once in a generation’ change by itself creates opportunities for competitors, but even more if a meaningful portion of users grow concerned about Google’s hallucinations and bias.”
The market decline coincided with a statement from Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind, who announced on Monday that Gemini’s image generating feature would be temporarily offline for “a few weeks” to address the raised issues, as reported by the New York Post.
“We have taken the feature offline while we fix that. We are hoping to have that back online very shortly in the next couple of weeks, few weeks,” Hassabis explained.
The images produced by the feature included depictions such as a female pope and a black George Washington, along with other racially diverse interpretations of historical figures.
