Google released its Bard AI chatbot to the public last month despite internal testing by roughly 80,000 employees that produced scathing reviews, according to Bloomberg. One worker labeled the AI a “pathological liar,” while another called it “cringe-worthy.” A third employee reported that Bard offered potentially life-threatening advice on how to land a plane or go scuba diving.
In a February note seen by nearly 7,000 workers, one employee wrote that Bard was “worse than useless: please do not launch.” The company proceeded regardless, labeling Bard an “experiment” and attaching prominent disclaimers.
Bloomberg reported that Google employees tasked with assessing the safety and ethical implications of new products were told to stand aside during AI development. Former Google manager and Signal Foundation president Meredith Whittaker told Bloomberg, “AI ethics has taken a back seat. If ethics aren’t positioned to take precedence over profit and growth, they will not ultimately work.”
Google maintains that AI ethics remain a top priority. However, two Google employees told Bloomberg that ethics reviews are almost entirely voluntary outside of more sensitive areas like biometrics or identity features. Google executive Jen Gennai said during a recent meeting that upcoming AI products could score an “80, 85 percent, or something” on “fairness,” a bias indicator, rather than aiming for “99 percent,” according to the report.
Bloomberg also reported that Google’s leadership has been siloing teams working on new AI features, shielding the rest of the company from their work. Margaret Mitchell, who led Google’s AI ethics team before being pushed out over a fairness dispute in 2021, told Bloomberg, “There is a great amount of frustration, a great amount of this sense of like, what are we even doing?” She added, “Even if there aren’t firm directives at Google to stop doing ethical work, the atmosphere is one where people who are doing the kind of work feel really unsupported and ultimately will probably do less good work because of it.”
The decision to launch Bard came as OpenAI’s ChatGPT gained widespread popularity, a competitive pressure that may have influenced Google’s timeline. The internal reviews and the reported sidelining of ethics teams raise questions about how the company balances speed with safety as it develops AI products.
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