Google employees have criticized the way the company announced its new ChatGPT competitor, Bard, with CEO Sundar Pichai at the center of the criticism. According to internal messages and memes viewed by CNBC, staff members took to the popular Memegen forum to voice their thoughts, referring to the announcement as “rushed,” “botched,” and “un-Googley”.
The announcement, made by Pichai on Monday, came ahead of a Microsoft event the following day, where the company showcased how its Bing search engine would integrate with OpenAI's ChatGPT technology.
Google Employees Are Disappointed With CEO Sundar Pichai
On Wednesday, at an event held in Paris, more details about Bard were revealed by search boss Prabhakar Raghavan, however, employees were left disappointed after Raghavan only briefly shared some slides with examples of Bard's capabilities.
Furthermore, a Bard ad that went viral on Twitter featured an incorrect description of a telescope used to take the first pictures of a planet outside our solar system, causing further embarrassment for the company.
Google employees, who often use the popular internal forum Memegen to poke fun at the company's quirks and missteps, took a more serious tone in their posts regarding the Bard announcement, directly criticizing Pichai and calling for him to return to a long-term outlook.
Massive Drop in Alphabet Share Value
The criticism follows Pichai's call last year for employees to be more focused and “Googley,” meaning ambitious and hardworking, with respect and teamwork in mind. However, the hastened announcement of Bard and the resulting 9% drop in Alphabet shares this week have caused some employees to question the company's short-sighted approach to the threat posed by ChatGPT.
Google's position in artificial intelligence has been a concern for some time, with employees at a December all-hands meeting asking about the company's competitive edge. Executives responded by saying the company's reputation could suffer if it moved too fast on AI-chat technology, which is far from perfect. The announcement of Bard and the subsequent criticism from employees have only added to these concerns.
Last Updated on February 23, 2023 1:50 pm CET
