In the promotion for the bot, known as Bard, which was released on Twitter on Monday, the bot was asked about what to tell a nine-year-old about discoveries from the James Webb Space Telescope. It offered the response that the telescope was the first to take pictures of a planet outside the earth’s solar system, when in fact that milestone was claimed by the European Very Large Telescope in 2004 – a mistake quickly noted by astronomers on Twitter. Google is searching for ways to reassure people that it is still out in front in the race for the best artificial intelligence technology. An advert designed to show off its new AI-bot, showed it answering a query incorrectly. Shares in parent company Alphabet sank more than 7% on Wednesday, knocking $100bn (£82bn) off the firm’s market value. Is Google really struggling to create a ChatGPT rival ?

