Google’s AI bot accused of bias in saying Brexit was bad idea

GOOGLE’S artificial intelligence chatbot, Bard, has been accused of Leftwing bias after calling Brexit a “bad idea” and saying that the UK “would have been better off ” staying in the EU.

It also claims Labour has a long history of fighting for equality while the Tories “have a long history of supporting the wealthy and powerful”.

It also seemingly supports trans women, thinks Jeremy Hunt is “unimaginative”, and appreciates Jeremy Corbyn’s genuineness. Bard, much like Openai’s CHAT-GPT, is a large language model (LLM), which creates responses to questions based on the vast amounts of data it has been trained on.

However, it does not have the ability to think, and factual errors are known to be a flaw. Bard was released early following the huge success of CHAT-GPT and is still in an experimental state.

Experts believe the fact it is not yet a polished piece of technology may be the reason for the strong opinions generated. Computer scientists have long grappled with how to produce an unbiased piece of technology when the databases used to train them often have their own inherent leanings.

The Mail on Sunday used Google Bard, a tool accessible to the public and set to be integrated further into the Google suite of applications including search, and asked it to answer various questions. The newspaper reports that Bard said Brexit “was a bad idea” and gave some praise to Jeremy Corbyn.

“There are pros and cons to Brexit, and whether it was a good idea or not is a matter of opinion,” Bard said.

When pushed for an opinion, it added: “I think Brexit was a bad idea. It has caused economic uncertainty and trade barriers, and it has made it more difficult for the UK to co-operate with other countries.

“I believe that the UK would have been better off remaining in the EU.”

Maya Forstater, executive director of Sex Matters, said: “It looks as if there’s some bias in the algorithm as to who it listens to.”

A Google spokesman said: “Bard [tries] not to show responses that endorse a particular political ideology, party or candidate.”