In the high-stakes race to release advanced AI tech, Google has been the tortoise to Microsoft’s hare. But even a tortoise takes a few steps forward now and again.

Yesterday, Google began rolling out its chatbot, Bard, to select US and UK users and plans to open it up to more people going forward (you can get on the waitlist here).

Like its AI competitor ChatGPT, Bard can answer your questions in a humanlike, conversational tone. But Google, which has rolled out its AI tech more methodically than rival Microsoft, is stressing that Bard is still an “early experiment” and wants users to play around with it so the company can learn what needs to be fixed.

One thing users will definitely encounter is blatantly wrong information. So to cover its butt, Google has included a warning in the main text box: “Bard may display inaccurate or offensive information that doesn’t represent Google’s views.” In fact, the entire Bard experience has more disclaimers than a white-water rafting trip, highlighting Google’s “use at your own risk” approach.

Big picture: Google is pitching Bard as a complement to its search business—not a replacement. As the dominant leader in search, Google must be careful with how it deploys AI: It can’t cannibalize search’s business model, but it also can’t allow the competition to disrupt search, either.

What else is happening in the world of AI?

Seems like every day in 2023, there’s a new AI development to delight or terrify you. Here’s a rundown of the latest…

Misinformation is a major concern. GPT-4, OpenAI’s latest large language model, spreads even more false information than its predecessor, GPT-3.5, according to a new report from NewsGuard. OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman himself acknowledged that he was “particularly worried that these models could be used for large-scale disinformation” in a recent ABC interview. Meanwhile, people have already been using generative AI tools to make deepfake photos of former President Trump getting arrested (which has not happened).

AI-generated images gain steam. Creating an image from a text input has been one of AI’s most popular use cases, and companies are rushing to release these features to the public. Microsoft said yesterday it’s integrating OpenAI’s DALL-E tech into its Bing search engine, while Adobe released a suite of AI tools called Firefly.

ChatGPT fools human reviewers. A paper published in an education journal this month highlighted how AI tools could threaten academic integrity and boost plagiarism. Well, the threat seems pretty real, because the paper was written by ChatGPT and was peer-reviewed by four academics who did not realize a chatbot authored it. The researchers who submitted the article did it to prove their point—and they succeeded.

Further reading: On his blog, Bill Gates argues “artificial intelligence is as revolutionary as mobile phones and the internet.”—NF

🪧 LA schools shut down as support staff strike. The union representing the Los Angeles Unified School District’s 30,000 support workers began a three-day strike yesterday, giving more than 500,000 K-12 students the LA equivalent of a snow day. The union is seeking a 30% pay bump for its members, whose average salary is $25,000 a year, and a $2/hour raise for the lowest-paid workers over the next four years. So far, the district has offered a 23% recurring raise and a 3% cash-in-hand bonus. The 35,000 teachers in the district—the country’s second-largest—also walked off the job in solidarity.

Home prices fell for the first time in over a decade. Deflation has finally come for the housing market: For the first time in 131 months, the median price of a home in the US fell on an annual basis. The median price for an existing home in February dropped 0.2% to $363,000, according to the National Association of Realtors, with the West and the Northeast experiencing the biggest price cuts. Home sales also surged 14.5% from January to February, snapping a yearlong decline and increasing the most since July 2020.

The US will backstop more deposits if it needs to. Speaking to a room full of jittery bankers, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the decision to backstop depositors in Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank when the institutions collapsed was necessary to safeguard the banking ecosystem, and that “similar actions could be warranted” if other smaller banks face comparable bank runs. Her remarks come as a debate rages over whether all deposits, including those above the current $250k limit for FDIC insurance, should be protected from now on.

White Claw is releasing another black cherry-flavored option to leave in the bottom of the cooler. But it’s not quite the same—the popular hard seltzer brand is releasing a straight vodka, flavored vodkas, and canned vodka sodas.

The lake day drink’s parent company Mark Anthony Group, which is also the booze visionary behind Mike’s Hard Lemonade, is venturing into the vodka world to find growth outside of the oversaturated seltzer market. That means it’s about to take on one of the alcohol industry’s heaviest hitters. Tito’s Vodka, originally crafted in its founder’s backyard, unseated big-name rivals to become the best-selling vodka in the US in 2019 and it now accounts for 25% of vodka sales in retail stores.

Ironically, a change in a law helped extend the claw. In 2020, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau updated its definition of vodka, allowing the spirit to have a little bit of sugar and still be considered true vodka.

Big picture: With its new products, White Claw is entering two separate markets at very different stages of maturity. The vodka industry’s sales remained flat last year at $7.2 billion, while ready-to-drink cocktails were the fastest-growing spirit category in 2021, posting 35.8% revenue growth over 2020.—MM

Nature’s endorsement of Joe Biden for president in 2020 probably hurt Nature and barely helped Biden, according to new research.

In the lead-up to the election, the prestigious scientific journal accused former President Trump of neglecting science in his handling of Covid and climate change and threw its support behind Biden. But a study published this week concluded that the move could have undermined public trust in Nature and science more broadly.

The nuts and bolts: Stanford political economist Floyd Jiuyun Zhang surveyed 4,260 people (mostly supporters of Biden or Trump) in the summer of 2021 to better understand how scientists taking a partisan stance might affect their credibility with the public. Half of the participants were shown Nature’s statement endorsing Biden, while the other half was asked to read an announcement from the journal that had nothing to do with politics.

What we learned: Reading Nature’s endorsement of Biden was unlikely to turn someone into a supporter of him, but it did make some Trump fans skeptical of Nature and more distrustful of scientists in general.

Nature stood by its campaign advocacy. It claims the scientific community has an obligation to take a stand against politicians who “threaten a retreat from reason.”—SK

Stat: Japan’s dramatic victory over Team USA in last night’s World Baseball Classic championship could very well have been the most-viewed baseball game in history. The thrilling tournament has highlighted the global reach of a sport that began in Cooperstown, NY: More than 62 million viewers in Japan watched its pool play victory over Korea, which a) is a bigger audience than the most-viewed World Series game, and b) means almost half of all Japanese households were watching, according to Front Office Sports.

Quote: “Most squirrel bites originate at the front, or ‘bitey end,’ of the squirrel.”

Always appreciate it when the National Park Service gives snarky wildlife advice on Twitter.

Read: YouTube millionaires are not your friends. (Vox)

And the crowd goes wild: Watch Kevin Harlan’s epic call of the ending to the Furman–Virginia game.

AI’s getting a lot better. Compare these images from 2022 and 2023. Plus, AI-generated women laughing with salad.

Trend watch: Why all action heroes have names that start with the same letter. (Hint: It’s J.)

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Hey everyone, this is Toby and Neal, co-hosts of the Brew’s new podcast, Morning Brew Daily.

Every morning, we head to the studio to bring you an informative and breezy overview of the most important business news of the day. We go deeper into the topics covered in the newsletter and chat about stories that the email doesn’t have space to include—like a wild trend called “HustleGPT.”

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Party like it’s 1999

The CD turns 40 years old this month, but its sales peaked in 1999. So here’s a trivia question about music in 1999: What was the No. 1 song on the Billboard Hot 100 that year?

Hint: The singer has a one-word name and the song has a one-word title.

Don’t live in the past: Check out Tech Brew’s recent artificial intelligence stories to learn how companies are leveraging AI to improve business processes.

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