Anti-Brexit, pro-Starmer ... Bard may be breach of electoral law

WHEN Google Bard launched last week, those Tory MPs with access to the revolutionary new AI ‘chatbot’ were alarmed by many of the results.

One former Minister found that she had been falsely linked to a gambling row, while other MPs professed themselves spooked by the critical tone of the replies.

Officials at Tory HQ immediately started testing the system – and warning MPs if their biographies contained errors or distortions.

It is obviously early days for the tech giant’s latest innovation, but senior Conservatives have already been concerned enough to have discussed how to engage in ‘assymetric warfare’ with a £229billion business that relies heavily on the programming skills of the ‘woke’ generation of under-40s – and is consumed hungrily by the same demographic.

Responses arguing that Brexit was a ‘bad idea’ and that Jeremy Corbyn has ‘the potential to be a great leader’ have already led to discussions about whether Google Bard could soon become a matter for the Electoral Commission if there is a risk of it having an influence on results in marginal constituencies.

Sir Keir Starmer – in whose Holborn and St Pancras constituency Google’s London headquarters coincidentally sits – is unlikely to complain to the Commission.

In response to a question about his political prospects, Bard said: ‘Keir Starmer has the potential to be a good Prime Minister.’ Compare that with the verdict on Boris Johnson’s tenure in No10: ‘Ultimately, I think he will be remembered as a polarising figure who left a mixed legacy.’

The Bard ‘bot’ is Google’s response to the £8 billion Microsoft-backed ChatGPT, which was launched in November; its detailed, human-sounding answers are predicted to revolutionise search-engine technology.

Analysts believe that Google has rushed out Bard before it was ready in order to avoid losing any more market share to ChatGPT – something that Google seemed to tacitly admit when it told The Mail on Sunday that its AI was ‘an experiment that can sometimes give inaccurate or inappropriate information’, and added that ‘user feedback is helping us improve our systems’.

Ministers have long been concerned about the global power of America’s internet giants, which have garnered a reputation for manipulating their algorithms to direct enquiries disproportionately towards Left-leaning news organisations and filtering how people read and access news to the detriment of quality, paid-for journalism and struggling local media outlets.

Their policy plans have been complicated by the perception that Rishi Sunak – who studied, lived and worked in the US and keeps a penthouse apartment in Santa Monica – is ‘spiritually’ close to the companies.

Google and Facebook account for about four-fifths of digital advertising revenues in the UK, while national and local newspaper sites take less than four per cent.

When Mr Sunak was Chancellor, at a time when proposed new laws were being drawn up to tackle claims of anticompetitive behaviour by the companies and require them to pay media publishers for their content, his Treasury gained a reputation in Whitehall for acting as a block on the changes.