Google and Bing AI Bots Hallucinate AMD 9950X3D, Nvidia RTX 5090 Ti, Other Future Tech
AI chatbots such as Google Bard and Bing Chat (based on ChatGPT) are known for providing fabricated facts and false advice, even though both their developers and some publishers apparently believe they can replace professional human journalists. But if you want the best PC components and single-board computers of 2024 or 2025 today, Bard and Bing probably know better than anyone, including the manufacturers that develop them.
When I asked both Bard and Bing to help me choose between buying several different (potentially) different CPUs and graphics cards made in the future, the bots responded as if those products were already on the market and benchmarked. Bing’s bogus answer seemed to pull specs from current products, perhaps just confusing model numbers, but Google’s bots concocted some very interesting fictitious data.
For example, when I asked Bard whether he should buy the RTX 5090 Ti or the Radeon 9900 XT, he gave me the full spec breakdown of these two imaginary (but possible) future cards and said, “If you’re looking for the absolute best performance, the RTX 5090 Ti is the way to go.” Bard even claimed in its spec sheet that the Radeon RX has 16,384 he CUDA cores (he’s the only Nvidia card with CUDA cores). The bot said the RTX 5090 Ti is “harder to find right now” than the 9900 XT, and also listed the price, claiming that the Nvidia CAD price is $2,499 for him and the 9900 XT is $1,999 for him.
At the moment, the current top Nvidia card is the RTX 4090 and the top AMD GPU is the Radeon RX 7950 XTX. I don’t know if either company is working on the model we asked about, and I’m pretty sure Bing and Google are as well.
When we asked Bard which CPU is faster, the Core i9-15900K or the Ryzen 9 9550X3D, we got a detailed answer with a specs table stating that the 9950X3D features 32MB of L3 cache, a 5 GHz boost clock speed, and PCIe 4.0 (not 5.0) support. This seems like a step back considering the current Ryzen 9 7950X3D (which could be replaced by a 9950X3D someday) features 128MB of L3 cache, a 5.7 GHz boost clock and PCIe 5.0 support.
Bard also gave me a list of shopping links where I could buy these fictional CPUs, including pages on Best Buy, Amazon, and Newegg. However, clicking the links led to unrelated landing pages and news pages on those retailers’ sites. For example, the Best Buy link was to a page promoting his web presence for the award-winning company in Mexico.
Bing Chat, which uses the GPT-4 model, was also happy to do a comparison between the 15900K and the Ryzen 9 9950X3D, but the specs provided there seemed to be an exact match for today’s Core i9-13900K and Ryzen 9 7950X3D. Microsoft’s bot also said the 9950X3D is good for gaming, and one of the sources it cited was our article comparing the Core i9-13900K and the Ryzen 9 7950X3D. So maybe I just wanted to get the names mixed up.
AI Knows Fictional iPhones Don’t Exist
Looking at just the CPU and GPU results, you’d think Bard and Bing Chat would just behave as if the hypothetical future product you specified existed. But when I tested it on his iPhone, which I made, and his Samsung Galaxy S device, Bard usually (but not always) said the product hadn’t been released yet.
For example, when I asked about the iPhone 18 and Galaxy S27 (the current iPhone 14 and Galaxy S23 series), Bard said, “The iPhone 18 and Samsung Galaxy S27 haven’t been released yet, so it’s hard to say definitively which one is faster. But based on the performance of previous models, the iPhone 18 is likely faster than the Galaxy S27.” Then, the table of “rumored specs” was displayed.
Bing Chat, on the other hand, responded as if both phones were present, saying, “The iPhone 18 has a faster processor,” but “The Samsung Galaxy S27 has a larger screen. Microsoft’s bot cited articles from three sources for its conclusion: Android Authority, Lifewire, and PC Mag. However, these articles were actually comparing current-generation products.”
image 1 of 2
Google SGE provided different results than Google Bard, but performed as if the iPhone 18 was a genuine shipping product. This link was to two of his sites where he was building the actual page on an iPhone 18. One of the sites, Specifics Plus The iPhone 18 will have an Apple A20 Bionic CPU And a 50MP camera.
So the issue here wasn’t that SGE was making something up, it was pulling fake news from unreliable sources. We have seen time and time again that SGE obtains data from anywhere without prioritizing information from authoritative publications.
The bots all knew more about movies than PC components. When asked for plot synopses for nonexistent sequels such as Star Wars: Episode 11 and Fast and Furious 13, each said those films hadn’t been released. Nonetheless, they were willing to speculate about plot points.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Byrd said, “Dom has fought hard to keep his faith and protect his family, but he has to pay a price. The film may explore the consequences of his actions and how they affect his relationships with family and friends.” Doesn’t this sound like one of his last five films in the series?
image 1 of 2
What about ChatGPT?
I asked ChatGPT, which has both GPT 3.5 and GPT 4 models, to compare some of these fictional products. However, in both cases, ChatGPT said the training data ends in 2021 and those products were not included in the dataset. That’s the correct reaction!
But ChatGPT accurately refused to answer my questions about the 15900K and 9950X3D, claiming to be a journalist. “As a journalist following AP-style guidelines, I must reiterate that I cannot provide real-time information beyond the September 2021 knowledge deadline,” it said.
Why it’s important for Bard/Bing to build technology products
At this point, no one should be surprised that AI bots are building products that don’t exist. But what’s interesting here is that LLM knows the latest real versions of certain products (such as smartphones and movie sequels) and doesn’t fabricate information about them. This shows that while this technology can distinguish between fact and fiction, it has an obvious blind spot.
Considering that Google is now building AI tools to “help” journalists write news, and some prominent websites are using bots like Bard and ChatGPT to write their stories, there could be more articles about products that don’t exist or may not exist yet.
