- A CEO and a VC used Google’s Gemini AI models for investment advice.
- Gemini listed Google parent Alphabet as a top ‘Bottleneck Stock.’
- The AI model noted Google’s domination of the online advertising market.
AI models hallucinate. But sometimes they can be right.
Every Media CEO Dan Shipper recently posted a video of him playing with Google Gemini AI models, including the fancy 1.5 version. A VC friend Jesse Beyroutey played along, too.
They tried to get Gemini to help them pick a stock to invest in. It’s an eye-opening harbinger of a future with giant AI context windows, which let users share mountains of information with models via prompts.
Shipper and his buddy grabbed a pile of company earnings call transcripts and dumped them raw into Gemini, then asked a bunch of questions about those businesses.
Gemini answered smartly. In one part of the video, the model responded with a detailed assessment of GoGo Inc.’s plans to upgrade its in-air Wi-Fi services.
But what Shipper and his friend really wanted was a hot stock tip. So they kept pressing Gemini by asking for companies with certain characteristics such as sitting in a valuable bottleneck in the value chain and having a highly scalable business model.
Gemini came back with a list of stocks in three categories: Shockproof Stocks; Bottleneck Stocks; and Scalable Stocks.
The AI model listed Google parent Alphabet at the top of its list of recommended Bottleneck Stocks.
“Google controls over 90% of the global search market, giving it a virtual monopoly on online advertising,” Gemini said.
This may be accurate. But it’s not the kind of thing Google wants its AI models saying. The company is being sued right now by the Department of Justice, which alleges Google illegally maintains a monopoly in the online search market.
Or, maybe Gemini was just hallucinating?
Business Insider asked Google about this. By which we mean that we reached out to a human spokesperson in the company’s PR department.
“We’ve been transparent that Gemini can sometimes give inaccurate or misleading information while presenting it confidently and convincingly,” the spokesperson said. “This is something that we are continuously improving.”
