The stock markets are a delicate creature, needing careful nurture and care. On February 9, prices of the global tech giant Alphabet (parent of the search behemoth Google) went into a swoon over a factual error by an artificial intelligence (AI) application the company was bringing to market. It was an error that only the specialist or interested amateur could have spotted, but the detail was a red-light warning that Alphabet was not yet in a state of preparedness for battle in AI-based search.