French AI chatbot taken offline after wild answers led to online ridicule | Money [Video]

(CNN) — A French-language artificial intelligence chatbot backed by the French government has been taken offline after providing nonsensical answers to simple mathematical equations, and even recommending that one user eat cow’s eggs.

In a statement Saturday, the Linagora Group, a company that is part of a consortium developing the model, named Lucie, said it remains an “academic research project in its early stages.”

Lucie was released “prematurely,” said Linagora, adding that it should have been clearer in informing users of the limitations of the model in its current form.

“We were carried away by our own enthusiasm,” the statement reads.

Michel-Marie Maudet, general director of Linagora Group, told CNN that the team would now update its model and then test a beta version in private before a public relaunch.

After Lucie was launched Thursday, users took to social media to share its erroneous answers, including a response to a user query asking the chatbot to tell …