Google has launched Bard, an AI-powered language processing tool designed to rival everyone’s favourite job-stealer, ChatGPT.
Known as Bard, the tool is an experimental conversational AI service powered by Google’s Language Model for Dialogue Applications, or LaMDA to its friends, which was introduced two years ago.
The search engine giant took the tool out of private testing yesterday and has opened it up to a range of “trusted testers” ahead of making it available to Joe Public in the coming weeks.
Just like ChatGPT, Bard scours the internet looking for information about a question you might have asked it before providing “fresh, high-quality responses.”
Google CEO Sundar Pichai said that Bard “can be an outlet for creativity, and a launchpad for curiosity, helping you to explain new discoveries from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to a 9-year-old, or learn more about the best strikers in football right now, and then get drills to build your skills.”
However, Google hasn’t gone the whole hog just yet. The company said that it would initially release a lightweight model of LaMDA that requires “significantly less” computing power, allowing the tool to scale to more users and, consequently, get more feedback.
The company also said that Bard’s responses “meet a high bar for quality, safety and groundedness [sic] in real-world information.”
We will be sure to put that to the test soon and see if we can spot any narcotics-based hijinks as with ChatGPT.
Google reckons that Bard, as well as its other AI tools, have the power to enable deeper and more helpful search queries. For example, rather than asking how many keys a piano has, a user could ask something slightly harder, such as “is the piano or guitar easier to learn, and how much practice does each need?”
Bard would then be able to peruse the internet, drawing on information from niche publications and blogs from people who play guitar and video, for example, and gain insights from multiple perspectives.
Google is no stranger to the AI game. After all, it has been using AI in its hardware products for years now, with the Pixel phones’ AI-powered lenses cameras regularly outperforming rival phones with better raw hardware.
But, with ChatGPT stealing a march on the public’s conception of an AI language tool and a catchier name, it feels as though Google will have some way to go to get Bard as well recognised.
