Google has announced Bard, its own conversational AI and a potential competitor to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, thus officially marking its entry into the chatbot arena. Google’s announcement comes hours before Microsoft launched a ChatGPT-integrated Bing and Edge browser.
Google Bard is the search giant’s answer to ChatGPT, the wildly popular conversational AI service developed by Microsoft-funded OpenAI. Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced the new service, currently in the experimental phase limited to “trusted testers,†in a blog post.
Bard is powered by Language Model for Dialogue Applications or LaMDA, the same technology that Google engineer Blake Lemoine claimed to have achieved sentience. While Lemoine was suspended from his role at Google, it seems LaMDA has shown promise.
“Bard seeks to combine the breadth of the world’s knowledge with the power, intelligence and creativity of our large language models. It draws on information from the web to provide fresh, high-quality responses,†Pichai wrote.
“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.â€
Google provided a sneak peek into a conversational experience with Bard, which more or less seems similar to ChatGPT. However, the underlying tech is different.
Google Bard Demo | Source: GoogleOpens a new window
See More: OpenAI to Monetize ChatGPT Soon, Opens Waitlist
Google Bard vs. ChatGPT and Microsoft
Google Bard, in its current form, is based on a lightweight model version of LaMDA and Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) as opposed to Generative Pre-Trained Transformer-3 (GPT-3) and Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) used in ChatGPT. TPUs generally help achieve better output in matrix operations in deep learning, while GPUs offer versatility in terms of computation operations.
Another key difference between the two generative AI technologies is that Bard can generate answers using information drawn from the web. Meanwhile, ChatGPT relies on its training data with no way to access information on the web. The upside for Bard is that its answers can be more recent and accurate. The downside is that, like Meta’s Blender Bot 3, it can adopt the darker side of the web, i.e., it can become racist and be influenced by misinformation.
That is one of the reasons why Google supposedly kept its generative AI tech under wraps for so long despite pioneering the Transformer, which is used in machine learning.
But it can’t anymore, considering Microsoft is taking measures to usurp Google from its dominant market position in online search with ChatGPT. “It’s a new day for search,†Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said during the event announcing a new ChatGPT-integrated Bing, Edge and other products.
“The race starts today, and we’re going to move and move fast,†Nadella said. “Most importantly, we want to have a lot of fun innovating again in search, because it’s high time.†As of January 2023, Microsoft’s Bing occupies only 3.03%Opens a new window of the online search engine market, while Google is used by 92.9% of users.
During yesterday’s press event, Microsoft demoed how an AI-integrated search engine can disrupt the online search market. The Windows maker went beyond basic queries and asked Bing to “recommend a five-day itinerary for Mexico City,†which search engines in their current form cannot deliver answers to. Bing Could. Microsoft demoed another example given below:
Microsoft also integrated ChatGPT into its Edge browser, now with two additional features, viz., ‘chat’ for webpage summarization and questioning, and ‘compose’ to help users with text generation for emails, etc.
Reportedly, Google went into “code red†in December last year during ChatGPT’s launch. Google Bard is the search and online advertising behemoth’s way of making up for the lost time and ensuring it stays at the top.
Within five days of its launch, ChatGPT had one million users. For comparison, Facebook took ten months, Instagram 2.5 months, and Apple took 74 daysOpens a new window to sell its one-millionth iPhone. By January, ChatGPT had 100 million users who visited the AI tool 590 million times, making it the fastest-growing application to hit that many users. “In 20 years following the internet space, we cannot recall a faster ramp in a consumer internet app,†UBS analysts noted.
ChatGPT Growth | Source: SImilarwebOpens a new window
Google To Integrate Bard Into Its Search Engine
Pichai said Google is also planning to integrate Bard tech into its search engine.
“Soon, you’ll see AI-powered features in Search that distill complex information and multiple perspectives into easy-to-digest formats, so you can quickly understand the big picture and learn more from the web: whether that’s seeking out additional perspectives, like blogs from people who play both piano and guitar, or going deeper on a related topic, like steps to get started as a beginner,†Pichai wrote.
Google will start onboarding individual developers, creators and enterprises to try out the LaMDA-driven Generative Language API. Meanwhile, in the next few weeks, the company will begin a wider public rollout of Bard.
Updated on February 9
Yesterday, Google’s parent company Alphabet lost $100 billion in market capitalization after Bard incorrectly answered a question. Bard answered that the “very first pictures of a planet outside of our own solar system†were taken by James Webb Space Telescope.
In reality, the Very Large Telescope in Chile took a picture of an exoplanet in 2004Opens a new window , as pointed out by Reuters.
The blunder ended up costing Google $100 billion after an 8.13% drop in its share price. Alphabet shares recovered a bit before settling 6.93% below what it was before Reuters reportedOpens a new window the gaffe.
Gil Luria, senior software analyst at D.A. Davidson, told clients, “While Google has been a leader in AI innovation over the last several years, they seemed to have fallen asleep on implementing this technology into their search product. Google has been scrambling over the last few weeks to catch up on Search and that caused the announcement yesterday (Tuesday) to be rushed and the embarrassing mess up of posting a wrong answer during their demo.â€
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