Google has finally snapped up and announced a ChatGPT rival called Bard – an “experimental conversational AI service” that will be released to the public in the “next few weeks”.
Like ChatGPT, the chatbot promises to be able to answer complex questions and guide you on in-depth topics in a conversational style. But the main difference from the current ChatGPT is that Bard will be connected to the web, allowing it to offer you what Google claims (opens in a new tab) is “new, high-quality feedback”.
Google’s Bard is powered by LaMDA (which stands for Language Model for Dialogue Applications). Like ChatGPT, it is a type of machine learning called a “big language model” that is trained from a huge dataset and is capable of understanding human language as it is written.
From today, Google says Bard will be open to “trusted testers,” but the public will be able to start using it in the next few weeks. Exactly how we can access Bard in these early stages is still unclear, but Google says AI-powered features will begin rolling out to Google Search soon.
So what exactly does Google’s Bard do for you, and how does it compare to ChatGPT, which Microsoft seems to be building into its own search engine, Bing? Here’s everything you need to know about it.
What is Google Bard?
Like ChatGPT, Bard is a chatbot built on deep learning algorithms known as “big language models”, in this case LaMDA.
For starters, Bard will be released on a “light model version” of LaMDA. Google says this will allow it to scale the chatbot to more people, as “this much smaller model requires significantly less computing power”.
In the early days, Bard will be in beta, where Google will combine our external feedback with its own internal testing. This is because, for all their benefits, chatbots also show a tendency to have negative traits including everything from bias to support cyber attacks.
Opening the chatbot to public testing offers huge benefits, which Google says it’s “excited”, but also risks that explain why the search giant was so cautious about releasing Bard. nature. However, the rapid rise of ChatGPT seems to have forced it to take action and hasten Bard’s public launch.
What will Google’s Bard let you do?
So far, Google is still a bit vague about Bard’s capabilities, but they have provided some examples of what it can do. In short, Bard is the next generation evolution of Google Search that could change the way we use search engines and find information on the web.
Google says that the Bard can be an “outbreak for creativity” or “a launch pad for curiosity, helping you explain new discoveries from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to a 9-year-old, or find Learn more about the best strikers in football right now, then get exercises to build your skills.”
Unlike traditional Google Search, Bard promises to crawl the web to help it answer more open-ended questions with impressive depth. For example, instead of standard questions like “how many keys does a piano have?”, would Bard be able to give a long answer to a more general question like “is it easier to learn piano or guitar”?
Google says you’ll see answers like this “soon” appear in Search, with answers “distilling complex and multi-pointed information into easy-to-understand formats.” According to Google, Bard will also let you do things like “plan a friend’s shower,” “compare two Oscar-nominated movies,” or “get lunch ideas based on what’s in the cupboard.” your cold”.
Combine this technology with voice-based helpers like Google Assistant and it’s not hard to see that we could soon have computers that at least look like artificial intelligence.
Google Bard vs ChatGPT: what’s the difference?
We need more information from Google about how accurate Bard’s skills are and how it will be integrated into products like Search – and that will likely be explained at an event on February 8th. But basically, the chatbot is based on the same technology as ChatGPT.
Both Bard and ChatGPT are chatbots built on ‘big language models’, which are machine learning algorithms that have many talents including text generation, translation, and replying to prompts based on the huge datasets that they provide. have been trained.
Two chatbots, or “experimental conversational AI services” as Google calls Bard, are also fine-tuned using human interactions to guide them towards desired responses. One potential difference between the two, however, is that ChatGPT is not currently connected to the internet, which means it has very limited knowledge of post-2021 events or events.
Google says that Bard, meanwhile, “draws information from the web” to provide up-to-date answers. This may not be the difference between Bard and ChatGPT for a long time, though – a recently leaked preview showed a Microsoft version of Bing with ChatGPT integration, which suggests that it won’t be long before we see a later version incorporated with Microsoft’s search engine.
Google Bard only replies with text?
Like ChatGPT, Google’s Bard will initially only respond to text prompts with its own written replies. But LaMDA isn’t the only AI technology Google has in stock, and we can expect similar advancements to come to the video and audio worlds.
Besides LaMDA, Google says it also has other AI models like PaLM, Imagen and MusicLM that are capable of creating “entirely new ways to interact with information, from language and images to video and audio.” “.
While that’s pretty exciting (or a bit scary, depending on how you view AI technology), these things can go a little further. Google says it’s “working on bringing these latest AI advancements to our products,” but it’s starting with a lightweight version of LaMDA in Google Search.
We’ll certainly hear more about Google’s Bard and how its other AI tech will integrate into Maps, Google Lens, etc. at the ‘Live from Paris’ event on February 8 (above).
