Google's Response to ChatGPT: Introducing Bard
Ever since its release at the end of November 2022, ChatGPT has blown the internet away. The highly impressive chat bot is capable of talking like normal humans, while also doing so much more. It can write Tweets for you, make poetry, lyrics, computer code, and plenty of other amazing things. Since it’s all based on information from around the internet, it’s has emerged as a big threat to tech giant Google as well, as it could change the way people use search engines entirely.
The reason Google has stayed at the top of its game for so many years is because it always stays ahead of the competition. Same goes for the new competitor ChatGPT, and obviously the company has been trying to one-up this revolutionary bot since it was unveiled. Well, it looks like they finally have a way to catch up by introducing their own version of an AI superbot, called ‘Bard’.
Enter Bard: Google's AI Storyteller
Bard is an AI designed by Google that’s meant to be a storyteller, hence the name. According to the company, it’s centred around LaMDA (Language Model for Dialogue Applications), a technology that Google has been testing in-house for months now. The technology is meant to offer results similar to OpenAI’s but at a much lower cost for Google.
Google has mostly avoided creating AI bots like this, and the reason in understandable. This type of software tends to use knowledge throughout the internet to generate content and responses. As such, it can create just about anything, and doesn’t stick to just the facts as that would be extremely limiting.
That means it can generate some pretty offensive content too, as lots of users have noticed by now. The internet isn’t short of negativity, and that negativity can sometimes translate to these bots. So, a bot from Google generating fake news, targeting specific groups of people, and producing hateful content really wouldn’t have been a good look for the company.
But, all of this went out the window when ChatGPT took things by storm. That’s why Google announced on Feb 6, 2023, that it would begin testing Bard with the help of a small private group.
Depending on how that goes, it’s very likely that the public will get to hear the stories Bard has to tell in the near future. While sharing all this information, Google’s executive chief Sundar Pichai also announced that their search engine will incorporate AI features too.
Overall, Google is looking to release at least 20 AI-based features this year, as well as products.
The Future of AI and the Internet
It’s safe to say that the company isn’t going to let go of its throne any time soon, as it already has a contingency for ChatGPT and other rising AI programs. How effective these contingencies are will be seen when Bard finally releases and the public gets to tinker with it.
You can expect to see a lot of action and innovation from Google as well as other companies these coming months as AI content makes waves throughout the internet. How we use the internet as a whole is starting to change, and the future holds a lot of promise for the type of innovations we can expect to see.