Google Unveils ChatGPT Competitor Known As Bard

Google has announced that it would be working together with a ChatGPT competitor known as Bard.

The company who made the announcement through its CEO, Sundar Pichai in a blog post today February 7, 2023, described the tool as an “experimental conversational AI service” that will answer users’ queries and take part in conversations.

According to Pichai, the software will be available to a group of “trusted testers” today, before it gets “more widely available to the public in the coming weeks.”

While the exact capabilities of Bard may not be publicly available at the moment, it appears the chatbot will have free ranging abilities like the OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Bad though has the function that encourages users to ask it practical queries, like how to plan a baby shower or the kind of meals that could be made from a list of ingredients for lunch.

In the words of Pichai:

“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.”

The Google CEO further noted that Bard “draws on information from the web to provide fresh, high-quality responses,”  averring that it may be able to answer queries about recent events, in what could be seen as an improvement on ChatGPT, who struggles to provide answers.

ChatGPT since its launch by OpenAI in November 2022 has built its technology in tune with the GPT-3 technology, a family of large language models and though its technology cannot be said to be exactly revolutionary, the move by OpenAI to make the system freely available on the web has exposed users to this new form of automated text generation. It has brought out a new future of internet search, as the discussions have shifted millions of users to ChatGPT’s impact on work, education, career et al.

Google’s rival, Microsoft smarting from its billion-dollar investments in OpenAI may have also latched on the tide as it is reported to be integrating ChatGPT into its customized search engine, Bing, together with other products in its suite of office software. Just last week, some screenshots leaks purportedly showed a ChatGPT-enhanced Bing software.

Google, judging from its previous dispositions has been laid back and cautious in sharing its tools to the public despite the fact that the Alphabet-owned company has deep expertise in the kind of AI that powers ChatGPT and the exact capability of Bard not being made known to the public may not be surprising.

The expected launch of Bard may create a new pathway in Google’s approach to the AI technology, with Pichai stressing in his blog post that Google will combine “external feedback with our own internal testing to make sure Bard’s responses meet a high bar for quality, safety, and groundedness in real-world information”.