Google Introduces Bard, ChatGPT’s Rival

Google introduces their new chatbot tool called “Bard” in a bid to compete with ChatGPT.
Marie Aquino
February 7, 2023

OpenAI’s ChatGPT has been all the talk this past few months, with some saying that the end of Google Search is near, due to the rise of AI technology. Microsoft is even investing billions in Open AI with plans of incorporating the tool in their products, including Bing, its own search engine.

This has caused Google to go into a scramble, calling in its founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin for several meetings.

On Monday, Google and Alphabet’s CEO – Sundar Pichai – introduced Google’s new chatbot tool called “Bard” in a bid to compete with ChatGPT.

Two years ago, Google unveiled their next-generation language and conversation capabilities powered by their Language Model for Dialogue Applications, or LaMDA for short. This is what powers Bard.

According to Google, 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. 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.“

Bard is released initially with a lightweight model version of LaMDA that requires significantly less computing power, enabling them to scale more users and allow more feedback. The combination of external feedback and Google’s own internal testing makes sure that Bard’s responses meet a high bar for quality, safety, and groundedness in real-world information.

The company is opening up Bard to trusted testers and will be available to the public in the coming weeks.

In the blog post, Google stated that they are set to bring their latest AI advancements to search to deepen their understanding of information and turn it into useful knowledge more efficiently, making it easier for people to get to the heart of what they’re looking for and get things done.

Soon, AI-powered features will be incorporated in Search, distilling complex information and multiple perspectives into easy-to-digest formats, allowing users to quickly understand the big picture and learn more from the web.

The release ended with how it is critical for Google to bring experiences rooted in these models to the world in a bold and responsible way and that is why they have been committed to developing AI responsibly. They also stated that in 2018, Google was one of the first companies to publish a set of AI Principles and how they continue to provide education and resources to develop standards and best practices to make AI safe and useful.

According to Google, they will continue to be bold with innovation and responsible in their approach and how this is just the beginning, and there will be more to come in the weeks and months ahead.

Looks like Google is bringing in their guns in this AI race and will definitely not be beaten. Google search, ending? Looks like the company has more up their sleeve to maintain its lead.

Check out the full release here.