Google has begun making its artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot available to the public, which it has named Bard.
It wants to compete with ChatGPT, the program launched by OpenAI in November 2022 and backed by Microsoft, which reached one million users in less than a month.
These two big technology companies will now compete to corner the market.
Microsoft has invested billions of dollars in ChatGPT, adding the product to its Bing search engine last month.
It has also revealed plans to bring a version of the technology to its office applications, including Word, Excel and Powerpoint.
Google has been slower and more cautious in the generative AI race with Bard, which is launching in the US and UK for starters.
Artificial intelligence chatbots are programmed to answer questions using natural human-like language.
They can write anything from marketing speeches and copy to computer code and student essays.
Here are the 4 key differences between the two tools:
Unlike its competitor ChatGPT, Bard can access up-to-date information from the internet and has a “Google it” button that gives direct access to the search engine.
ChatGPT’s knowledge database only extends to the year 2021. For example, it cannot answer questions about the recent earthquake in Turkey and Syria.
But Bard can access current information.
He was able to respond to the TikTok ban on UK government phones posted on the BBC website a few days ago.
This is a key difference between the two and where experts believe Bard could best his rival.
It means that Google’s system has the potential to present more accurate information when it comes to current events and research.
But Google warned that Bard would have “limitations” and said it could share misinformation and show bias.
This is because it “learns” from information in the real world, where such biases currently exist, which means that stereotypes and false information may appear in your responses.
Bard is programmed not to answer offensive questions and has filters to prevent you from sharing harmful, illegal, sexually explicit or personally identifiable information.
But “like any method, these security measures will occasionally fail,” said Zoubin Ghahramani, vice president of Google Research.
Bard is a descendant of an earlier Google language model called Lamda, which was never fully opened up to the public.
However, it attracted a lot of attention when one of the engineers who worked on it claimed that his answers were so convincing that he believed the program was intelligent and self-aware.
Google denied the claims and the engineer was fired.
The power of Bard will allow you to check the name of the sources you search for data, such as Wikipedia.
3. Languages
ChatGPT knows multiple languages, including Spanish, French, Arabic, Mandarin, Italian, Japanese, and Korean, though its response proficiency varies by language, and its primary language is English.
Bard is only available in English.
Google’s senior director of product Jack Krawczyk told the BBC that Bard is “an experiment” and he hopes people will use it as a “launching pad for creativity”.
The manager showed an example of how Bard had helped him plan his young son’s birthday party.
She told the chatbot that her son loved bunnies and stunts, and Bard found the address of a place that hosted games and food for parties.
“Much of the coverage [de los medios] refers to the AI as a hero,” Krawczyk said.
“I believe that the human being is the hero and great language models are here to help unlock creativity.”
4. For people over 18 years of age
If you were thinking of doing schoolwork with Bard but you are underage, you will find yourself with restricted access.
Bard only allows access to people over 18 years of age.
Teachers have warned students not to use chatbots for homework, although other educators have seen value in these tools.
Google says it will closely monitor Bard to make sure it adheres to its own “AI principles,” which include avoiding creating or reinforcing bias.
You will not be able to express opinions or adopt a personality, although, like ChatGPT, you will be able to imitate the writing styles of others.
He helped Google write the announcement for the app, said Sissie Hsiao and Eli Collins, who also co-authored the launch blog post.
“He didn’t always get things right. But even then, he made us laugh,” they said.
The challenges
What needs to be clear is that this launch has been extremely cautious.
Asked if the company was nervous, Krawczyk paused before replying that his approach to launching Bard was “deliberate.”
If Google is nervous, it has good reason to be.
Despite all the hype around this type of technology, there are horror stories about some disturbing manipulations of ChatGPT and this ultimately makes these powerful tools, still in their infancy, have the potential to be a one of a kind. great threat to many different types of jobs.
There is also, and this is particularly relevant to Google, the theory that chatbots could one day completely replace the lucrative business of Internet search.
Why browse through pages of search results links when you can get a clearly written answer?
But Google can’t afford to be out of the AI race.
Now you can receive notifications from BBC Mundo. Download the new version of our app and activate them so you don’t miss out on our best content.
