Google’s Bard, a Chatbot to Level Up Competition in AI Technology against ChatGPT

Bard, a conversational service AI chatbot by Google will be released later this year. Google hopes that the tool outsmarts Microsoft-backed ChatGPT.

Written by: Arjita Gupta

Edited by: Krutarth Ghosalkar

Last Updated: February 08, 2023

Recent development in the field of Artificial Intelligence has given a new turn to the technology industry. With the San-Francisco based ChatGPT tool backed by Microsoft attracting millions of users in a span of few months from its general release the previous year, now Google has entered the AI sector with its chatbot – Bard, a conversational service, which makes many of us recall the William Shakespeare’s prose writing, taking inspiration for the name of AI tool. In a blog post, Sundar Pichai, the Google CEO said that Bard will be released later this year and firstly only be available to a group of trusted testers.

As per Pichai, Bard can be a launchpad for curiosity and an outlet for creativity. It has been less than two weeks after Microsoft disclosed its heavy investment in OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT along with different tools that generate new images and write readable text, Google announced Bard. Bard, Google’s AI chatbot will be able to explain complex subjects like outer space discoveries. But it aims to offer answers in simple terms so that even a child can understand.

Google also says that Bard will perform other activities as well such as providing lunch ideas based on leftover food in the refrigerator or tips to plan a party. Google is aiming to keep afloat in the competitive landscape of technology moreover after Microsoft invested USD 1 billion in OpenAI in 2019. The ongoing demonstration of who is better will probably see a transformation soon for the internet, smartphones, and personal computers at a quicker pace compared to the levels in the last 40 years.

A team of engineers at Google is already working on AI technology and has perhaps been asked to work on a response to ChatGPT on priority. The name of the project under which Bard as a service is being developed is ‘Atlas’. It is Google’s approach as a ‘code red’ effort to compete with the success of ChatGPT to which millions of users have been attracted after the general release the previous year. However, ChatGPT has also raised concerns among schools as students will be able to use the tool to write entire essays.

It is not now, but Pichai has in the past six years, constantly emphasized the importance of AI with ‘Language Models for Dialogue Applications’, a 2021 byproduct of his vision, or LaMDA, which will also play a key role in shaping Bard. Google plans to deliver better answers to users by integrating LaMDA into its search engine. It will also incorporate other advancements in AI into the search engine so that users can get helpful answers to complex questions.

The Google CEO said that in near future, their search engine will deploy artificial intelligence tools. Last week, Google announced an investment and partnership with an AI startup, Anthropic. The AI startup in question was created by some of the former leaders of OpenAi. With a mission to establish safety in AI, Anthropic has its artificial intelligence generated chatbox, Claude.

Source: An important next step on our AI journey