The rival for ChatGPT.
Everyone has at least heard of ChatGPT since it was launched and took the Internet by storm in November 2021. The model was developed and trained by OpenAI to interact conversationally, making it possible for the chatbot to answer follow-up questions, admit mistakes, challenge incorrect premises, and reject inappropriate requests. These features have quickly guaranteed people to use ChatGPT for various purposes, from joking around to writing actual pieces of code. Although the initial quick growth in popularity was an achievement on behalf of its creators, the steady interest in OpenAI’s creation is even more impressive. In light of such massive popularity, an emergence of a competitive AI-based chatbot was only a matter of time - and it’s already happening. Enter, Google Bard, made public on February 6 of this year in a statement from Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai. Even though Bard was an entirely new concept at the announcement, the AI chat service is powered by Google's Language Model for Dialogue Applications (LaMDA), unveiled two years ago.
So, how does it work?
The base for LaMDA was Transformer, a neural network architecture that Google created and released as open-source in 2017. An interesting fact is that Transformer was also used in developing GPT-3, the language model on which ChatGPT is based. One that may be even more interesting - LaMDA was already surrounded by controversy after Blake Lemoine, a former Google engineer, released a document in which he urged Google to consider that LaMDA might be "sentient." According to the official announcement, a lightweight model version of LaMDA will be used in the first iteration of Bard since it uses fewer computer resources and can grow to many people. Bard will use all the data from the internet in addition to LaMDA to deliver replies. Pichai said online resources will result in "fresh, high-quality solutions."
Can I try it out?
In simple words, not yet. As of the middle of February 2023, Google Bard has yet to be released to the public. Google is currently testing the chatbot with a small group of "trusted testers," according to Pichai. Both internal and external testing feedback will be taken into account to ensure that the service is ready to be released to the public and adheres to Google's AI responsibility standards. The tech giant said Bard would be widely, commercially available in the weeks following the announcement from Feb. 6.
Was Bard meant as the competition for ChatGPT?
The rivalry, by some referred to as the AI “arms race” between Google and Microsoft, is certainly no secret and is a factor in answering this question. Not everyone might be aware that ChatGPT’s creators, OpenAI, joined forces with another tech giant Microsoft in 2019, making them a key strategic investor. Microsoft supported OpenAI’s efforts by providing a one billion dollar funding boost in exchange for an exclusive license to the AI firm’s technology. Furthermore, Microsoft has recently announced that they are increasing the investment by giving the company an additional ten billion dollars. The increase in funding might be connected with Google’s development of its chatbot, which was thought of as a likely direct rival to Chat GPT from the beginning.
Anyone interested in AI-based technologies or actively following the news about what ChatGPT is capable of is impatiently waiting for the release of Google’s riposte in the discussion of AI-powered chatbots. Everything we know about Google Bard at the moment is fueling the anticipation of its public release, and we can only hope that the chatbot will live up to the hype.
Are you as excited as we are?
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