Earlier this week, Google announced that it was releasing its ChatGPT rival called Bard to a selective test group. The system will also be used in its search function, with users seeing this phased in as soon as next month.
After its public release in November, ChatGPT has become a sensation, creating all kinds of credible content from academic essays to poems and job applications. As reported, ChatGPT registered one million users in five days and 100 million in just two months. For context, TikTok took nine months to gain as many users - and we know how much that social media platform now dominates the internet.
In answer to the success of ChatGPT, Google has announced its own AI chatbot, which is powered by a large language AI model called LaMDA.
Like the one behind ChatGPT, LaMDA is a type of neural network, which mimics the underlying architecture of the brain in computer form. The model is fed vast amounts of text from the internet in a process that teaches itself how to generate responses to text-based prompts. The company will also make the technology behind LaMDA available to developers, creators and business, with a view to building apps powered by Google’s AI technology.
Looking to step up the challenge, Google stressed that Bard can provide up-to-date answers whilst ChatGPT is only trained on data up to 2021. Sundar Pichai, Google’s Chief Executive, emphasised how he wanted Bard to be “bold and responsible” and wrote in his blog that “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 nine-year-old, or learn more about the best strikers in football right now, and then get drills to build your skills.”
To summarise, Pichai said this new AI-powered features in its search engine would distil complex information and multiple perspectives into “easy-to-digest” formats, and used the example of asking Google which is the easier instrument to learn between a guitar and a piano, with Google then releasing an example of conversation-style response to that query - instead of a link to a single blog post - to exemplify.
The “experimental conversational AI service” is only being tested by a limited group right now, but Google promises to open it up to wider public availability in the coming weeks.