International
Google’s Bard launches, starts with UK and US
Google, starting today is opening up access to Bard, its new AI chatbot tool that directly competes with ChatGPT.
Google said the AI chatbot will only be available to certain users and they will have to be over the age of 18 to quality for the usage.
As per BBC reports, unlike its viral rival ChatGPT, it can access up-to-date information from the internet and has a “Google it” button which accesses search.
It also namechecks its sources for facts, such as Wikipedia.
But Google warned Bard would have “limitations” and said it might share misinformation and display bias.
This is because it “learns” from real-world information, in which those biases currently exist – meaning it is possible for stereotypes and false information to show up in its responses.
How do chatbots work?
AI chatbots are programmed to answer questions online using natural, human-like language.
They can write anything from speeches and marketing copy to computer code and student essays.
When ChatGPT launched in November 2022, it had more than one million users within a week, said OpenAI, the firm behind it.
Microsoft has invested billions of dollars in it, incorporating the product into its search engine Bing last month.
It has also unveiled plans to bring a version of the tech to its office apps including Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
Google has been a slower and more cautious runner in the generative AI race with its version, Bard, which launches in the US and UK to begin with. Users will have to register to try it out.
Bard is a descendant of an earlier language model of Google’s called Lamda, which was never fully released to the public. It did, however, attract a lot of attention when one of the engineers who worked on it claimed its answers were so compelling that he believed it was sentient. Google denied the claims and he was fired.