Following months of endless chatter about OpenAI and ChatGPT, Google is finally ready to step into the ring with a chatbot of its own. On Monday, Google announced Bard, which it describes as “an experimental conversational AI service.” Bard will be powered by the Google Language Model for Dialogue Applications (LaMDA), and a select group of testers is going to be able to take it for a spin before it rolls out to the pubic in the coming weeks.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai wrote: “Bard seeks to combine the breadth of the world’s knowledge with the power, intelligence, and creativity of our large language models. It draws on information from the web to provide fresh, high-quality responses.”
Google will initially release Bard with a lightweight model version of LaMDA. This model requires far less computing power, which allows Google to scale to more users than it would with the full model. As such, more users will be able to provide feedback.
The company will then combine that external feedback with its own internal testing to ensure that Bard’s responses meet Google’s three objectives for LaMDA: quality, safety, and groundedness. Bard’s quality and speed will improve based on this feedback.
Pichai went on to explain how AI will change the way we turn information into knowledge:
One of the most exciting opportunities is how AI can deepen our understanding of information and turn it into useful knowledge more efficiently — making it easier for people to get to the heart of what they’re looking for and get things done. When people think of Google, they often think of turning to us for quick factual answers, like “how many keys does a piano have?” But increasingly, people are turning to Google for deeper insights and understanding — like, “is the piano or guitar easier to learn, and how much practice does each need?” Learning about a topic like this can take a lot of effort to figure out what you really need to know, and people often want to explore a diverse range of opinions or perspectives.
In the near future, Google will introduce AI-powered features in Search to offer easily digestible answers to complex queries like these. Pichai didn’t share any specific release timing other than “soon,” but here’s what the new AI features in Search will look like:
We’re sure to hear more about Google’s Bard in the coming weeks prior to its public launch.
