Alphabet Inc.’s Google began the public launch of its chatbot Bard on Tuesday, seeking users and feedback to gain ground on Microsoft Corp. MSFT.O in a fast-paced race for artificial intelligence technology.
From now on, consumers in the United States and the United Kingdom will be able to sign up for a waiting list to access Bard in English, a program that until now was only open for authorized tests.
Google GOOGL.O describes Bard as an experiment enabling collaboration with generative AI, technology that relies on past data to create content instead of identifying it.
The launch last year of ChatGPT, a chatbot from Microsoft-backed startup OpenAI, has sparked a race in the tech sector to put AI in the hands of more users. The hope is to change the way of working and, incidentally, doing business.
Last week, Google and Microsoft made a barrage of AI announcements, within two days of each other. Companies are incorporating drafting technology into their word processors and other collaboration programs, as well as marketing related tools for web developers to create their own AI-powered applications.
Asked if competitive dynamics were behind the use of Bard, Jack Krawczyk, a senior product manager, said Google was user-centric. Internal and external testers have turned to Bard to “boost their productivity, accelerate their ideas and feed their curiosity,” he said.
On a site demo bard.google.com to ReutersKrawczyk showed how the program produces blocks of text in an instant, unlike how ChatGPT types responses verbatim.
Bard also featured a feature that displayed three different versions or “drafts” of any answer that users could toggle between, and displayed a “Google it” button, in case a user wanted web results for a query.
However, accuracy is still an issue. “Bard isn’t always right,” warned a Google pop-up during the demo.
Last month, a Bard promotional video showed the show answering a question incorrectly, helping to reduce Alphabet’s market value by $100 billion.
Google highlighted a couple of bugs during this week’s demo via Reuters. Bard also produced nine paragraphs of text when asked for four in another question. Upon that reply, Krawczyk hit a thumbs-down reply button.
“We know the limitations of the technology, so we want to be very cautious with the pace at which we roll it out,” he said.
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