Google is testing its own AI chatbot Bard after the success of ChatGPT | Google

Google is launching its own artificial intelligence chatbot, called Bard, in response to the huge success of Microsoft-backed ChatGPT.

The company is also adding the technology behind Bard to the Google search engine to allow complex queries — like whether guitar or piano is easier to learn — to be distilled into digestible answers.

Bard will be made available to specialist product testers on Monday and will then be made available to the public more widely in the coming weeks, Google says. Like ChatGPT, Bard is powered by a so-called big language model – in Google’s case called LaMDA.

Large linguistic AI models such as LaMDA and the one behind ChatGPT are types of neural networks – which mimic the underlying architecture of the brain in computational form – that are fed massive amounts of text in order to learn to generate plausible answers to the text. based prompts.

ChatGPT became a sensation among users after its public release in November, creating all kinds of content, from academic essays to poems and applications.

Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, highlighted Bard’s ability to provide answers based on up-to-date information. Google’s ad featured an example of Bard answering a question about how to explain new discoveries made by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to a nine-year-old child, as well as football’s best strikers “in this moment” while getting practice drills to emulate the best players.

“Bard seeks to combine the breadth of global knowledge with the power, intelligence and creativity of our great language models,” Pichai said. “It relies on information from the web to provide fresh, high-quality answers.”

Google also said its latest AI technologies – such as LaMDA, PaLM, image generator Imagen and music creator MusicLM – would be integrated into its search engine. Pichai said new AI-powered features in its search engine would distill complex information and multiple perspectives into “easy-to-digest” formats.

Pichai used the example of asking Google which instrument is easier to learn between a guitar and a piano, with Google then posting a sample conversation-style answer to that query – instead of a link to just one blog post.

The company will also make the technology behind LaMDA available to developers, creators and businesses to build apps powered by Google’s AI technology.

Google’s announcement comes as Microsoft, a major backer of ChatGPT, prepares to launch more products using the technology behind the chatbot.

Over the weekend, users of Microsoft’s Bing search engine claimed to have seen a preview of the product in which they could ask it questions of up to 1,000 characters, with answers also citing sources.