BARD, Google’s experimental AI chatbot, has been launched to compete with OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Microsoft’s chatbot in their Bing search engine.
Initially, Google made BARD available to some users in the United States and the United Kingdom. BARD is powered by a smaller, optimized version of Google’s LaMDA large language model, which will be updated over time with newer, more capable models. BARD, like ChatGPT, allows users to type in text and receive responses to a variety of questions.
BARD, according to Google, is an early AI experiment designed to boost productivity, accelerate ideas, and foster curiosity. BARD is intended to supplement Google Search by allowing users to check its results or explore sources across the web. Its goal is to solidify Google’s presence in the AI chatbot space while maintaining its market dominance in search.
BARD is also intended to provide three drafts of its response to a specific prompt, as well as a button to “Google it” for those who want to see what its search engine has to offer on a topic. Google, on the other hand, warns about the dangers of such chatbots, which can make up stories and spread stereotypes and biases discovered in the internet data on which they were trained.
Instead of being integrated into Google’s search engine, BARD operates as a standalone webpage with a single question box. Google says it will provide BARD access in stages, with a waitlist for interested users.
The sources for this piece include an article in Axios.