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ChatGPT in many ways is being called the end of Google Search, given that conversational AI can give long, essay style and sometimes elegant answers to a user’s queries. For Google, whose core business is search, this has resulted in a ‘code red’ at the company.
Google has finally made the decision to respond to the threat and challenge posed by Microsoft-backed OpenAI and ChatGPT, an AI chatbot. The search engine behemoth has stated that Bard, a new AI chatbot built on the LaMDA language model for dialogue application, would soon begin public testing.
Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai also discussed the addition of AI-based capabilities to Google Search in a blog post. It should be emphasised that LaMDA has only recently been tested in a small number of the company’s AI Test Kitchen app users.
What exactly is Bard, and why did Google decide to disclose this new technology all of a sudden? Let’s look more closely at the causes and times of this announcement.
What is Bard, when can I access it?
LaMDA and Google’s own conversational AI chatbot are the foundations of Bard. Google will “offer it up to trustworthy testers before making it more freely available to the public in the coming weeks.” Pichai called it a “experimental conversational AI service.”
It is not yet open to the general public, so bear that in mind if you’re wondering how to join up for it right now. Given that LaMDA has been under testing for almost two years due to Google’s cautious and delayed approach, the Bard deployment is actually fairly quick in comparison. On Wednesday, Google is also having an AI event where additional information and confirmations will be made public.
Bard “draws on material from the web to give fresh, high-quality responses,” the blog post claims. In brief, it will respond to questions in-depth, in the form of a dialogue, and in the manner of an essay. According to the blog post, users will be able to request Bard to “explain fresh discoveries from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to a 9-year-old, or learn more about the finest strikers in football right now, and then get drills to enhance your talents.”
Google has added that the model is a “lightweight” variation of LaMDA at the moment and that it “needs substantially less computational resources, enabling us to scale to more users, allowing for greater input.” Keep in mind that running these models demands a lot of processing power. For instance, ChatGPT is powered by Microsoft’s Azure Cloud services. This also explains why the service often runs into errors at times, because too many people are accessing it.
Is Bard better than ChatGPT? What is Bard based on?
Bard now seems to be a restricted deployment. It is difficult to determine whether Bard can answer more queries than ChatGPT at this time because Google is soliciting a lot of input about it. Google has also been ambiguous about the breadth of Bard’s understanding.
For instance, we are aware that ChatGPT only knows about activities occurring up to 2021. It is obviously modelled on LaMDA, a topic that has been in the headlines for a long. Transformer technology, which serves as the foundation for ChatGPT and other AI bots, is also the basis for Bard. In 2017, Google turned its pioneering transformer technology open-source.
Transformer technology is a neural network design that can anticipate outcomes based on inputs and is mostly utilised in computer vision and natural language processing. LaMDA was previously described as a “sentient” entity with consciousness by a Google engineer. The engineer, Blake Lemoine, was subsequently dismissed by Google.
However, Google also demonstrated a number other LaMDA features last year, including a brand-new fiction-writing tool called Wordcraft. Google disclosed in September of last year that it has “collaborated with established authors who utilised the Wordcraft editor to produce a book of short stories.” Online readers can read these tales. However, Google had also advised against using LaMDA to write fiction on its own because it was less effective at the time.
Why has Google announced Bard right now?
This announcement’s timing must be perfect. It happens as Microsoft gets ready to reveal ChatGPT’s inclusion in its Bing Search platform. One day before Google’s own AI presentation, Microsoft announced a surprise event.
In advance of this, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman shared a photo with Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft. The activity starts at 11.30 IST. Microsoft has already made a $10 billion investment in OpenAI this year, and the incorporation of ChatGPT into Bing will cause Google and its core Search business significant problems.
Google may have developed the “Transformer” technology, but it is today regarded as having joined the AI revolution after the fact. Given that conversational AI may provide lengthy, essay-style, and occasionally elegant answers to user queries, ChatGPT is frequently referred to as the demise of Google Search. Naturally, not all of these are accurate, but AI is also capable of correcting itself and growing from mistakes.
According to the New York Times, this has led to a “code red” at Google, whose primary business is search. In fact, according to a different New York Times article, Google officials invited the company’s co-founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, to examine plans for AI.The founders have mostly not been involved in the day-to-day running of Google, but clearly, some sort of alarm bells have gone off at the company.
It is also becoming obvious that many people currently believe ChatGPT to be superior, therefore it is now up to Google to show that LaMDA and Bard are genuinely in the lead and capable of doing better. Additionally, it doesn’t help that Microsoft has made such a big investment in OpenAI and intends to provide ChatGPT to its business clients as a component of the Azure Cloud services. As a result, Google faces several threats from Microsoft and OpenAI.
Google has also declared its intention to include AI capabilities into search results. As stated in the blog article, “Soon, you’ll see AI-powered features in Search that condense complex information and different perspectives into easily digestible formats, so you can grasp the broad picture and learn more from the web.”whether that’s seeking out additional perspectives, like blogs from people who play both piano and guitar, or going deeper on a related topic, like steps to get started as a beginner.”
