It is labelled as an “experimental conversational AI service” by Google.
What is Bard
Bard is not open for public usage at the moment and is only available for “trusted testers”.
Available to limited people
After announcing the chatbot, Google CEO Pichai announced the company will “enlist every Googler to help shape Bard.”
Google CEO enrolled employees for testing
Bard is powered by Google’s Language Model for Dialogue Applications (LaMDA).
Bard uses LaMDA
In the initial phase, the chatbot will use a lightweight version of LaMDA.
For starters, LaMDA lite
In his Bard announcement, Pichai said the chatbot “seeks to combine the breadth of the world’s knowledge with the power, intelligence and creativity of our large language models.”
Google head’s take
He continued, “It draws on information from the web to provide fresh, high-quality responses.”
Pichai on its working
Pichai added that it can do things like “explain new discoveries from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to a 9-year-old.”
Bard’s applications
Google will take into consideration internal as well as external feedback “to make sure Bard’s responses meet a high bar for quality, safety and groundedness in real-world information.”
Feedbacks will ‘improve’ Bard
Pichai said that Google wants to build Bard “in a bold and responsible way.”
AI development with ‘responsibility’
He further underlined that the company was one of the first companies to come up with AI principles, in 2018.
Google, first in principles: Pichai
As soon as Google announced Bard, Microsoft went ahead and incorporated ChatGPT’s AI capabilities into its Bing browser.
Response to Bard launch
After Bard launched, Google ran an ad on Twitter that showed the chatbot showing an incorrect response.
Bard ad fiasco
The ad showed Bard incorrectly stating that James Webb Telescope was the first to capture pictures of a planet outside the solar system.
More about the error
Several Twitter users panned the AI chatbot and brought it to everyone’s attention that the correct answer should be “European Very Large Telescope.”
Backlash on ad
The ‘unfortunate’ ad caused Google-parent Alphabet’s shares to dip and lose $100 billion in market value.
Action and consequence
Besides Bard, Google is also leveraging AI in search in other ways.
Bard isn’t alone
Google also announced that its AI-powered Lens will soon bring up results related to what’s shown on your smartphone screen.
Search enhanced with Google Lens
Multisearch function also gets an AI push and will allow users to run text searches in combination with an image that shows up on the results page.