Bard is unveiled, Alphabet shares receive a boost

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Bard – The race for AI has taken another turn as Google’s efforts have finally paid off, and now the company is eager to launch its chatbot service.

The initial backlash the company faced a couple of weeks earlier seems to have been drowned out with the company’s latest foray into the AI space.

Soon, chatbot enthusiasts can utilize Google’s latest innovation: Bard.

The news

Google recently announced opening access to its AI chatbot tool Bard, the company’s answer to rival ChatGPT.

Since Tuesday, users have been given access to a waitlist, allowing them to experiment with Bard.

Bard has similar tools that can allow users to try the following and more:

• Outline and create essay drafts
• Write out a plan for a baby shower
• Create lunch ideas with the content of a refrigerator

According to Google, it will start rolling out Bard to the United States and the United Kingdom, with plans to expand the tool to more countries and languages in the future.

AI extravaganza

The news comes after several major tech companies, like Google, Microsoft, and Facebook, among countless others, stepped up their efforts in the race to develop and deploy AI-powered tools.

The increased focus on AI sprang up after the viral success of OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

Last week, Google announced it would integrate AI into its productivity tools, such as Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Sheets.

After their news, Microsoft announced a similar upgrade to its productivity tools.

In February, Google unveiled Bard through a demo that sparked criticism after it provided an inaccurate response to some questions.

As a result, Alphabet, Google’s parent company, experienced a 7.7% share drop, wiping out $100 billion from its market value.

Read also: Baidu stocks improve after ERNIE Bot demo

ChatGPT impact

Bard follows ChatGPT’s model, wherein it is built on a massive language model.

ChatGPT, a product developed by AI research firm OpenAI, was released to the public in late November.

The models are trained on massive amounts of data online to help the AI create unique responses to the user’s creative prompts.

It was ChatGPT’s success and the spotlight given to it that led to Google management calling a “code red” situation for its search business.

However, Bard’s mistakes during the demo emphasized the challenge Google and other companies had with integrating AI technology into their core products.

Large language models are helpful, but they can also present several issues, including:

• Biases
• Incorrect facts
• Responding aggressively

On Tuesday, Google released a blog post saying its AI tools are stall prone to mistakes.

The company reassured people that it still uses human feedback to improve its system and add guardrails, such as capping the number of exchanges in a dialogue to keep the interactions helpful and stay on topic.

Last week, GPT-4 was launched as the next-generation version of the tech and to power Microsoft’s Bing browser with similar safeguards.

After its first day, GPT-4 surprised users with its early test and company demo.

Public sway

Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google and Alphabet, told employees that Bard’s success would largely rely on public testing in an email.

“As more people start to use Bard and test its capabilities, they’ll surprise us. Things will go wrong,” Pichai wrote.

“But the user feedback is critical to improving the product and the underlying technology.”

The message came as Google launched Bard.

Following the announcement, Alphabet shares were up nearly 4% in mid-day trading.

Pichai’s email also revealed that over 80,000 Google employees helped update Bard’s development following his all-hands-on-deck call to action in February.

The Tuesday note also said the company is working on testing responsibly, having invited 10,000 testers from different backgrounds and perspectives.

Pichai also told employees they should be proud of their work and the years of tech breakthroughs that led them to where they are.

“Even after all this progress, we’re still in the early stages of a long AI journey,” he said.

“For now, I’m excited to see how Bard sparks more creativity and curiosity in the people who use it.”