What is Bard? The Future of Google Search AI Explained
Google has announced a new AI chatbot called Bard that it plans to integrate into Google Search.
The tool, which happens to rival the fast-growing ChatGPT app, will be available for testers in the coming weeks and will be "an outlet for creativity and a launchpad for curiosity" according to a blog post by Google today.
Bard will introduce next-generation capabilities for users to interact and converse with artificial intelligence, and is based on Google's Language Model for Dialog Applications (LaMDA).
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“We've been working on an experimental conversational AI service, powered by LaMDA, which we call Bard. And today, we're taking another step forward by opening it up to trusted testers before making it more widely available to the public in the coming weeks,” Google says in the blog post.
“Bard seeks to combine the breadth of global knowledge with the power, intelligence and creativity of our great linguistic models. It draws on information from the web to deliver fresh, high-quality answers.
What can Bard do?
Google uses Bard's example of asking deeply contextualized questions to provide more personalized answers. A user could, for example, ask Bard to provide new discoveries from the James Webb Telescope that they could teach a nine-year-old child.
Users could also benefit from knowledge that is not necessarily fact-based, where AI can gather information from the web and provide insights. For example, it is possible to ask "is the piano or the guitar easier to learn and how much practice does each need?"
As you can see below, Bard could provide a paragraph offering answers to both of these questions, along with helpful links to source material.
The tool can be used to plan baby showers, compare Oscar-nominated movies, or plan lunch based on what's in the fridge, in other examples used by Google today.
The new research battlefield
The move comes as the Microsoft-backed ChatGPT alternative, which recently became the fastest-growing mobile app in history, explodes in popularity. Microsoft has just announced an event that will see the tool integrated into a revamped Bing search engine.
It is believed that Google is advancing its plans in this area due to the rapid rise of ChatGPT. Google's future as the world's leading news source may hinge on its success in this new battleground.
