Google is launching its own artificial intelligence bot called Bard

After launching ChatGPT, Google launches its own artificial intelligence chatbot. (Jeff Chiu/The Associated Press – photo credit)

Google is launching its own artificial intelligence bot called Bard, a direct competitor to ChatGPT.

In a blog post Monday, the California-based company says it will soon give a select number of “trusted testers” access to the artificial intelligence prototype it’s been working on in some form for the past six years.

The company plans to roll out the service “to a wider audience in the coming weeks.”

The news follows the launch of ChatGPT, the world’s first mainstream artificial intelligence tool, which received a ton of praise and criticism in its first few weeks of existence.

Similar to ChatGPT, Bard gives users nuanced answers to complex or open-ended queries. ChatGPT was developed by a company called Open AI, which received a $1 billion investment from Microsoft in 2019.

Since launching in November, ChatGPT has already processed more than 100 million requests and provided users with human-like answers to basic questions by scouring the web and other databases for relevant information based on what was uploaded to its internal system.

The technology behind Google’s chatbot is known as LaMDA, a conversation and language simulator that’s reportedly so advanced that a former engineer at the company made headlines last year by calling it “sentient.”

Google says even users who don’t use the chatbot directly can soon expect it to affect the company’s core search tool.

In a blog post, CEO Sundar Pichai said the difference between a Google search today and an artificial intelligence search is like asking a user “how many keys are on a piano” and someone asking “is that the piano or the easy to learn guitar and how much practice does each one need?”

“AI can be helpful in those moments by synthesizing insights for questions that don’t have a right answer,” Pichai said.

“Soon you’ll see AI-powered features in search that distill complex information and multiple perspectives into easy-to-understand formats so you can quickly see the big picture and learn more from the web.”

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