Google has finally decided to respond to the challenge posed by Microsoft-backed OpenAI and its AI chatbot, ChatGPT. The search engine giant has revealed that Bard, a new AI chatbot built on LaMDA, the company’s Language Model for Dialogue Application, will shortly begin public testing.
In a blog post, Google CEO Sundar Pichai also spoke about how AI-based features would be coming to Google Search as well.
“We’ve been working on an experimental conversational AI service, powered by LaMDA, that we’re calling Bard. And today, we’re taking another step forward by opening it up to trusted testers ahead of making it more widely available to the public in the coming weeks,” he wrote in the blog post.
He said that Bard seeks to combine the breadth of the world’s knowledge with the power, intelligence, and creativity of our large language models to draw on information from the web to provide fresh, high-quality responses.
“Bard can be an outlet for creativity, and a launchpad for curiosity, helping you to explain new discoveries from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to a 9-year-old, or learn more about the best strikers in football right now, and then get drills to build your skills,” Pichai added.
If you are wondering how to sign up for it now, keep in mind that it’s not yet publicly available. Given Google has taken such a slow and cautious approach with LaMDA – it has been in testing for nearly two years – the Bard rollout is actually quite fast in comparison.
“Whether it’s applying AI to radically transform our own products or making these powerful tools available to others, we’ll continue to be bold with innovation and responsible in our approach. And it’s just the beginning — more to come in all of these areas in the weeks and months ahead,” he added.
