Google is launching a new AI-powered conversation service called Bard, which will be able to explain complex topics in simple terms and provide mundane tasks like suggesting lunch ideas or tips for planning a party. It is unclear if Bard will be able to write prose like William Shakespeare 🙂 .
The announcement comes shortly after Microsoft invested billions in OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT and other AI tools.
Microsoft’s investment in OpenAI of $1 billion has increased the pressure on Google to show that it can compete in an area of technology that could be just as transformative as PCs, the internet, and smartphones have been in the past four decades.
Google is working on artificial intelligence technology to respond to the success of ChatGPT, which has been attracting millions of users and raising concerns in schools. Google’s technology, named “Language Model for Dialogue Applications” or LaMDA, will be used to power its Bard service, which is part of its “code red” effort. CEO Sundar Pichai has been emphasizing the importance of AI for the past six years.
Google is investing in and partnering with Anthropic, an AI startup, and plans to incorporate AI tools like LaMDA into its search engine. The AI tools will be deployed soon and the startup‘s chatbot, Claude, is focused on AI safety.
Google has a program focused on responsible AI and ML technology and was rocked by the departure of AI researcher Timnit Gebru in 2020. Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin were drawn back into active work due to an emergency caused by the ChatGPT AI system.
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