Google has begun a gradual public rollout of its generative AI “collaborator” Bard, the company’s ChapGPT rival. There was the Arms Race, then we had the Space Race, and now we’re in a race for artificial intelligence development, with notable big tech-industry companies playing their hands, trying to get ahead of the latest tech trend.
Regular folks in the US and UK can now join the waiting list to try out Google’s platform after the company recently opened up the program to more people. Bard was first announced a day earlier than scheduled, on 7 February, so Google could beat Microsoft’s AI-related announcement later that day.
Bard goes live, we hope it’s been practising
Bard will use Google’s own ‘Language Model for Dialogue Applications’ (LaMDA) to power its AI platform. Although, the model hasn’t exactly had an easy go of it so far. First, a Google employee believed the AI to be sentient.
Then, during what was supposed to be a promotional video showcasing its talents, the platform provided incorrect information to a straightforward prompt, losing Google’s parent company Alphabet $100 billion dollars in market value in the process.
Read more: What Google’s generative AI assistance will look like in Workspace (when it eventually launches)
We’re sure that’s a big part of the reason why Google has opted for a small, gradual rollout. “Bard is an experiment and may give inaccurate or inappropriate responses” the landing page points out. It also asks early signups to provide feedback to “help make Bard better”.
Unfortunately, there’s no timeline yet for when Bard will be available to the rest of the world or South Africa specifically. With Microsoft opening up its new ChatGPT-powered Bing to the wider public recently, Google probably won’t take too long. We hope.
Source: Reuters