ChatGPT forces Google to speed up. The subsidiary of the Alphabet group launched Tuesday in public access its conversational robot Bard, with the objective of improving the quality of its answers through the increase in exchanges with users.

In early February, Google had announced in disaster the creation of Bard, overwhelmed by the arrival in November of ChatGPT, developed by the start-up OpenAI in collaboration with Microsoft. The use of Bard was initially limited to "trusted testers," before Tuesday's opening to the general public. However, the number of connections has been limited and a waiting list has been established to manage the request. Access is currently only possible from the United States and the United Kingdom.

Internal criticism of Bard's hasty launch

"As people start using Bard and testing its capabilities, they're going to surprise us," Google boss Sundar Pichai said in a message to staff. "Things are going to go wrong. But user feedback is key to improving the product and the underlying technology," he added. The leader of the Californian group had been criticized internally on the hasty launch of Bard to catch up with Microsoft.

The interface consists of a website, separate from Google's search engine, with a space in which the user can type a question. When asked what sets it apart from ChatGPT, Bard said that unlike its rival it is "able to access real-world information through Google's search engine." The chatbot also pointed out that it was "still in development while ChatGPT is already available to the general public. This means that I am constantly learning and improving while ChatGPT will definitely remain unchanged."

"Safeguards" on responses

Bard relies on LaMDA, a language model designed by Google to generate chatbots, the first version of which was unveiled by the Mountain View group in California in 2021. In a message published on a website of the group, the vice-presidents of Google Sissie Hsiao and Eli Collins acknowledge that LLMs - programs capable of generating answers to questions formulated in everyday language - "are not without defects", and can "propose, in a certain way, inaccurate, misleading or false information".

Google also says it has put in place "safeguards" to contain the possibility of inaccurate or inappropriate responses, including limiting the length of exchanges in a dialogue between Bard and a user. Since ChatGPT went online, several Internet users have indeed sought to push the chatbot to its limits and generated absurd, even worrying responses.

  • Tech
  • Artificial Intelligence (AI)
  • Video
  • Google
  • ChatGPT
  • USA