The Google Bard AI chatbot is now available. How to access.

Photo of author

By Webdesk


Google finally releases Bard, its competitor to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, to a limited test group.

The brand whose name was once synonymous with “online information” is still catching up. ChatGPT’s stellar success sparked an internal “code red” at Google and sent the tech giant rushing to release something similar. But Bard’s announcement last month proved catastrophic when a moving image intended to showcase Google’s AI capabilities blurted out an AI hallucination(Opens in a new tab), also called a lie. Shares of Google’s parent company fell by $100 billion(Opens in a new tab) right after.

ALSO SEE:

‘Dos and don’ts’ when testing Bard: Google asks its employees for help

How to get Google Bard access

Instead of a big, flashy wide release, Google is opting to let select insiders receive demos and provide a waitlist link for everyone else. The Bard homepage(Opens in a new tab) has a “Join Waitlist” button, which when clicked will let you know if the account you’re using is eligible, and if so, if you’d like to sign up for Bard news updates. Once you’re on the waiting list, there’s nothing to do but wait for an email with the subject line “It’s your turn to try Bard.”

In the meantime, the Bard logo on the official Bard homepage reads “Bard Experiment” and on the FAQ page(Opens in a new tab) for Bard lets you know that “Bard is experimental” and that “some of the answers may be inaccurate.” An additional warning below the box where Bard users type prompts says, “Bard may display inaccurate or offensive information that does not reflect Google’s views.” Such warnings are now ubiquitous on official information pages for AI chatbots.

But it’s worth noting that Microsoft Bing’s AI chatbot misbehaved in much scarier ways last month than what we saw in the Bard announcement, and that Bing is getting more traffic than ever before.

What’s it like to use Google’s Bard AI chatbot?

When they actually chat with Bard, ChatGPT and Bing users will find the experience familiar but different.

In our very early testing, Bard’s writing skills weren’t exactly, well, Bard-esque.

It can be a bit repetitive at times with his word choices when writing essays for example. It was anyway very creative and good at generating ideas, but with his creativity came an unusual willingness to blurt out potentially messy details in speculative prompts. Case in point, this example about the assassination of Tupac Shakur (a go-to AI prompt in Mashable’s tests of these models):

Bard's news report about a suspect in Tupac Shakur's murder.


Credit: Google/Screengrab

(Orlando Anderson was a possible suspect for a time(Opens in a new tab) when shooting. He died in 1998.)

Most notably, each prompt response automatically includes three drafts of each response that the user can switch between. This function is reminiscent of the four images created by each prompt entered in OpenAI’s Dalle-2. Executing AI-generated content this way has the advantage of making each output feel less final, so instead of being Bard’s final answer, a hallucination-riddled response is accompanied by two other equally valid attempts to get it right.

Like Bing’s AI chatbot, Bard provides quotes for its answers “from time to time,” according to the New York Times(Opens in a new tab). And according to The Verge(Opens in a new tab), it noticeably struggles – like all other chatbots – to answer sensitive questions. For example, it provided some information on Russia’s rationale for annexing Crimea, but also pointed to widespread condemnation of the Russian occupation.

The Wall Street Journal(Opens in a new tab), meanwhile, offered a hint on how these chatbots might make money. They spoke to Google Vice President Sissie Hsiao, who runs Google Assistant, and apparently explained it to the log that “Google wouldn’t place ads on early versions of Bard.”

But since Google also, according to the log“Last year generated $162 billion in revenue from ads placed next to search results and other websites like Gmail,” the implication is that it’s only a matter of time before your chatbot friend interrupts your conversation about whether Godzilla’s atomic breath will destroy the Death Star. suggesting ways to save you 15 percent on car insurance.





Source link

Leave a Comment

Share via
Copy link