Google rolls out ChatGPT rival, Bard, across the UK

Google began the public release of its chatbot, Bard, on Tuesday, seeking users and feedback as it joins the artificial intelligence race.

Users in the US and UK can now join a waiting list for English-language access to Bard, a program previously open to approved testers only.

Google is still calling Bard an ‘early experiment’ in allowing users to collaborate with generative AI.

The release last year of ChatGPT, a chatbot from the Microsoft-backed startup OpenAI, has caused a sprint in the technology sector to put AI into more users’ hands.

Just last week, Google and Microsoft made a flurry of announcements on AI, two days apart. The companies are putting draft-writing technology into their word processors and other collaboration software, as well as marketing-related tools for web developers to build their own AI-based applications.

We’re expanding access to Bard in US + UK with more countries ahead, it’s an early experiment that lets you collaborate with generative AI. Hope Bard sparks more creativity and curiosity, and will get better with feedback. Sign up: https://t.co/C1ibWrqTDr https://t.co/N8Dzx1m0fc

— Sundar Pichai (@sundarpichai) March 21, 2023

Asked whether competitive dynamics were behind Bard’s rollout, Jack Krawczyk, a senior product director, said Google was focused on users. Internal and external testers have turned to Bard for ‘boosting their productivity, accelerating their ideas, really fueling their curiosity,’ he said.

In a demonstration of the site, bard.google.com, to Reuters, Krawczyk showed how the program produces blocks of text in an instant, different from how ChatGPT types out answers word by word.

Bard also included a feature showing three different versions or ‘drafts’ of any given answer among which users could toggle, and it displayed a button stating ‘Google it’ should a user desire web results for a query.

Unlike ChatGPT, Bard is not proficient in generating computer code, Google said on its website.

Google also said it has limited Bard’s memory of past exchanges in a chat and that at present it was not using Bard for advertising, core to Google’s business model.

‘Bard will not always get it right,’ a Google pop-up notice warned during the demo. Last month, a promotional video showed the program answering a question incorrectly, costing the company £100,000,000,000.

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