San Francisco: Google on Tuesday invited people in the United States and the United Kingdom to test its AI chatbot, known as Bard, as it prepares to take on Microsoft-backed ChatGPT.
Bard, ChatGPT and other similar apps generate articles, poems or computing code on command, although they come with warnings that the information they generate may be inaccurate or inappropriate.
Those interested in playing with Bard can sign up to a waiting list at the bard.google.com website, which is completely separate from the tech giant’s search engine.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai said in a tweet that the initiative is an “early experiment” that allows people to collaborate with artificial intelligence (AI).
“We’ve learned a lot from testing Bard so far, and the next big step to improving it is getting feedback from as many people as possible,” Google vice presidents Ceci Siau and Eli Collins said in a blog post.
“We continue to see that the more people use them, the better LLMs (large language models) can predict which responses might be helpful.”
As exciting as chatbots are, they have their drawbacks, Hsiao and Collins warn.
According to vice presidents, they may include real-world biases, stereotypes, or inaccuracies in the answers.
Google has adopted a more cautious rollout of Generative AI, unlike Microsoft, which has opted to quickly make products available to users despite reports of problems.
ChatGPT’s OpenAI is backed by Microsoft, which earlier this year said it would provide billions of dollars in funding to the research company.
OpenAI recently released a long-awaited update to its AI technology that it says will be safer and more accurate than its predecessor.
Much of the new model’s power is now available to the general public on ChatGPT Plus, OpenAI’s paid subscription plan and the AI-powered version of Microsoft’s Bing search engine.
