Google is publicly releasing its ChatGPT competitor to consumers in the U.S. and U.K. The company introduced the first waitlist for Bard, its conversational AI service and chatbot that was previously only open to testers.
- Bard, a direct interface to a language model developed by Google, can hold conversations and answer questions.
- Google described Bard as an "early experiment" that allows users to collaborate and try out the generative AI technology.
- As
of today, it's opening up access to the English language model to
people who sign up in the U.S. and U.K., with plans to expand to other
countries and languages over time.
- The feedback during the
early phases is "critical" to helping improve Bard, which can still
dispense "inaccurate or offensive information that doesn’t represent
Google’s views," the company said.
- Bard
runs on an optimized and lighter-weight version of Google's AI model
called LaMDA, short for “Language Model for Dialogue Applications."
- Its chief competitor, Bing AI, is powered by OpenAI's latest GPT-4 model. Microsoft's AI-powered Bing chatbot was launched to the public in February.
