Artificial intelligence continues to dominate headlines with the release of Google’s Bard, a new conversational AI programme and so-called rival of OpenAI’s AI chatbot, ChatGPT. Last month, ChatGPT spurred a flurry of debate around the future of AI and its impacts on society and various employment sectors.
Bard has caused a small splash upon its release by Google CEO Sundar Pichai via a blog on February 6, 2023. Pichai highlighted Google’s various AI products and investments and emphasized a focus on responsible AI developments. In particular, he shared Bard’s ability to provide more nuanced responses to complex search engine questions, when there is “no one right answer.”
Pichai wrote, “People often want to explore a diverse range of opinions or perspectives…Soon, you’ll see AI-powered features in Search that distill complex information and multiple perspectives into easy-to-digest formats.” While he uses a simple example to illustrate these AI capabilities, one wonders what this may lead to in case of more complex political or social questions. Bard will be available for limited testing before a more public roll-out takes place at an undisclosed time.
The Race to Dominate the AI Market
This is a period of increased AI product releases and developments, and while Google previously led the ‘AI race,’ Microsoft is appearing as a strong rival. Some have suggested that the timing of Bard’s release is a response to ChatGPT’s popularity, which has pressured Google to increase its AI research and development.
This might explain a major error in Bard’s release which observers noted in its promotional materials. In an ad, the chatbot gave a wrong answer to a question about the James Webb Space Telescope, wiping out $100 billion of the market value of Alphabet, Google’s parent company. This eventually led to a lacklustre release event that was then further overshadowed by Microsoft's launch of its new Bing search engine integrated with ChatGPT.
The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence
The Ai race is also prompting people to ponder upon ethical dilemmas. AI chatbots may make errors as has already been witnessed with ChatGPT and Bard. These bots can also be broken through “jailbreaking,” a process that can be done by asking the AI chatbot to roleplay an evil entity or other similarly mischievous or confusing prompts. These issues and other potential problems require regulation and other cautionary measures.
Microsoft-supported ChatGPT may be beating out Google’s Bard, but it should be remembered that ChatGPT has also been observed to make many mistakes. The rivalry to dominate the AI field will surely continue.
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