Google announces ‘Bard’, its own rival to ChatGPT that will stay private for now

Google has announced ‘Bard’, a new experimental artificial intelligence system.

The tool looks aimed at competing ChatGPT, the AI chat system that has gone viral in recent weeks. Google has faced sustained questions over why it has been beaten to releasing such tools – and has claimed that it has not done so in part because of the potential dangers they pose.

Now, however, it has revealed what it calls an “an experimental conversational AI service”. But it is not yet releasing it, and will keep the system private for now.

It said that it had been “working on” the system and its underpinnings for two years. Today it said it was “taking another step forward by opening it up to trusted testers ahead of making it more widely available to the public in the coming weeks”.

The company did not mention OpenAI’s ChatGPT, or how its own system might compare with that widely-used and largely admired system. Instead, it focused on what it said the new tool will be able to do.

“Bard seeks to combine the breadth of the world’s knowledge with the power, intelligence and creativity of our large language models. It draws on information from the web to provide fresh, high-quality responses,” it said.

Bard is just one of a number of tools that Google has been working on, according to chief executive Sundar Pichai. He revealed the new development as part of a blog post, apparently aimed at responding to critics who have argued that the company is lagging behind on artificial intelligence, which revealed a range of steps the company was taking in what it called its “AI journey”.

He also looked to suggest that Google’s work had helped build many of those viral AI tools, even if they had not been released by the company. He said that Google research and engineering “are now the basis of many of the generative AI applications you’re starting to see today”.

Mr Pichai pointed to a range of AI features that will be coming to Google’s search tools. First among them is a new system that will allow search to better understand complex questions, and provide detailed information and multiple perspectives.

People have been asking Google specific, factual questions for some time, such as how many keys a piano has. But the new system will allow it to answer more general questions, such as “is the piano or guitar easier to learn, and how much practice does each need?”, Mr Pichai said.

But he also stressed that the company will aim to be “responsible” in how it rolls out those new tools. Google and other companies have repeatedly suggested that their artificial intelligence work is not yet public in part because it wants to avoid the risks that could come with rolling it out too soon.

“It’s critical that we bring experiences rooted in these models to the world in a bold and responsible way,” the chief executive wrote in the post. “That’s why we’re committed to developing AI responsibly: In 2018, Google was one of the first companies to publish a set of AI Principles. We continue to provide education and resources for our researchers, partner with governments and external organizations to develop standards and best practices, and work with communities and experts to make AI safe and useful.

“Whether it’s applying AI to radically transform our own products or making these powerful tools available to others, we’ll continue to be bold with innovation and responsible in our approach. And it’s just the beginning — more to come in all of these areas in the weeks and months ahead.”