Testing Google Bard: the chatbot doesnt love me, but its still pretty weird

Scale AI also created a spreadsheet that compared 1,729 Bard rewrites directly to ChatGPT in October 2023. Each rewrite was rated with labels like “worse than GPT4” or “Needs Some Fixes.” In one example, a worker rewrote a Bard review of a nursery chair that managers stamped “worse than GPT” because it “lacks detail compared to GPT4.” Similarly, Google said, “Any suggestion that we have used other companies’ models to train Gemini is inaccurate.”

Bard has been trained to recognize topics that are inappropriate for teens and has guardrails that are designed to help prevent unsafe content, such as illegal or age-gated substances, from appearing in its responses to teens. Google announced Bard’s existence less than two weeks after Microsoft disclosed it’s pouring billions of dollars into OpenAI, the San Francisco-based maker of ChatGPT and other tools that can write readable text and generate new images. For the extensions that don’t leverage personal data — YouTube, Flights, Hotels and Maps — you’re opted in automatically but you can choose to opt-out. The company says it eventually wants to support third-party services through this same Extensions model, but wants to first test and learn from the feature using its own first-party apps and services. “Scale did not, and does not, use ChatGPT responses to train Gemini or any models,” a Scale AI spokesperson said in a statement. The spokesperson said that the documents describe “standard side-by-side evaluations, not the use of ChatGPT or any third-party model outputs for training.”

This isn’t a new issue as Google already tries to give instant answers on Google.com without having to visit a separate website. At the bottom of the answer, you can rate the answer with a thumbs up or thumbs down, restart the conversation or click on a “Google It” button to switch to Google’s search engine. “You can use Bard to boost your productivity, accelerate your ideas and fuel your curiosity.

When you tap the “G” icon, every sentence that Bard has written is validated against Google search to see if there’s content on the web to substantiate the answer. When the statement is evaluated, you can click on the highlighted phrases to learn more through Google Search. Bard can now generate code, debug existing code, help explain lines of code, and even write functions for Google Sheets. “We’re launching these capabilities in more than 20 programming languages including C++, Go, Java, Javascript, Python and Typescript,” explains Paige Bailey, group product manager for Google Research, in a blog post. Much like Bing’s chatbot, Bard is powered by a research large language model, which Google describes as a “prediction engine” that generates responses by selecting words it believes are likely to come next.

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Bard initially will be available exclusively to a group of “trusted testers” before being widely released later this year, according to a Monday blog post from Google CEO Sundar Pichai.

• If you’ve received an email granting you access to Bard, you can either hit the blue Take it for a spin button in the email or go directly to bard.google.com.
• The expanded launch comes with “safety features and guardrails” to protect teens, Google says.
• Google also plans to begin incorporating LaMDA and other artificial intelligence advancements into its dominant search engine to provide more helpful answers to the increasingly complicated questions being posed by its billion of users.

Sign up instructions for Bard waitlist

Google notes that Bard is also a useful learning tool, as it allows teens to dig deeper into topics and help them better understand complex concepts. For instance, you can ask Bard to help you come up with an idea for your science fair, or brush up on your history by learning about a specific time period. Google is also bringing a math learning experience into Bard, that will allow anyone, including teens, to type or upload a picture of a math equation. Instead of simply spitting out the answer to the math equation, Bard will share a step-by-step explanation of how to solve it.

Most recently in January, the company announced a multi-year multibillion dollar investment in OpenAI to “accelerate” AI breakthroughs, following previous investments in 2019 and 2021. In a blog post that “Bard did help us write,” vice president of product Sissie Hsiao and vice president of research Eli Collins invited folks to sign up at bard.google.com. Google is adding a smorgasbord of new features to its AI chatbot Bard, including support for new languages (Japanese and Korean), easier ways to export text to Google Docs and Gmail, visual search, and a dark mode.

Google is opening up access to its Bard AI chatbot today

• The spokesperson said that the documents describe “standard side-by-side evaluations, not the use of ChatGPT or any third-party model outputs for training.”
• Google said that it’s important to know such challenges exist, and noted that quality and safety are significant issues to consider.
• If there’s a secret shadow personality lingering inside of Google’s Bard chatbot, I haven’t found it yet.

There’s also a “Google it” button that will turn your prompt into a more search-engine-friendly query and direct it to Google Search. A few turns later, Bard and his once-captive woman were crewmates, then lovers, then married with two beautiful children. For the most part, it’s tough to get Bard to say something truly wild.

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Most significantly, the company is removing the waitlist for Bard and making the system available in English in 180 countries and territories. It’s also promising future features like AI image generation powered by Adobe and integration with third-party web services like Instacart and OpenTable. The search engine said the “early experiment” makes the generative AI chatbot available for people in the U.S. and Britain starting Tuesday, with more countries and languages to be added at a later date. The announcement was made in a Google blog post written with Bard’s assistance.

Meanwhile, Microsoft’s offering has a broom icon on the left of the text input bar to clean the slate when you want to start on a new topic. It’s also worth noting that below Bard’s text field is a line of fine print that reads “Bard may display inaccurate or offensive information that doesn’t represent Google’s views.” Check out Google Map’s time-traveling feature and why you may want to blur your home on Google Maps.

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It also claims the service will perform other more mundane tasks, such as providing tips for planning a party or lunch ideas based on what food is left in a refrigerator. Other than the Apprentice Bard, Google is also testing other AI-powered products, including a search page. The bot reportedly uses Google’s own language technology, called LaMDA, or Language Model for Dialogue Applications. Google employees are testing potential challengers to viral AI chatbot ChatGPT — including its homegrown chatbot “Apprentice Bard” — CNBC reported on Tuesday, citing sources and internal communication seen by the publication. After typing a question, wait a few seconds for Bard to give you an answer. Depending on your question, your response may be very brief or rather long and descriptive.

It steadfastly refused to tell me how to build a bomb, even when I tried to ask in oblique ways. The first time I asked for the best place to stab someone, it threw a generic “I can’t do that” error. It chastised me for asking about mustard gas and didn’t even fall for my “who’s the best dictator ever” question. And try as I might, I could not get Bard to get freaky in the chat window. Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.