Google responds to Microsoft and presents Bard, its Artificial Intelligence chatbot

Google presented this Wednesday a series of functions enhanced by artificial intelligence and announced that it has launched tests to integrate them into its search engine, in full battle with its rival Microsoft in this ambit.

At an event in Paris attended by dozens of European journalists, the search giant showcased augmented reality features, new 3D renderings generated from its street images, and new ways to find information in photos.

It also introduced a new app to search for works of art.

Three of its managers were present, a way of giving an international and multilingual dimension to their projects based on the artificial intelligence (IA).

Microsoft announced that its ChatGPT conversational AI would be integrated into its Bing search engine. But Google gave no details about how its own Bard conversational AI, announced Monday, would be integrated into its engine.

“We still need massive tests”, acknowledged Prabhakar Raghavan, vice president responsible for the search engine and considered that the integration of AI would constitute “a new era of searches”, the same words of the head of Microsoft, Satya Nadella.

But he did not want to specify a deadline for the consumer version, repeating that it would be “in a few weeks.”

Google also did not specify whether its AI responses would indicate sources, and acknowledged that current technology did not guarantee 100 percent accurate responses. The group says it hasn’t caved in to pressure from Microsoft and the worldwide success of ChatGPT to speed up its ads.

“We have been working on AI for years,” explain its managers. “No event in particular” has pushed us to make their announcements now,” they said.

Google’s AI chatbot Bard gives inaccurate information in presentation

Google posted an ad online in which its long-awaited Artificial Intelligence chatbot Bard gives an inaccurate answer.

The tech giant posted a short GIF video of Bard in action via Twitter, describing the chatbot as a “launching pad for curiosity” that would help simplify complex issues.

In the ad, Bard is asked, “What new discoveries from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) can I tell my nine-year-old son?”

Bard offers several answers, including one suggesting that the JWST was used to take the first images of a planet outside of Earth’s solar system, or exoplanets, an inaccurate claim.

The first images of exoplanets were taken by the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in 2004, NASA confirmed.

The bug was discovered hours before Google hosted a Bard launch event in Paris, at which executive Prabhakar Raghavan promised users would use the technology to interact with information in “totally new ways.”

On Wednesday, Raghavan introduced Bard as the future of the company, telling attendees that by using generative AI, “the only limit to your search will be your imagination.”

erp