Bard has shaken off that disastrous live demo.
A little more than a month after Google's generative artificial intelligence bot made a factual error in its debut demonstration, wiping $100 billion off parent company Alphabet's market value in a single day, Bard is now available to some users in the US and the UK.
How does the chatbot work?
Bard is Google's competitor to Microsoft's Bing Chat and OpenAI's ChatGPT.
The bot is built on the neural network LaMDA, which stands for language model for dialogue applications and is based on 1.56 trillion words from public forums and other websites.
LaMDA is an AI system Google started developing in 2015, around the time Alphabet and Google chief executive Sundar Pichai declared a strategy shift to becoming an “AI-first” company.
It can offer conversational responses to complex or open-ended questions.
For example, users can ask Bard to give them tips for how to prepare for a job interview, explain complex scientific concepts in simple terms, draft an invitation for a party or write an outline for a school paper.
“We really see it as this creative collaborator,” says Jack Krawczyk, a senior product director at Google, as reported by MIT Technology Review.
How do I gain access to Bard?
Bard is initially available to some customers in the US and the UK. Users can join the waiting list here.
Google said it would be expanding Bard “over time to more countries and languages” but did not specify a timetable, and framed the launch of Bard as “an experiment”.
How is Bard different from ChatGPT?
User beware.
Google offers many disclaimers with Bard, including that it may make mistakes or “give inaccurate or inappropriate responses”.
OpenAI had a similar warning for ChatGPT, saying it was “still is not fully reliable” and prone to stating incorrect facts, making reasoning errors and displaying bias.
Bard's system is very limited in citing its sources, so there is no way of knowing where it is getting its answers from.
ChatGPT and Bing Chat perform a bit better on this, offering limited information on how they generate answers.
Bard gives real-time answers to queries. ChatGPT and Bing rely on data that stops in 2021.
In an internal email seen by CNBC, Mr Pichai told employees that the success of Bard depended on wide-scale public testing.
“As more people start to use Bard and test its capabilities, they’ll surprise us. Things will go wrong,” Mr Pichai wrote.
“But the user feedback is critical to improving the product and the underlying technology.”
How much will it cost?
For now, Bard is free.
Google has a long track record of offering its apps at zero cost to users because the company primarily makes its money from selling advertising.
In a world with generative AI, where web users can get answers immediately from conversational bots, the future of the search engine — and advertising revenue — is up in the air.
For now, Google is positioning Bard as a “complement” to search, Platformer reported.
The service is connected to Google Search, and there is a “Google it” button underneath every response from Bard.
By contrast, ChatGPT sells subscriptions to its service at $20 a month.
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The flights
Emirates flies from Dubai to Phnom Penh via Yangon from Dh2,700 return including taxes. Cambodia Bayon Airlines and Cambodia Angkor Air offer return flights from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap from Dh250 return including taxes. The flight takes about 45 minutes.
The hotels
Rooms at the Raffles Le Royal in Phnom Penh cost from $225 (Dh826) per night including taxes. Rooms at the Grand Hotel d'Angkor cost from $261 (Dh960) per night including taxes.
The tours
A cyclo architecture tour of Phnom Penh costs from $20 (Dh75) per person for about three hours, with Khmer Architecture Tours. Tailor-made tours of all of Cambodia, or sites like Angkor alone, can be arranged by About Asia Travel. Emirates Holidays also offers packages.
Profile of Bitex UAE
Date of launch: November 2018
Founder: Monark Modi
Based: Business Bay, Dubai
Sector: Financial services
Size: Eight employees
Investors: Self-funded to date with $1m of personal savings
The specs
Engine: 5.0-litre V8
Power: 480hp at 7,250rpm
Torque: 566Nm at 4,600rpm
Transmission: 10-speed auto
Fuel consumption: L/100km
Price: Dh306,495
On sale: now
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Akeed
Based: Muscat
Launch year: 2018
Number of employees: 40
Sector: Online food delivery
Funding: Raised $3.2m since inception
Tearful appearance
Chancellor Rachel Reeves set markets on edge as she appeared visibly distraught in parliament on Wednesday.
Legislative setbacks for the government have blown a new hole in the budgetary calculations at a time when the deficit is stubbornly large and the economy is struggling to grow.
She appeared with Keir Starmer on Thursday and the pair embraced, but he had failed to give her his backing as she cried a day earlier.
A spokesman said her upset demeanour was due to a personal matter.
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Toss: India, chose to bat
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Agarwal 76, Pujara 68 not out; Cummins 2-40
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- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
The bio
Job: Coder, website designer and chief executive, Trinet solutions
School: Year 8 pupil at Elite English School in Abu Hail, Deira
Role Models: Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk
Dream City: San Francisco
Hometown: Dubai
City of birth: Thiruvilla, Kerala
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Sand storm
- Particle size: Larger, heavier sand grains
- Visibility: Often dramatic with thick "walls" of sand
- Duration: Short-lived, typically localised
- Travel distance: Limited
- Source: Open desert areas with strong winds
Dust storm
- Particle size: Much finer, lightweight particles
- Visibility: Hazy skies but less intense
- Duration: Can linger for days
- Travel distance: Long-range, up to thousands of kilometres
- Source: Can be carried from distant regions
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- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
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