Bard vs ChatGPT: What’s The Difference

With two tech giants, Microsoft and Google, penetrating the artificial intelligence domain, this emerging technology has a future brighter than a star.   

Hot on the heels of Microsoft’s backed ChatGPT and its latest announcement to invest $10bn in its parent company OpenAI, Google entered the AI space with Bard, its own conversational AI bot. Google believed that the rising popularity of ChatGPT and its potential to disrupt Google’s monopoly in the segment was a threat the former could not ignore.

Now, with the introduction of a new chatbot in the market it would be interesting to see who takes the lead, with both the tech behemoths attempting to leapfrog each other with new tactics. The ChatGPT vs Brad thus would be a chatbot war that print and digital media would be brimming within the coming months.   

This blog attempts to give a better understanding of Bard and ChatGPT. Additionally, it throws light on the current dynamics. It also aims to predict what the future holds for these two rival chatbots based on the developments so far.   

ChatGPT And Microsoft’s Association With It 

San Francisco-based AI research company OpenAI, backed by Microsoft, developed ChatGPT, an AI chatbot. The latter made investments in the startup earlier in 2019 and 2021.   

Entered the market in November 2022, ChatGPT gained popularity at a lightning-fast speed. In fact, this AI-powered bot hit its 100 million user base in just the first two months of release.   

Along with being able to converse on a plethora of topics, this emerging technology is capable of much more. It can generate lyrics in different styles of various international artists and recommend edits to computer programming code as well.  

OpenAI’s GPT-3.5, used to create ChatGPT, influenced Microsoft’s announcement of Teams premium in January 2023.. Additionally, the tech giant is exploring different ways to integrate ChatGPT into its productivity suite, Office. Microsoft is doing this to provide its users with more advanced language-based services.

Bard: Google’s Response To Microsoft’s ChatGPT   

Google developed Bard, a conversational bot. Google utilized a ‘lightweight version’ of its large Language Model for Dialogue Application (LaMDA). The reason behind using it was allowing a quicker rollout to the general public.

Drawing information from the web, Bard provides fresh and high-quality responses to the queries raised by its users. 

‘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’, wrote Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet (Google’s parent company) in a blog post.   

Google is also planning to integrate the underlying technology LaMDA into Google.com in the future, he added.   

The LaMDA team started with a test chatbot called ‘Apprentice Bard’ and prioritized working on a response to ChatGPT. This testing product replaced Meena, a previous smart chatbot version that was internally launched and later discontinued, paving the way for the final product, Bard.

Prabhakar Raghavan, Google’s search head, referred to the search engine as the “biggest moonshot” for the company despite its long-running presence in the industry.  

Also Read: AI Chatbot Apps Transforming Mobile Technology

Bard v/s ChatGPT: Face-Off  

Differences:  

Brad v/s ChatGPT is the most trending and engaging battle nowadays. While both technologies offer a similar set of services of providing human-like responses to user questions, requests, or prompts, there are certain foundational and functional differences between the two.   

While the LaMDA language model powers Bard, GPT3 powers ChatGPT.

Interestingly, language models make use of probability and statistics to train AI-powered chatbots. A significant difference lies in where the two chatbots source their information from.   

ChatGPT accesses information up to 2021 from the data it has been trained on. While Bard relies on information drawn from the web for all its responses.

Talking about Brad’s advantages over ChatGPT, Bard takes lead with real-time updated information as ChatGPT’s trained on data only up to 2021, without any future assurance of making room for more.   

Moreover, while Google has claimed Bard will be a lightweight model initially, “enabling us to scale more users”; ChatGPT users often complain of the service crashing.   

Talking about accessibility, the basic version of ChatGPT is available to the public, while Bard is only available for limited testers at the moment.   

Drawbacks:  

While both chatbots are changing the future of AI, they both have shortcomings and cannot entirely replace human intelligence as some reports claim.  

Jaskirat Singh Bawa, global head of fact-checking operations at Logically, says, ‘Every technology goes through a cycle of progress before becoming mainstream. One pitfall of AI-driven search is that it will be defined by the data models it was trained on, and this could potentially throw up misinformation or biased information.

ChatGPT’s data training is limited, possesses its own inherent biases, and thus, can be highly unreliable. In fact, OpenAI founder Sam Altman stated in an interview that it is a “mistake to be relying on it for anything important right now”. The information generated is not always accurate as sources aren’t fact-checked, and its reliance on human reviews and feedback hinders its accuracy, limiting the chatbot from becoming the most trusted choice among users.

On the hand, Brad gives updated responses, drawing responses from a place as vast as the web, however, this might not be optimal and the aptest solution to ChatGPT’s data limitations.  

‘If people start asking Bard for advice without understanding that it doesn’t produce consistently true statements, then they’re likely to act on a lot of confident-sounding wrong advice’, says Max Kreminski, an AI researcher at Santa Clara University. This could turn extremely lethal, especially for people seeking medical or legal guidance.   

As a result, the Internet cannot be entirely trusted due to its lack of censorship and struggles with biased opinions and misinformation.

Responsible usage of both technologies is crucial as their consequences have far-reaching impacts.

Bard v/s ChatGPT: The Current Dynamics  

Recent events have been a hotbed of search wars.   

In January 2023, Microsoft announced a $10 billion investment into ChatGPT’s parent company OpenAI. That represents the deepest financial commitment to challenging Google in search since the launch of Bing 13 years ago.  

On 06 February 2023, Google rolled out Bard. “Trusted testers” currently have access to it, and it will be made public in a few weeks.

On February 7, 2023, Microsoft announced that Microsoft’s Edge browser and Bing search engine now possess the power of AI.

In an interview given to Bloomberg; Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella called it “the first day of a new race”. Consumer Chief Marketing Officer at Microsoft, Yusuf Mahdi, further added that the model was more powerful than ChatGPT.   

Google responded to the Microsoft announcement with an event on 08 February 2023. At a news conference in Paris, Google shared further details about the company’s progress in integrating artificial intelligence into search.   

However, at the event, shares of Alphabet lost more than $100 billion, in market value after its Bard chatbot ad displayed inaccurate information about which satellite first took pictures of a planet outside the Earth’s solar system. Furthermore, analysts were of the opinion that Bard’s AI search event lacked details on how it will answer Microsoft’s ChatGPT challenge.   

There was a significant fall in share value from 8% or $8.59 a share to $99.05 and was one of the most actively traded on U.S. exchanges, the lowest value in three months, after the underwhelming presentation at the Paris event.  

Conclusion  

ChatGPT has the ​​first-mover advantage and rising global popularity, that Bard lacks. However, with the data shortcomings with ChatGPT, users would seek something better and different in Bard. Additionally, Google has the strong AI capabilities, and financial strength to respond and defend its market leadership. 

Bard has yet to make a public debut and face broad public scrutiny, therefore it is too early to comment on if Brad would outdo the gains of ChatGPT. 

The coming months would also see the AI markets widening in terms of scope and players with Microsoft and Google, making additional investments in chatbot technology and more tech giants reportedly preparing to get into the race.   

Google invests heavily in AI startups such as Anthropic, Cohere, C3.ai, and DeepMind. It has also announced to release its Generative Language API for developers soon.   

Whereas, Microsoft also plans to integrate AI technology in more of its flagship products.   

Companies like Meta, Apple, and Amazon are also planning to launch their own AI products in the future. 

Moreover, with ChatGPT gaining more and more popularity in nations like China and South Korea, both Asian countries are rushing to integrate technology into their products and launch rival solutions.   

Recently, Chinese tech companies, Baidu and Alibaba provided the world with updates about their AI models. Furthermore, South Korean startup Rebellions Inc launched an artificial intelligence (AI) chip in February, racing to win government contracts as Seoul seeks a place for local companies in the exploding AI industry.  

Currently, the competition between Brad and ChatGPT appears to be a power struggle between Google and Microsoft. Google is aiming to regain dominance in the search engine market, which Microsoft and its ChatGPT are challenging.

And as more companies develop their own AI chatbots, the battle would expand and intensify.

FAQs:  

Also Read: How Chatbot Is Beneficial For Both Customer And Business?