by Google has confirmed that it is launching its own AI-powered chatbot building on the success of rival service ChatGPT.
First launched late last year, ChatGPT has become an online sensation due to its ability to hold natural conversations but also generate speeches, songs and essays.
Here’s a closer look at the technology, how it works, and why it’s caught the public eye.
– What exactly is ChatGPT?
In the most basic terms, ChatGPT is an AI-powered conversational chatbot designed to answer questions and answer questions in the form of text in a way that sounds natural and human.
Built by US company OpenAI, it uses information from the Internet to execute requests and has been trained on back-and-forth conversations, so it is able to understand follow-up questions, admit its mistakes and limitations, and reject inappropriate requests.
– Why has it become so popular?
While chatbot technology like this is not new, ChatGPT is rare as it has been made widely available for the public to use and experience.
As a result, it was quickly used to fulfill unusual and very specific requests, such as writing a song in the style of a specific pop star about a topic currently in the news, with often remarkably accurate results being shared online.
Word of the bot’s ability to craft long, detailed answers on often niche topics spread quickly, sparking debates about the power, usefulness, and potential dangers of such technology, while also attracting many people’s attention because they were encountering this type of software for the first time.
– What is the purpose of a software like ChatGPT?
Right now, OpenAI researchers are eager to learn about its strengths and weaknesses, hence allowing anyone to go online to try it out and test its capabilities.
Such has been the demand that the chatbot isn’t always available, and OpenAI just announced a paid subscription tier to complement the free access.
But many experts believe that the ultimate goal of chatbots is to be used as a next-generation search engine.
The idea is that a truly powerful chatbot would be able to take the kind of query entered into a search engine today and return a single definitive response, rather than the pages of web links we currently see.
– So this is why Google is launching its own AI chatbot?
YES. There have been reports that Google has been alarmed by the rapid success and audience that ChatGPT has achieved, and it has been suggested that the company is concerned it could be a long-term threat to its position as the world’s leading search engine.
Now the US tech giant has announced that its chatbot, called Bard, will be released free to the public in the coming weeks after a short stint with a select group of testers.
It will use Google’s conversational language tool, called Lamda, and basically use Google’s search engine to get the information it needs to create answers.
This may give Bard an edge over ChatGPT, which currently relies on an internet-based database as it was in 2021.
But there are also reports that Microsoft, which has invested heavily in OpenAI, is about to announce that it will be incorporating ChatGPT into its Bing search engine.
– Are there any doubts about this technology?
A wide range of concerns have been raised about the spread of programs like ChatGPT and Bard, including fears that the technology could take away human jobs, including in a range of writing professions.
The software used to create essays has also raised concerns about young people using such apps for school and college assignments, while the ability of ChatGPT and others to identify and not spread misinformation has also been questioned.
