With ChatGPT released to viral acclaim, and Microsoft implementing the same underlying technology into its own search engine Bing, Google needs Bard to enter the public consciousness.
Bard's potential popularity — or lack thereof — has serious implications for Google's search leadership and its overall standing as a cutting-edge tech giant.
Complimentary Tech Event
Transform talent with learning that works
Capability development is critical for businesses who want to push the envelope of innovation.Discover how business leaders are strategizing around building talent capabilities and empowering employee transformation.Know More
Unfortunately for the search giant, the beta-ness of Bard is clear, with a first batch of adopters seemingly underwhelmed by its capabilities when compared with OpenAI's GPT-4 technology.
Now testers say the current version of Bard isn't living up to the competition.
Advertisement
"I've been playing with Google Bard for a while today and I never thought I'd say this, but… Bing is way ahead of Google right now (at this specific chat feature)," tech YouTuber Marques Brownlee tweeted on Tuesday.
Mollick notes that "Google's Bard loses" to its rival "by a lot" in poetry, struggling far more in its potential to generate a sestina, fixed verse form from France made up of 39 lines.
Bard also has issues handling word puzzles, an area where AIs powered by large language models should theoretically excel. Take Twofer Goofer, an online puzzle that involves users figuring out what a pair of mystery rhyming words are through slightly obtuse prompts and clues.
OpenAI's GPT-4 has a 96% success rate at the game, while humans succeed 82% of the time, according to an analysis by the game's makers.
Bard's success rate, it found, was 0%.
Describing the results as "shockingly disappointing", co-creator Collin Waldoch wrote: "Bard was not able to solve a single Twofer Goofer when given the prompt. It was close in a couple instances, but ultimately unsuccessful."
Google may have run into the innovator's dilemma — where incumbents face a real threat from agile young companies if they decide to stay the course and fail to innovate.
Advertisement
It's possible that the company does have a super impressive AI tool up its sleeve. Insider's Hugh Langley reported earlier in March that Google employees are testing a more intelligent version of Bard, nicknamed "Big Bard." The tool, Langley wrote, has more human-like responses and is more informal. What's available to the public is the lightweight version.
Google's long-time case against an OpenAI-style approach to releasing powerful, commercial-use AI has been rooted in the ethical issues surrounding a technology prone to errors, biases, and misuse. But this is now the age of AI, as Bill Gates boldly stated the day Bard was released. The development of AI, in his words, "is as fundamental as the creation of the microprocessor, the personal computer, the Internet and the mobile phone."
Note Gates doesn't mention web search in his list of fundamental developments. Google may need to move faster to cement its position in tech history.
{{}}
NewsletterSIMPLY PUT - where we join the dots to inform and inspire you. Sign up for a weekly brief collating many news items into one untangled thought delivered straight to your mailbox.