Google Bard – All You Need To Know About Google Bard
LaMDA is the engine behind the generative AI chatbot Bard. Anyone involved in SEO or online publishing must comprehend Bard and how it might interact with search.
Users are getting to know Bard, Google’s response to ChatGPT, to see how it stacks up against OpenAI’s chatbot powered by artificial intelligence.
Although no algorithms are named Bard, we know that LaMDA powers the chatbot, so the name “Bard” is solely a marketing ploy. Here is everything we currently know about Bard and some fascinating research that could provide insight into the kind of algorithms that Bard might use.
What Is Google Bard?
The LaMDA large language model powers Bard, an experimental Google chatbot. It’s a generative AI that responds to questions and performs text-based tasks like giving summaries and answers while producing different kinds of content.
By condensing information from the internet and offering links to websites with more information, Bard also aids in exploring topics.
Why Did Google Release Bard?
After OpenAI’s ChatGPT’s wildly popular debut, which gave the impression that Google was lagging behind in technology, Google released Bard.
With the potential to upend the search market and tip the balance of power away from Google search and the lucrative search advertising industry, ChatGPT was seen as a revolutionary technology.
Three weeks after ChatGPT’s debut, on December 21, 2022, the New York Times reported that Google had activated “code red” to swiftly define its response to the threat posed to its business model.
On February 6, 2023, Google announced the launch of Bard, 47 days after the code red strategy modification.
What Was The Issue With Google Bard?
Because the demo intended to show off Google’s chatbot AI had a factual error, the Bard announcement was a shocking failure. What was supposed to be a triumphant return to form turned into a pie in the face for Google’s AI due to its inaccuracy?
Following this, investors lost faith in Google’s ability to navigate the impending AI era, resulting in a $100 billion market value loss in a single day for Google’s shares.
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How Does Google Bard Work?
A “lightweight” variation of LaMDA drives Bard. A large language model called LaMDA is trained using web data and datasets from public discourse. The research paper linked to this training, which you can download as a PDF, discusses two crucial aspects: LANGUAGE MODELS FOR DIAGONAL APPLICATIONS (Lamda) (read the abstract here).
- A. Safety: The model achieves a level of safety by tuning it with data annotated by crowd workers.
- B. Groundedness: LaMDA grounds itself factually with external knowledge sources (through information retrieval, which is search).
The LaMDA research paper states:
“…factual grounding, involves enabling the model to consult external knowledge sources, such as an information retrieval system, a language translator, and a calculator.
We quantify factuality using a groundedness metric, and we find that our approach enables the model to generate responses grounded in known sources, rather than responses that merely sound plausible.”
Google used three metrics to evaluate the LaMDA outputs:
- Sensibleness: A measurement of whether an answer makes sense or not.
- Specificity: Measures if the answer is the opposite of generic/vague or contextually specific.
- Interestingness: This metric assesses whether LaMDA’s responses are illuminating or arousing.
Crowdsourced raters evaluated each of the three metrics, and the results were fed back into the system to keep it improving. Crowdsourced reviews and the system’s capability to fact-check with a search engine were effective strategies, according to the LaMDA research paper’s conclusion.
Google’s researchers wrote:
“We find that crowd-annotated data is an effective tool for driving significant additional gains.
We also find that calling external APIs (such as an information retrieval system) offers a path towards significantly improving groundedness, which we define as the extent to which a generated response contains claims that can be referenced and checked against a known source.”
How Is Google Planning To Use Bard In Search?
Bard’s potential is currently seen as a search feature. Google’s February announcement was vague enough to leave room for interpretation. The most important information was concealed in a brief passage near the end of the Bard blog announcement, where it was referred to as an AI search feature. T
his ambiguity contributed to the false impression that Bard would be incorporated into the search, which never happened.
Google’s February 2023 announcement of Bard states that Google will at some point integrate AI features into search:
“Soon, you’ll see AI-powered features in Search that distill complex information and multiple perspectives into easy-to-digest formats, so you can quickly understand the big picture and learn more from the web: whether that’s seeking out additional perspectives, like blogs from people who play both piano and guitar, or going deeper on a related topic, like steps to get started as a beginner.
These new AI features will begin rolling out on Google Search soon.”
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p style=”text-align: justify;”>Bard is not searching. Rather, it is intended to be a feature in search and not a replacement for search.