'AI Battle' Ignites... Google Announces Bard AI, 'ChatGPT Rival' (Comprehensive)

[Asia Economy Reporter Jeong Hyunjin] The battle for artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots is intensifying. OpenAI's chatbot 'ChatGPT,' backed by Microsoft (MS), has surpassed 100 million monthly users, creating a sensation, while Google officially announced the launch of its rival 'Bard' on the 6th (local time). Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google's parent company Alphabet, emphasized the 'spirit of hackathon' and declared that all employees should participate in experimenting with Bard.

On the same day, Google posted a blog titled 'An important next step in our AI journey' under CEO Pichai's name, introducing the new conversational AI service Bard and announcing that the official service will launch within a few weeks. Named after the medieval term for a minstrel, Bard is based on Google's existing language model 'LaMDA.' CEO Pichai stated on the company blog that Bard will provide high-quality answers based on the web and described it as "an outlet for creativity and a stepping stone for curiosity."

[Image source=Reuters Yonhap News]

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Bloomberg reported that Google's goal for its conversational chatbot service is to provide Bard with the ability to give specific answers to simple questions such as "What should I make for lunch?" or "How do I throw a baby shower for a friend?" It will also enable users to ask for recipes based on ingredients left in the refrigerator.

CEO Pichai said, "When people think of Google, they recall simple fact-based answers like 'How many keys are on a piano?'" but added, "Increasingly, people are asking Google more in-depth and insightful questions such as 'Is it easier to learn piano or guitar, and how much practice is needed for each?'"

He emphasized that Bard can simplify complex topics, such as explaining NASA's James Webb Space Telescope's new discoveries to a 9-year-old child. He also added that Bard can help users learn about and train to become the world's best striker. CEO Pichai said, "Before the official release, we will open Bard to trusted testers," and added, "Bard will combine the world's knowledge with the power, intelligence, and creativity of large language models."

Google's announcement comes after the huge success of ChatGPT, which was unveiled in November last year. After ChatGPT surpassed 100 million monthly users within two months of its release and gained immense popularity, there were evaluations that "Google's era is over." As the dominant player in the global search engine market, Google felt a growing sense of crisis that it could lose the market if it did not respond quickly to ChatGPT's rapid rise.

[Image source=Reuters Yonhap News]

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Google internally issued a 'code red,' a serious crisis warning. CEO Pichai personally attended AI strategy meetings to give directions and even called back founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who left the company three years ago, to devise countermeasures. Recently, Google invested $400 million in the AI startup Anthropic. Since acquiring the UK AI company DeepMind, which developed AlphaGo in 2014, Google has been focusing on AI technology development and is now taking steps to avoid falling behind in the market leadership battle.

On the same day, CEO Pichai sent a separate memo to employees, stating that all staff are needed to experiment with Bard and said, "We are waiting for all feedback in the spirit of an internal hackathon." He added, "This is the early stage of development. We need to launch products and iterate," emphasizing, "Our goal is to build the right tools and APIs so that over time, people can create other innovative applications with AI."

Microsoft, regarded as a leader in AI since the release of ChatGPT, will hold a press event on the 7th. According to Bloomberg and others, MS has not disclosed specific announcements but said it will "share progress on some exciting projects." Foreign media speculated that this might involve integrating OpenAI's ChatGPT with MS's search engine Bing.

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, posted a 'selfie' with MS CEO Satya Nadella on his Twitter on the same day, writing, "Greetings from Redmond (the event location). Looking forward to tomorrow's event."

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