BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Alphabet is expanding the reach of its artificial intelligence chatbot, Bard, by launching it in Europe and Brazil on Thursday. This is Bard’s largest expansion since its February launch and it will now compete directly with Microsoft-backed rival ChatGPT. Both Bard and ChatGPT are human-sounding programs that use generative artificial intelligence to engage in conversations and provide answers to various queries. While these products have generated global excitement, caution is still advised.
Many companies have invested heavily in the AI sector, in the hopes of generating significant revenue from advertising and cloud services. Just this week, billionaire Elon Musk launched his AI startup xAI, which has a team that includes former engineers from Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI.
In addition to the expansion, Google has added new features to Bard that are applicable worldwide. Jack Krawczyk, Google’s senior product director, stated in a blog post, “Starting today, you can collaborate with Bard in over 40 languages, including Arabic, Chinese, German, Hindi, and Spanish. Sometimes hearing something out loud can help you approach your idea in a different way…This is especially helpful if you want to hear the correct pronunciation of a word or listen to a poem or script.”
Users can now customize Bard’s responses by changing its tone and style to simple, long, short, professional, or casual. They can also pin or rename conversations, export code to various platforms, and include images as prompts. However, the launch of Bard in the EU faced delays due to local privacy regulators. Krawczyk reassured them on issues of transparency, choice, and control.
In a briefing with journalists, Amar Subramanya, Engineering Vice President of Bard, mentioned that users will have the option to opt out of data collection. Google has faced a class-action lawsuit in the US over alleged misuse of personal information for training its AI system, but Subramanya declined to comment on any plans for a Bard app.
Despite the excitement surrounding these AI chatbots, recent web user numbers indicate a decline in monthly traffic and unique visitors to ChatGPT’s website for the first time in June. The novelty appeal may be fading.
(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee in Brussels and Isabel Woodford in Mexico City; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
Credit: The Star : Tech Feed
