Google to Release ChatGPT Rival Named Bard

FILE - A sign is shown on a Google building at their campus in Mountain View, Calif., Sept. 24, 2019. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)
FILE - A sign is shown on a Google building at their campus in Mountain View, Calif., Sept. 24, 2019. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)
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Google to Release ChatGPT Rival Named Bard

FILE - A sign is shown on a Google building at their campus in Mountain View, Calif., Sept. 24, 2019. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)
FILE - A sign is shown on a Google building at their campus in Mountain View, Calif., Sept. 24, 2019. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)

Google said Monday it will release a conversational chatbot named Bard, setting up an artificial intelligence showdown with Microsoft which has invested billions in the creators of ChatGPT, the hugely popular language app that convincingly mimics human writing.

ChatGPT, created by San Francisco company OpenAI, has caused a sensation for its ability to write essays, poems or programming code on demand within seconds, sparking widespread fears of cheating or of entire professions becoming obsolete, AFP said.

Microsoft announced last month that it was backing OpenAI and has begun to integrate ChatGPT features into its Teams platform, with expectations that it will adapt the app to its Office suite and Bing search engine.

The potential inclusion in Bing turned the focus on Google and speculation that the company's world-dominating search engine could face unprecedented competition from an AI-powered rival.

Media reports said the overnight success of ChatGPT was designated a "code red" threat at Google with founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page -- who left several years ago -- brought back to brainstorm ideas and fast-track a response.

The pressure to act was heightened by the poor earnings posted last week by Google-parent Alphabet, which fell short of investor expectations. The company last month announced that it was laying off 12,000 people as it put more emphasis on AI projects.

Google's announcement came on the eve of an AI-related launch event by Microsoft in yet a further sign that the two tech giants will do battle over the technology, also known as generative AI.

"Generative AI is a game changer and much like the rise of the internet sank the networking giants that came before (AOL, CompuServe etc.) it has the potential to change the competitive dynamic for search and information," said independent tech analyst Rob Enderle.

"Google still largely lives off the fact their search engine is the most widely used, this could change that, relegating them to history," he added.

- 'High-quality responses' -
In his blog post on Monday, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said that Google's Bard conversational AI was to go out for testing with a plan to make it more widely available "in the coming weeks."

Google's Bard is based on LaMDA, the firm's Language Model for Dialogue Applications system, and has been in development for several years.

"Bard seeks to combine the breadth of the world's knowledge with the power, intelligence, and creativity of our large language models," Pichai said.

"It draws on information from the web to provide fresh, high-quality responses," he added, hinting that the app would give up-to-the date responses, something ChatGPT is unable to do.

Before the emergence of ChatGPT, which was released in late November, Google had been reluctant to launch its own language-based AI fearing the reputational risk of releasing technology that wasn't ready.

Researchers using the same language models as Bard or ChatGPT have demonstrated the technology's ability to spew out misinformation or nonsense on a potentially massive scale.

Facebook-owner Meta in November was forced to take down the release of its own large language model called Galactica after three days when users shared its biased and incorrect results on social media within hours of its release.

Pichai insisted that responses churned out by Bard would "meet a high bar for quality, safety and groundedness in real world information."

And much like ChatGPT, Bard would source its responses from a limited version of its base language model in order to reduce computing power and reach a wider audience.

Crucially for its looming duel with Microsoft, Google also said that users would soon see AI-powered features in its search engine.

New-style responses would "distill complex information and multiple perspectives into easy-to-digest formats," Pichai said.

Search engines beefed up by generative AI "will give structured answers to questions and no longer links," Thierry Poibeau, of the CNRS research center in Paris, told AFP.

But bots like ChatGPT "also give wrong answers, which is annoying for a search engine," said Poibeau.



Trump Extends Deadline for TikTok Sale by 90 Days

FILE PHOTO: A TikTok logo is displayed on a smartphone in this illustration taken January 6, 2020. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A TikTok logo is displayed on a smartphone in this illustration taken January 6, 2020. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
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Trump Extends Deadline for TikTok Sale by 90 Days

FILE PHOTO: A TikTok logo is displayed on a smartphone in this illustration taken January 6, 2020. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A TikTok logo is displayed on a smartphone in this illustration taken January 6, 2020. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

President Donald Trump announced Thursday he had given social media platform TikTok another 90 days to find a non-Chinese buyer or be banned in the United States.

"I've just signed the Executive Order extending the Deadline for the TikTok closing for 90 days (September 17, 2025)," Trump posted on his Truth Social platform, putting off the ban for the third time.

A federal law requiring TikTok's sale or ban on national security grounds was due to take effect the day before Trump's January inauguration.

The Republican, whose 2024 election campaign relied heavily on social media, has previously said he is fond of the video-sharing app.

"I have a little warm spot in my heart for TikTok," Trump said in an NBC News interview in early May. "If it needs an extension, I would be willing to give it an extension."

TikTok on Thursday welcomed Trump's decision.

"We are grateful for President Trump's leadership and support in ensuring that TikTok continues to be available for more than 170 million American users," the platform said in a statement.

Digital Cold War?

Motivated by a belief in Washington that TikTok is controlled by the Chinese government, the ban took effect on January 19, one day before Trump's inauguration, with ByteDance having made no attempt to find a suitor.

TikTok "has become a symbol of the US-China tech rivalry; a flashpoint in the new Cold War for digital control," said Shweta Singh, an assistant professor of information systems at Warwick Business School in Britain.

Trump had long supported a ban or divestment, but reversed his position and vowed to defend the platform -- which boasts almost two billion global users -- after coming to believe it helped him win young voters' support in the November election.

The president announced an initial 75-day delay of the ban upon taking office. A second extension pushed the deadline to June 19.

He said in May that a group of purchasers was ready to pay TikTok owner ByteDance "a lot of money" for the video-clip-sharing sensation's US operations.

Trump knows that TikTok is "wildly popular" in the United States, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told reporters Thursday, when asked about the latest extension.

"He also wants to protect Americans' data and privacy concerns on this app, and he believes we can do both things at the same time."

The president is "just not motivated to do anything about TikTok," said independent analyst Rob Enderle. "Unless they get on his bad side, TikTok is probably going to be in pretty good shape."

Tariff turmoil

Trump said in April that China would have agreed to a deal on the sale of TikTok if it were not for a dispute over his tariffs on Beijing.

ByteDance has confirmed talks with the US government, saying key matters needed to be resolved and that any deal would be "subject to approval under Chinese law."

Possible solutions reportedly include seeing existing US investors in ByteDance roll over their stakes into a new independent global TikTok company.

Additional US investors, including Oracle and private equity firm Blackstone, would be brought on to reduce ByteDance's share in the new TikTok.

Much of TikTok's US activity is already housed on Oracle servers, and the company's chairman, Larry Ellison, is a longtime Trump ally.

Uncertainty remains, particularly over what would happen to TikTok's valuable algorithm.

"TikTok without its algorithm is like Harry Potter without his wand -- it's simply not as powerful," said Kelsey Chickering, principal analyst at Forrester.

Despite the turmoil, TikTok has been continuing with business as usual.

The platform on Monday introduced a new "Symphony" suite of generative artificial intelligence tools for advertisers to turn words or photos into video snippets for the platform.