Google to launch ChatGPT competitor 'Bard': Sundar Pichai
New York, Feb 7: Google CEO Sundar Pichai has announced that the tech giant will soon launch an Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered chatbot called Bard', aimed at countering the popularity of the ChatGPT tool backed by Microsoft.
According to a blog post by Pichai, the conversational AI service will be assessed by a group of "trusted testers" before being rolled out to the public in the coming weeks.
"Bard can be an outlet for creativity, and a launchpad for curiosity," Pichai, the Indian-origin CEO of Google and parent company Alphabet, said on Monday, adding that Google's chatbot will be able to explain complex subjects like new discoveries from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope to a nine-year-old.
Google's announcement follows wide speculation that Microsoft is about to bring the AI chatbot ChatGPT to its search engine Bing, following a multi-billion dollar investment in the firm behind it, OpenAI, the BBC reported.
ChatGPT (Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer), which was launched in November 2022, is capable of generating speeches, songs, marketing copy, news articles and student essays or human-like text based on the input it is given.
Bard, built on Google's existing large language model LaMDA, "seeks to combine the breadth of the world's knowledge with the power, intelligence, and creativity of our large language models", Pichai, 50, said in the blog.
AI chatbots are designed to answer questions and find information.
"Bard seeks to combine the breadth of the world's knowledge with the power, intelligence, and creativity of our large language models," Pichai said in the blog post.
Pichai said he wanted Google's AI services to be "bold with innovation and responsible in our approach". However, he did not elaborate on how Bard would be prevented from sharing harmful or abusive content.
He said that Google will initially release Bard with a "lightweight model" version of LaMDA which will require less computing power and enable the tech giant to scale to more users, allowing for more feedback.
"We're excited for this phase of testing," Pichai said, adding that Google will combine external feedback with internal testing to make sure Bard's responses meet a high bar for quality, safety and groundedness in real-world information.
"It's critical that we bring experiences rooted in these models to the world in a bold and responsible way. That's why we're committed to developing AI responsibly," he wrote in the blog.
Pichai also said on Monday that AI-powered tools will soon begin rolling out on Google's flagship Search tool.
"Soon, you'll see AI-powered features in Search that distil complex information and multiple perspectives into easy-to-digest formats, so you can quickly understand the big picture and learn more from the web," Pichai wrote, "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."
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Gas grandly promised by Modi has remained that -- gas: Cong's dig at PM
New Delhi (PTI): The Congress on Friday attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi over India's increasing dependence on crude oil, LPG and natural gas imports.
"The gas grandly promised by Mr Modi has remained that -- gas," Congress general secretary in-charge of communications Jairam Ramesh said on X, pointing to India's dependence on natural gas imports.
"Between 2014-15 and 2024-25, India's dependence on crude oil imports went up from 84% to 90%. Between 2014-15 and 2024-25, India's dependence on LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) imports went up from 46% to 62%," Ramesh said, adding that "all this when the mantra was supposed to be Atmanirbharta, or self-reliance."
The natural gas story is murkier, he claimed.
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"On June 26, 2005, the then CM of Gujarat (Modi) boasted that the Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation had discovered India's biggest gas reserve in the deep waters of the Krishna-Godavari river basin. Mr Modi announced that this would make India energy independent," Ramesh said.
He claimed that five CAG (Comptroller and Auditor General) reports between 2011 and 2016 were to reveal later that this was a "Rs 20,000 crore scam, which was subsequently covered by the prime minister, forcing Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation's merger into Oil and Natural Gas Corporation in August 2017".
The Congress leader's remarks come amid reports of panic buying and long queues at petrol pumps and LPG distributors. The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, for the first time since the war in West Asia broke out, released stock details of crude oil, fuel and LPG as it rushed to calm nerves.
India has about 60 days of oil stock cover and has arranged one full month of LPG supply, the government said on Thursday, adding that there is no shortage of petrol, diesel or LPG, calling reports of shortages a "deliberate misinformation campaign" aimed at triggering panic buying.
The state-owned oil marketing companies also said there is no shortage of petrol, diesel or LPG and supplies remain stable.
In a statement, the petroleum ministry said that all petrol pumps across the country are adequately stocked and operating normally, with no rationing of petrol or diesel.
The opposition has been staging protests in the Parliament House complex over the reported LPG supply crunch.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will on Friday interact with the chief ministers of all states, barring those that are going to polls, and review their preparedness and plans in the wake of the West Asia conflict.
