“Bard is particularly notable for its ability to conduct fluid and natural conversations with users” and… rival chatbot ChatGPT says so. The curious Europeans and French can from this Thursday morning challenge the chatbot designed by Google engineers. After a period of hesitation on its deployment in Europe due to data protection legislation, the Mountain View giant considers itself in compliance and launches Bard on the Old Continent.
This computer program now communicates with its interlocutor in French, Arabic and German, among some forty languages in total. You can therefore ask him for free with a “prompt” (a question, an instruction) to compose a recipe, write a cover letter and even train you for a job interview.
How to access it?
Still in experimental version, this conversational robot is independent of the Google search engine and has its own address: https://bard.google.com. You can also find it in the Google applications at the top right of the Chrome browser’s default home page. Unlike ChatGPT, there is no app for iOS or Android smartphones (beware of fake apps).
VIDEO. Google opens its Bard chatbot to 180 countries, but not France. Who are you Bard?
To ask him questions on the move, the only way will remain to go through an Internet browser and the mobile site. Just like for the OpenAI chatbot, it is mandatory to connect and here in this case only via a Google account, such as a Gmail address for example. In theory, conversations with Bard are forbidden to minors.
What is it used for ?
“Bard uses generative artificial intelligence, but it does not replace the human imagination, it just increases it by opening up more possibilities”, says Jack Krawczyk, director of products at Google and in charge of the global deployment of the chatbot. Like its rival ChatGPT, Bard only processes text and is based on generative artificial intelligence and more precisely the Large Language Model (LLM) or language model based on machine learning.
Designed to simulate a conversation, this computer program appropriates the context and specificities of its interlocutor to adapt its speech. Concretely, you can ask him to summarize or translate long texts, to prepare a diet, a sports program and even to write prose in a well-defined style like “à la Baudelaire”. He will, however, be unable to perform complex mathematical calculations.
What are the differences with ChatGPT?
Unlike ChatGPT, whose knowledge stops in 2021, the language models behind Bard were trained with fresher data. He is not directly connected to the Internet but you can clearly ask him topical questions.
After an initial break-in period of three months, Bard is experiencing its first update with the arrival of features that differentiate it from OpenAI’s chatbot. First there is the reading aloud of the answers. And yes, a fairly natural voice now reads the response generated in text by the algorithms. This is currently one of the options to activate. This dialogue can also lead to several responses (“drafts”), and it’s up to you to choose the one that best corresponds to the initial request.
A member of Google’s services ecosystem, Bard interacts with other applications and exports its content to Google Sheets or Gmail messaging. Soon available in French, Bard will also be able to analyze images, in particular those recognized by the Lens software such as the label of a product or a bottle of wine. In this new version, the user can also find the history of his conversations, in order to resume them, pin them and classify them. Well-framed traceability for privacy protection reasons.
Does it comply with European data protection legislation?
Initial obstacle upon his arrival in France, the general data protection regulations (RGPD) are no longer really so, according to the heavyweight of the web. “We are gradually and responsibly launching Bard, and in consultation with local regulators and other stakeholders, to ensure the technology meets user privacy requirements and accountability expectations,” Google said. already fined for GDPR violations. Pending the implementation of the European regulation on artificial intelligence, next spring, Bard is therefore in the nails.
Before using the service for the first time, a window asks for the user’s consent to share certain data, as required by law. And the refractories will not be deprived of access. “Users who refuse the collection of data during the initial consent request will still be able to use Bard”, assures the Californian giant. All conversations will also be erasable from the personal account: myactivity.google.com/product/bard.
Google’s research teams will not be able to read testers’ personal information. “The questions like the answers are subject to analysis by humans but without personal data because algorithms clean them of all the details about an individual such as an address or a number”, adds Jack Krawczyk.
Does he always tell the truth?
“Hallucinations remain an unresolved industry problem,” the Google executive modestly concedes. Generative AI and chatbots like ChatGPT or Bard tend to “hallucinate”, i.e. imagine an answer based on the data it has processed with no connection to the truth. In any case, a “Search on Google” button has been placed prominently in order to launch an Internet search.