Google's AI Chatbot, Bard, Now Helps with Code Writing and Debugging
In a recent announcement, Google declared that its AI chatbot, Bard, will now assist users in writing and debugging code. The CEO of Google, Sundar Pichai, had earlier promised in an interview that Bard would receive upgrades and improvements. Google has fulfilled that promise by providing Bard with the ability to help users write functions for Google Sheets, write and explain code snippets, and perform programming and software development tasks. Bard can help generate working code for more than 20 programming languages, including Java, C++, Python, and Typescript. Users can easily export the Python code to Google Colab without any required copy-pasting.
The announcement included a warning about the possibility of Bard hallucinating, giving incorrect information confidently. The company's blog post cautions users to double-check Bard's responses and carefully review the code for errors, bugs, or vulnerabilities before relying on it. Despite these challenges, Google is confident that Bard's new capabilities will offer users new and improved ways of writing code, creating test cases, or updating APIs.
In February, Google launched Bard, and some employees expressed dissatisfaction with the announcement. They called it "rushed, botched, and un-Googley." Consequently, the company sought help from employees to fix Bard's mistakes and offered incentives to those who agreed. Over 80,000 employees helped test Bard internally, and the CEO thanked them via email.
However, in a more recent report, Bloomberg claimed that some Google employees who tested Bard were unhappy with it. They called the AI chatbot "useless" and a "pathological liar." One employee even warned that Bard's advice in specific cases could cause death or injury. The publication viewed an internal document that stated that 18 current and former Google employees said that Bard was giving out low-quality information in a competition to keep up with the pace while giving less priority to its ethical commitments.
Despite the challenges and reservations regarding Bard's capabilities, Google continues to develop and improve the AI chatbot's abilities. Bard aims to catch up with its competition, such as ChatGPT, which has been known for helping to write code.
