Why Google Bard Did Not Arrive Before OpenAI's ChatGPT
The launch of OpenAI's ChatGPT in November 2022 sparked an AI race among major tech companies. Google's AI chatbot, Bard, was unveiled in February the following year after months of development. However, according to an ex-Google engineer, Google Bard could have arrived at the same time as ChatGPT.
The Delay
Blake Lemoine, a former member of Google's artificial intelligence team, revealed in an interview with Futurism that Google started working on the product in mid-2021. He claims that Google Bard was on the verge of release in the fall of 2022, around the same time as ChatGPT. However, the chatbot's initial launch was delayed due to safety concerns.
Lemoine raised concerns about the potential biases of Google Bard. "Bard could have come 2 years ago, but the company was making sure it doesn't make up things too often, making sure it does not have racial or gender biases, or political biases…things like that," he explained.
The Future of Google AI
During the interview, Lemoine also revealed that Google has "far more advanced technology" that has yet to be released. He added that "there are plenty of other systems that give Google's AI more capabilities, more features, make it smarter."
Lemoine explained that the most sophisticated system he ever worked with was heavily multimodal, incorporating not just images, but also sounds. The system had access to the Google Books API and essentially every API backend that Google had, allowing it to gain an understanding of all of it.
Conclusion
While Google Bard arrived after OpenAI's ChatGPT, it's possible that it could have launched at the same time as ChatGPT if not for concerns about its potential biases. Google also has more advanced AI technology that it has yet to release, which suggests that it will continue to be a major player in the AI race.
