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Google released Bard to the public this week, well sort of. You do need to get on Google’s waitlist and then be let in. Which Google did let in a good amount of people on Tuesday to check out its competitor to ChatGPT.
After Bard’s false start last month with Google’s bad ad for it – where it gave out false information – I was a bit hesitant about using Bard. I know Google has been working on AI stuff for well over a decade now, but it showed that Bard was far behind ChatGPT. Well, actually, It’s ahead of ChatGPT in some areas, and behind in others. Here’s what I mean.
When you ask Bard for stuff, it tells you how or why it came up with that answer
One thing that Bard does that I really like is, explaining why it gave you the answer it did. For example, we’ve been using ChatGPT to help with titles and tweets for our articles here at AndroidHeadlines. And if I ask Bard for a title idea for an article, it will give me a couple of options, and then explain why that is a good choice.
Or, when you ask it what is the best smartphone to buy, it’ll run down a number of options, then give the usual disclaimer of the best phone to buy will depend on your needs. Something that we say in every buyers guide and review, ourselves. Which is very much appreciated.
Now, if we move over to Math, when you ask Bard to solve an equation it will solve it, and then basically show its work. Which is pretty cool. In the example below, I asked Bard what 2+2-3 is. Obviously that’s a pretty easy equation and one that any of us can do in our heads. But as you see below, it solves it, then talks about PEMDAS and performs the equation.
There’s a Google it button after each response
Not that we expected Google not to add a search button to Bard, but this is pretty smart on their part. At the bottom of almost every response, you’ll see an option to “Google It”. Which will open a few search queries that you can click on.
This is going to be better for more complex questions, that you want to do more research on than what Bard would provide. But it does make the experience a bit more seamless. I do wish that it could perform the search for me, in the same window. A bit more like what Microsoft has done with Bing AI, powered by ChatGPT.
ChatGPT will source its information, Bard doesn’t
As a writer and someone in running a tech publication, this is a big deal. Bard, when you ask it for some information, and then ask it to source it, it either tells you it can’t do that. Or it’ll say that it did the testing itself and it doesn’t need to source anyone. Tom’s Hardware found this out this week.
It caught Bard plagiarizing its own testing, and then when it was caught, Bard did apologize. But that’s a serious problem that Google needs to work on.
ChatGPT on the other hand, at least the version that is included in Bing’s search engine, does a good job at sourcing. Check out the screenshot below.
Using the same example from earlier in this article, “what’s the best smartphone to buy”, ChatGPT via Bing gives me four options with each one being sourced. In fact, this response has 15 sources, and it’s very easy to click on them and get more information. Sure Bard’s UI looks cleaner than this, but this is more functional and its not plagiarizing articles that writers spent hours (and sometimes days, or weeks) writing.
Since regular ChatGPT is using older information, almost two years old at this point, this doesn’t really apply to ChatGPT. But it does in Bing AI which uses ChatGPT.
ChatGPT is better for learning
A lot of the time when we are searching for something, we are looking to learn about a topic. Bard does a pretty bad job with that. While ChatGPT is actually really good at that. Bard will go into detail, but not nearly as much as ChatGPT.
When it comes to generating text, Bard is pretty good, but ChatGPT is still better. However, ChatGPT is limited to a certain number of characters in each response, so sometimes, you’ll need it to continue. Bard will just keep going. Now Bard is not always accurate with its facts, as we’ve found out. So you’ll still want to proofread and fact check any sort of text you generate from an AI chatbot like ChatGPT or Bard.
Which is better?
At the rate that AI is moving right now, it’s really unfair to say which is better. OpenAI just recently announced GPT-4, which is only available to those that pay for ChatGPT Plus, so we haven’t been able to test it out yet. But it’s supposedly way better than the current ChatGPT, which was GPT 3.5. Bard on the other hand, this is Google’s first public release, even though you do need to get on a waitlist for it. It’s a pretty good first release, but there are things that need to be fixed here. Like having more accurate information in its responses, not plagiarizing articles, providing links to things, especially when asking about things you want to buy.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see both of these chat bots drastically change before the end of 2023. At the rate the pace of AI is going right now.
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