Google answers ChatGPT challenge with Bard expansion

Executives at an annual Google developers conference in Silicon Valley said that generative AI will also be used to supercharge the tech giant's leading search engine.

"We have been applying AI for a while, with generative AI we are taking the next step," Google chief executive Sundar Pichai told thousands of developers gathered for the event.

"We are reimagining all our core products, including search," he said.

Google is racing to catch up with rival Microsoft, which has rushed to integrate ChatGPT-like powers in a wide array of its products, including the Bing search engine.

Microsoft's dash into AI came despite fears about the technology's potential threat to society, including its impact on the spread of disinformation and whether it could make whole categories of jobs obsolete.

Cathy Edwards of Google Search said to think of the new experience as search that is "supercharged" by a conversational bot.

Other Google executives laid out how generative AI is being woven into Gmail, photo editing, online work tools and more.

The company's AI efforts would be carried out in a "bold and responsible" way, senior product director Jack Krawczyk said during a briefing.

Google's expansion meant it removed a waitlist for Bard, letting users around the world engage with it in English after months of testing it out in the US and Britain.

Bard will be modified to support 40 languages in coming months, according to Krawczyk.

"We're excited to get Bard into more people's hands," Krawczyk said.

"We're pretty fired up about where Bard is going."

Google also announced browser "extensions" that will imbue apps and services such as Gmail and Maps with AI features.

Bard technology will enable features such as filling in text to help draft emails and suggesting ideas for artwork by scrutinizing a picture of available supplies.

Google is also letting partners build such extensions, including one from Adobe that will let users generate images, Krawczyk said.

- Risky tech? -

Google's announcement came a week after rival Microsoft expanded public access to its generative artificial intelligence programs, which are powered by models made by OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT.

The AI-enhanced features of the company's Bing search engine and Edge internet browser became open for anyone.

The services have been enhanced with the ability to work with images as well as text, and Microsoft intends to add video to the mix.

Despite the rollouts by two of the world's biggest companies, risks from AI include its potential uses for disinformation, with voice clones, deep-fake videos and convincing written messages.

A range of experts in March urged a pause in the development of powerful AI systems to allow time to make sure they are safe.

Their open letter, signed by more than 1,000 people, including billionaire Elon Musk and Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak, was prompted by generative AI technology from Microsoft-backed firm OpenAI.

A prominent computer scientist often dubbed "the godfather of artificial intelligence" recently quit his job at Google to speak out about the dangers of the technology.

Geoffrey Hinton, who created some of the technology underlying AI systems, maintained that the existential threat from AI is "serious and close."