Last week, the tech industry"s love affair with chatbot AI programs like ChatGPT went into overdrive as Microsoft released the new Bing chatbot, and Google announced its competitor, Bard. However, that excitement soon got a reality check, as both Bard and the new Bing were shown as being error prone and also generating some very strange responses.
Even John Hennessy, the current chairman of Google"s parent company Alphabet, thinks these new chatbots are a ways away from becoming as useful as the hype train claim they could be. CNBC reports that, during a summit held by Celesta Capital this week, Hennessy stated:
I think these models are still in the early days — figuring out how to bring them into a product stream and do it in a way that’s sensitive to correctness, as well as issues like toxicity.
He added that it could take one or two years before chatbots like Bard, the new Bing, and ChatGPT truly become useful to the general public. Having said that, he still likes the overall technology, stating:
I’m impressed with two things — first of all the quality of the natural language ability both to interpret a query but also to respond to something — the generative function. I’m impressed that it manages to, at least at a fairly superficial level, get a lot of things right.
Many Google employees reportedly were not happy with the brief demo the company gave for Bard last week. While Hennessy would not comment on the response Bard has received since its announcement, he did hint that the company didn"t think it was ready for prime time:
I think Google was hesitant to productize this because it didn’t think it was really ready for a product yet, but, I think, as a demonstration vehicle, it’s a great piece of technology
Google has yet to announce any concrete plans to release a public version of Bard, preferring to test the chatbot among its employees internally at first.