It took a little more than two months for ChatGPT to attract more than 100 million users and to wake a sleeping giant.
On Monday, Alphabet and Google chief executive Sundar Pichai announced in a blog post a new conversational artificial intelligence service called Bard.
With the announcement, the world's third-largest technology company by market capital is taking direct aim at its next largest rival, Microsoft, which has ploughed at least $11 billion into ChatGPT, the viral AI service created by the non-profit OpenAI.
The new tool from Google begs the question: how is it different from ChatGPT?
Bard's features
Bard is expected to render stories just like this one obsolete. This is, after all, a news article written to answer the questions readers most likely will search for on Google about Bard.
Perhaps you ran a Google search on “Bard ChatGPT” or “how is google new thing different ChatGPT”.
Hopefully, this story ranked near the top to answer these queries.
Writing this story is a way of generating traffic for The National while — in my defence — addressing a societal need of informing the public in an accurate and timely way.
It is a story optimised for search engines such as Google. The search engine is often the first stop for people to gain access to news these days and it is a powerful traffic generator for media sites.
I admit, I consulted with our dedicated search engine optimisation (SEO) editor before I even began writing to make sure we were producing a story that would show up in popular Google searches.
This sort of publishing gamesmanship drives much of the content produced online today.
With Bard, it appears those days may be numbered as Google's search engine changes to incorporate a new large language model (LLM).
The LLM will be capable of drawing on “information from the web to provide fresh, high-quality responses”, according to Mr Pichai. The screenshot below, from the blog post, illustrates how queries may be answered in a conversational, text-heavy way at the very top of Google Search results.
As technology writer Casey Newton put it in his Platformer newsletter: “Google’s blog post suggests that their SEO-bait posts are about to be downranked anyway, whether they are generated by an AI or not. Bard will soon be taking your questions first, and publishers’ answers — whether they are written by human, robot, or something else — can all fight for second place”.
Ranking first in Google Search is a big deal. Data from firstpage.com found that ranking No 1 means about 40 per cent of people will click on that link. This is more than double the click-rate for second and a fourfold increase from ranking third.
It appears Bard will replace this ranking altogether, putting itself first with a narrative-style answer.
How does Bard differ from ChatGPT?
Bard has the advantage in terms of reach, access to information and the types of media it offers.
ChatGPT is often over-capacity, sometimes plagiarises its answers and confidently flubs math problems. That is to say, it is flawed. But it is still capable of producing thoughtful, accurate answers to a wide variety of topics. Microsoft plans to integrate the product with its search engine Bing.
In terms of market share, Bing accounts for less than one in 10 online searches while Google captures more than 80 per cent of the search market.
While ChatGPT has more than 100 million users, Google dwarfs that with one billion daily active users.
In that way, Bard is different from ChatGPT in terms of its potential reach and the amount of real-time feedback such use will provide, which is one way of improving the tool.
Bard also uses a “lightweight” version of Google's Language Model for Dialogue Application (LaMDA) AI model, while OpenAI’s ChatGPT currently relies on GPT-3.5.
“This much-smaller model requires significantly less computing power, enabling us to scale to more users, allowing for more feedback," Mr Pichai wrote.
Google's AI tool has access to real-time information while ChatGPT relies on training on data that ends in 2021. Microsoft has said it plans to use GPT-4 for its Bing integration, which may bring the two products closer together in terms of data quality.
Bard will produce more than text. While details are still vague, it will eventually have a multimedia element, providing information “from language and images to videos and audio”.
Is it out yet?
Yes and no. The California-based company said it would give “trusted testers” access to the new service in the beginning and will make it available to the wider public “in the coming weeks”.
Checks continue
A High Court judge issued an interim order on Friday suspending a decision by Agriculture Minister Edwin Poots to direct a stop to Brexit agri-food checks at Northern Ireland ports.
Mr Justice Colton said he was making the temporary direction until a judicial review of the minister's unilateral action this week to order a halt to port checks that are required under the Northern Ireland Protocol.
Civil servants have yet to implement the instruction, pending legal clarity on their obligations, and checks are continuing.
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The President's Cake
Director: Hasan Hadi
Starring: Baneen Ahmad Nayyef, Waheed Thabet Khreibat, Sajad Mohamad Qasem
Rating: 4/5
How to apply for a drone permit
- Individuals must register on UAE Drone app or website using their UAE Pass
- Add all their personal details, including name, nationality, passport number, Emiratis ID, email and phone number
- Upload the training certificate from a centre accredited by the GCAA
- Submit their request
What are the regulations?
- Fly it within visual line of sight
- Never over populated areas
- Ensure maximum flying height of 400 feet (122 metres) above ground level is not crossed
- Users must avoid flying over restricted areas listed on the UAE Drone app
- Only fly the drone during the day, and never at night
- Should have a live feed of the drone flight
- Drones must weigh 5 kg or less
Who's who in Yemen conflict
Houthis: Iran-backed rebels who occupy Sanaa and run unrecognised government
Yemeni government: Exiled government in Aden led by eight-member Presidential Leadership Council
Southern Transitional Council: Faction in Yemeni government that seeks autonomy for the south
Habrish 'rebels': Tribal-backed forces feuding with STC over control of oil in government territory
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Torque: 250Nm
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A list of the animal rescue organisations in the UAE
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
