The News
In the last 5 days, we have seen Alphabet Inc (Google) share price increase by about 12 percent on the news and announcements around their Bard AI updates, equating to an additional $180 billion USD being added to the market valuation of the company. Bard AI isn’t new, in fact, it was off to a rocky start trailing way behind what ChatGPT 3 could produce. There has been a large concerted effort to push the awareness of Bard but I think what is behind it is the shareholders rallying together and pushing the news that is truly pushing it vs the tech itself. We have seen it in recent weeks with meme coins being pushed and last year with Reddit pumps and it’s not impossible to think the same if a group of wealthy Google shareholders to do the same, a 12 percent gain in a week is impressive but the actual tech they are pushing isn’t so impressive right now.
The Future of Generative AI
Generative AI is a rapidly developing field with the potential to revolutionize many industries. Generative AI models are able to create text, images, and even code, which has the potential to improve productivity, creativity, and decision-making.
There are a number of different generative AI models on the market, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. Some of the most popular models include:
- ChatGPT: ChatGPT is a generative AI model developed by OpenAI. It is known for its ability to generate creative text formats, such as poems, code, scripts, musical pieces, email, and letters.
- LLaMA: LLaMA is a generative AI model developed by Facebook and is known for its ability to generate factual text, such as news articles and product descriptions.
- Bard: Bard is a generative AI model developed by Google AI. It is a versatile platform that can be used for a variety of tasks, including translation, writing, and coding.
Each of these models has its own strengths and weaknesses, and it is likely that the best platform for a particular task will depend on the specific requirements of that task. For example, ChatGPT is particularly good at generating creative text formats, while LLaMA is better at generating factual text. Bard is a versatile platform that can be used for a variety of tasks but Google’s primary focus of Bard is to keep Google relevant in a post-AI tech world. Google needs a solution to stay relevant in things like search so Bard may never become what we have come to expect from a model like ChatGPT.
It is important for companies to be prepared to adopt generative AI technology. Those that are building AI tech stacks right now should make their stacks modular so that they can simply shift AIs if a better model comes along. This is similar to the way that companies move to the cloud. There are a few major cloud providers and it is easy enough now to switch to a different provider if someone else can offer better pricing or better service.
In the future, it is likely that there will be a number of different AI platforms that are all used for different tasks. It is important for companies to be prepared to adopt this technology and to make sure that their tech stacks are modular so that they can easily switch AIs if a better model comes along.
Bard and the Future of Generative AI
Bard is still under development, it could show great promise and it is expected to be a major player in the future of generative AI. Some people are taking bets it will overtake Chat GPT before the end of the year but at this stage, I’m not holding my breath.
Bard has a number of advantages over other generative AI models. First, it is trained on a massive dataset of text and code, which gives it a deep understanding of the world. Second, it is able to access and process information from the real world in real time, which makes it more up-to-date than other models. Third, there are zero barriers to entry to using it and it’s completely free for the time being.
It could be used to create more realistic chatbots, to generate more informative news articles, and integrate better into the Google tools we are already use to. With its deep understanding of the world and its ability to access and process information in real time, Bard could be poised to become the leading generative AI model in the years to come. So far Google has done well to prove the integration of Bard into a wide range of it’s products with Beta versions but it’s the actual AI model I’m still not sold on yet.
Alphabet’s Share Price Rises Due to Hype Abound Bard
Some analysts believe that Bard could revolutionize the way we interact with computers, and they are betting on Alphabet to be the company that brings this technology to market and I don’t doubt that but their AI is still lackluster. When I first got access to Bard I wasn’t very impressed and when I gave it another go this week it was clear it had access to better data sets but it was still extremely average, it certainly wasn’t 180 billion dollars worth of wow.
Google Has Better Integration of AI into Their Services
Google has been a leader in the field of AI for many years, and they have a deep understanding of how to integrate AI into their products and services. This gives them a significant advantage over other companies that are trying to develop generative AI models & this week we have seen that. The news that has come out this week is about their integration and reducing the barriers to entry. The more accessible an AI is the more you are likely to use it.
Bard Hallucinates More Than Chat GPT
One of the challenges with generative AI models is that they can sometimes hallucinate. This means that they can generate text that is not based on reality. Bard is WAY MORE likely to hallucinate than Chat GPT. According to Bard itself “This is because Bard is trained on a larger dataset of text, which includes more examples of hallucination” but this isn’t true, larger data sets don’t illicit the generation of falsehoods. According to Analytics Vidhya “80% of the news listed by Bard was ‘Fake News’. ” So either Google has managed to bottle the cognitive essence of a former US president into their AI or they still have major work ahead of them. If I Google something I want to land on facts, not some dreamt-up fictitious untruth that could easily be believed or misappropriated into a conspiracy theory.
Conclusion
The future of generative AI is very promising. Bard could be onto a winner if they improve their AI, at the moment they have absolutely nailed the integration side of things and if they improve the AI and reduce the hallucinations I think it would be worth more than that $180b increase. But how it sits it has a lot to improve on. That being said a lot can happen in a very short period of time and I have no doubt this article may not date well as it only takes a single 10x engineer to swing things around.
But I can’t stress it enough that if you are going to build a tech stack & anything beyond just a minimal viable product please make sure it is modular. AI models change so quickly and having technical debt tieing you to a legacy system on a product so cutting edge can kill the future of the product. Legacy software in AI could soon be measured in weeks.
