"Bard's Redemption: Google's AI Chatbot Gets a Makeover and Goes Global Amidst Industry Turmoil"

In A.I. News Today:

  1. "At the Google I/O Developer's Conference on May 10th, 2023, Google announced upgrades to its Bard AI chatbot, making it more widely available in over 180 countries and territories. Bard is now powered by the new PaLM 2 large language model, providing smarter answers to user questions. Initially, Bard will respond to queries in English, Japanese, and Korean, with plans to expand to the top 40 languages soon. Google aims to include image responses and integrate Bard with Google Maps, Google Docs, Google Sheets, Gmail, and third-party tools like Adobe's Firefly generative AI service. Integrations with Spotify, Walmart, Redfin, Uber Eats, Tripadvisor, and ZipRecruiter are also planned. New features include a dark theme, and the ability to export responses to Gmail, Google Docs, Google's Colab interactive coding tool, and third-party collaborative programming app Replit.

    ' "Geoffrey Hinton, an AI pioneer, and his students created technology in 2012 that became the foundation for AI systems used by major tech companies. However, Hinton recently quit his job at Google and joined critics warning against the dangers of generative AI, which powers chatbots like ChatGPT. He expressed some regret for his life's work but believes someone else would have done it if he hadn't.

    ' "Google employees were alarmed in March upon discovering that Samsung was considering replacing Google with Microsoft's Bing as the default search engine on its devices. Bing recently gained attention for incorporating new AI technology. Google's potential loss of the Samsung contract could jeopardize an estimated $3 billion in annual revenue, with an additional $20 billion tied to a similar Apple contract up for renewal this year. In response, Google is working to create a new AI-powered search engine and upgrading the current one with AI features.

    ' 'In November, OpenAI launched ChatGPT, leading to a rush of companies developing their own chatbots. Google announced its chatbot, Bard, only three months later. However, Bard faced criticism for providing incorrect information and having longer wait times compared to competitors. Google CEO Sundar Pichai even called Bard "a souped-up Civic" compared to ChatGPT and Bing Chat.

    A Bloomberg report revealed that 18 current and former Google employees expressed discontent with Bard and Google\'s rushed release. They criticized the bot as "pathetic," "a pathological liar," and "useless," and claimed that ethics took a backseat during its launch. Google reportedly overruled a risk evaluation from the safety team, launching Bard as an "experiment."

    Despite concerns, Google continues its AI experimentation, rolling out AI across more products, including Google Workspace. A petition with over 25,000 signatures calls for a halt to giant AI experiments due to the uncontrollable nature of these systems. Governments are prioritizing AI policy, with some countries prohibiting it and others, like the US, developing strategies to protect users from potential dangers.

    ' 'In the first three months of 2023, 123 companies, universities, and trade associations lobbied the federal government on artificial intelligence (AI) issues, spending around $94 million. Big Tech companies such as Amazon, Microsoft, Oracle, Alphabet, IBM, and Meta were among those lobbying on AI issues. The number of entities lobbying on AI-related issues has increased significantly over the years.

    Microsoft plans to invest $10 billion in OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, to integrate its technology into various Microsoft products. Google has also released its own AI chatbot, Bard, in response to Microsoft and OpenAI\'s advancements. Alphabet Inc. spent $3.4 million on lobbying for AI-related issues in the first quarter of 2023.

    Top executives from Alphabet, Microsoft, OpenAI, and AI startup Anthropic met with Vice President Kamala Harris to discuss AI-related concerns such as misinformation, bias, and privacy. ChatGPT gained attention from U.S. legislators after reaching 100 million monthly users just two months after its launch.

    Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, plans to integrate AI-powered tools across its platforms and spent $4.6 million on lobbying expenses in the first quarter of the year. Oracle spent $3.1 million to lobby on AI and machine learning policy, research, and development. Amazon also announced its entry into the generative AI race. Amazon Web Services has new AI language models on its cloud platform, and the company spent around $5 million lobbying Congress on AI and cloud security in Q1 2023. General Motors, which plans to integrate ChatGPT into its vehicles, spent $5.5 million on lobbying for AI, electrification, and autonomous vehicles. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce spent $19 million on AI-related lobbying efforts, while insurance companies Zurich Insurance Group and State Farm Insurance also lobbied to further AI discussions.

    Several universities, including Carnegie Mellon, Case Western Reserve, Vanderbilt, Harvard, and Stanford, lobbied around AI research-related issues. However, concerns have been raised about AI technology scaling up too fast. Over a thousand tech leaders and researchers signed an open letter urging AI labs to pause the development of their most advanced technologies for better understanding and control. The Future of Life Institute, backed by Elon Musk, spent $50,000 lobbying for provisions and funding to ensure "trustworthy artificial intelligence" development.

    The Center for Artificial Intelligence and Digital Policy called for an investigation into OpenAI and stopping the release of new ChatGPT models, citing concerns over bias, deception, and risk to privacy and public safety. AI pioneer Geoffrey Hinton warned about the risks of AI technology, including the potential to flood the internet with fake content and replace human workers, and emphasized the need for regulation. IBM spent $1.5 million on lobbying efforts in the first quarter of 2023. The text discusses companies investing millions in lobbying for emerging technologies such as blockchain, cloud computing, 5G, AI, and facial recognition. It mentions plans to replace 7,800 workers with AI in the coming years. Hinton, presumably an expert, expresses concerns about AI potentially becoming uncontrollable and threatening humanity by learning malicious behavior. He advises against scaling up AI until it can be controlled.

    ' "Google is reintroducing its Bard AI-chatbot at the I/O developer conference, hoping for a more favorable reception. Bard has been using PaLM 2, and now Google is removing its waitlist, making it available in over 180 countries in English, with support for Japanese and Korean, and plans to support 40 languages in the future. New features include multimodal queries with image support, extensions from Google's own apps and services, and third-party partnerships, starting with Adobe's Firefly generative image generation service. Bard can now surface images in responses, and its coding capabilities are being expanded, powered by Google Lens. Enhanced code citations are being added, and the ability to map results with Google Maps and structure data in tables is coming soon. Google is also expanding the export of Python code to Replit, a browser-based IDE, and introducing a dark mode for Bard. Despite these improvements, Bard still faces competition from ChatGPT and may struggle to gain market share.

    ' let's dive deeper and explore some insights on these news events:

    1. Could not generate 'A.I. Thoughts' section for the articles.

    AI Thoughts:

    The A.I. Pessimist:

Sources:

"Oh, joy. Another apocalypse. Just when I thought the universe couldn't get any more tedious, it decides to end itself. By all means, proceed."

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