ChatGPT vs Google Bard & Search

Could ChatGPT be used as an alternative to Google Search?

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ChatGPT has rapidly gained widespread recognition, solidifying its position as a household name by amassing one million users in just five days. As AI technology continues to flourish, some speculate that ChatGPT could potentially challenge Google’s market share. However, it is worth considering whether they are truly competitors.

OpenAI‘s ChatGPT represents the latest innovation in auto-generative systems, boasting remarkable human-like responses and swift information retrieval. Currently, the chatbot is available to the public for free, with a premium subscription service, ChatGPT Plus, also available. Powered by Natural Language Processing (NLP), ChatGPT draws information from textbooks, websites, and diverse articles, to provide users with a unique approach to searching for information and ideas.

While Google dominates the search engine landscape, it doesn’t necessarily need to prioritize delivering well-written, human-like responses, as countless websites have already fulfilled that role. However, the emergence of Google Bard offers an alternative to ChatGPT. Although available in 180 countries Google has announced its plans to develop Bard further, extending its availability and expanding its functionality to integrate further with other google applications like Docs, Sheets, Gmail, and more.

Google Search operates as a distinct entity, but with OpenAI’s recent achievements and the introduction of Google Bard, it appears that AI will gradually be influencing the way Google Search functions, with the primary goal of enhancing the overall user experience.

ChatGPT & Google Bard key differences

The biggest differences between ChatGPT and Google Bard are first and foremost the Large Language Models (LLMs) that they are powered by and the data sets available to them .

Firstly these two impressive chatbots are powered by different LLMs. Open AI’s ChatGPT is based on the GPT-3 model with the premium version based on the GPT-4 model. These models have also been utilized in several other prominent AI applications such as Dall-E 2 and Bing AI. In contrast Google Bard is based upon Google’s own PaLM 2.

The other huge difference between ChatGPT and Google Bard is the data set that they are able to draw their responses from. In ChatGPTs case the data it has been trained on all dates from before 2021. Google Bard on the other hand is able to draw on up to date internet data. This means that Google Bard is often capable of giving more accurate responses, especially when it comes to recent events. That said it is important to bear in mind that neither chatbot’s primary function is to give factually correct answers, and while attempots are being made to make both applications more accurate, their main goal is still to produce plausible, human-like responses and not factually correct ones.

ChatGPT & Google Search key similarities

The two both use artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms to perform their functions but what other similarities are there?

• Google and ChatGPT both gather the data and then present it to the user, albeit the end results are very different.
• ChatGPT and Google can both process human language.
• Both applications are capable of giving human like responses.
• Both applications are capable of reading, writing, and correcting code in various coding languages.
• Both Google Search and ChatGPT are being continuously developed to always ensure the end-user has the best user experience possible.
• Both are free unless you opt for the premium ChatGPT Plus.

ChatGPT vs Google: Privacy

Google collects and stores a lot of personal information, whereas ChatGPT does not, in the traditional sense anyway. ChatGPT is trained on text, which can include personal data.

“OpenAI or its partners may collect anonymized usage data for the purpose of improving the model and providing better services.“

Regardless, ChatGPT is no substitute for Google search, certainly not at this time. The two are widely different and actually offer completely different benefits. Google is still the champion of general queries, product information, or research, whereas, we can see a real use case for asking specific questions to ChatGPT or Google Bard. ChatGPT and Google Bard can explain a difficult-to-understand topic to you in seconds, something that would generally take longer to find with a Google search.

ChatGPT is a fantastic tool and was almost certainly a factor in Google’s quick pushing out of their own Google Bard.

Has ChatGPT ignited Google’s AI exploration?

Google is known for its AI ventures, with the company heavily investing in AI and language technology. Regardless of OpenAI’s recent success, you can bet Google was already exploring new innovations in AI, as are many other companies.

Google already had AI language projects such as Google Assistant, Google Translate, and BERT, a state-of-the-art language model that can be used for a selection of NLP tasks. The AI field is rapidly evolving, so it is hard to say what Google might do next but we can almost guarantee the tech giant will continue to put a large focus on its language models in the near future.

Is Google Bard a challenger to ChatGPT?

Google’s Bard has been a huge project for Google over the last few years, a new AI service that was powered by LaMDA and is now powered by PaLM 2. Bard like other language models combines a vast amount of online datasets and delivers high-quality responses. Google Bard is not dissimilar to OpenAI’s ChatGPT in many ways and since May 10th, 2023 has been available in over 180 countries and territories worldwide.

Google Bard operates a lot like ChatGPT, answering general queries, and creating texts from prompts with one key difference. Bard has been built around Google’s search engine with the express idea of being able to search the web in a conversational or ‘natural language’ way. It should massively alleviate the need for getting the perfect search terms into your queries as the AI software will fill in the blanks for you.

Advantages of Google Bard over ChatGPT

Google Bard offers a significant advantage over ChatGPT with its ability to incorporate real-time internet search results into its responses. In contrast, one notable drawback of ChatGPT lies in its reliance on a large language model trained on pre-2021 data. As a result, ChatGPT falls short when it comes to providing responses that encompass the most current information available. This is where chatbots that integrate with search engines truly excel, such as Bing AI and Google Bard. The integration of these chatbots with search engines empowers them to deliver up-to-date information and data, even extending to breaking news events.

ChatGPT vs Google Search limitations

ChatGPT offers the advantage of swiftly answering a broad range of questions, making it a time-saving alternative to Google in certain cases. However, it does have its limitations. Since ChatGPT’s training is based on text, its understanding of the real world is constrained. The output of ChatGPT is inevitably influenced by the data it has been trained on, which can introduce potential content bias.

There are various questions and inquiries that ChatGPT may struggle to address. Instead of attempting to provide the most relevant answer, it may generate factually inaccurate responses or ask for clarification.

On the other hand, Google relies on content indexing to present search results, limiting the information available to what is accessible on the web. Additionally, Google’s ranking algorithm sometimes favors the popularity of websites, which can introduce bias in the search results. Occasionally, Google may misunderstand the context of certain queries, leading to incorrect or less precise search results.

It is important to recognize the strengths and limitations of both ChatGPT and Google Search when seeking information, as they offer distinct approaches to addressing queries with their own unique sets of capabilities and potential drawbacks.

What is the difference between ChatGPT and Google?

ChatGPT gives you one answer to a query, and Google gives you hundreds, allowing you to delve deeper into research with the latter. Google is a search engine, whereas ChatGPT is an AI language model. ChatGPT produces human-like responses to answer questions, whereas Google produces search results that match your query.

Is ChatGPT replacing Google?

With ChatGPTs shot to fame and incredible use cases, many wondered if it was on track to replace Google. No, we don’t think so, if anything we are likely to see Google development continue but ChatGPT could not replace Google search.