My First Dance with Google’s Bard: Exploring the Benefits and User Experience
I was among the privileged few to be selected to experience the use of Bard for the first time.
Probably it is preposterous to think it is a privilege to be selected by Google to try an invention that bit the dust in their bid to launch for the first time. But hey, this is Google’s creative invention that will surely give Microsoft’s Chat GPT a good chase for their money.
Google learned a big lesson. The tone of the email I received shows they had to eat the humble pie to have described Bard as an experiment — that is the very message that greets you when you log in to the interface
Latency
Latency is the time it takes for a generative AI such as Bard to process the input prompt and generate a response. Unlike Chat GPT, Bard processes the input prompt and generates the response all at once. In NLP parlance, this is known as “one-shot learning” or “one-shot generation”. Bard generates a response without requiring any additional fine-tuning or iterations on the specific input. As to whether this makes it a better response generator compared to Chat GPT, time will tell. It appears that Bard has a lower latency compared to Chat GPT (even Chat GPT plus) and hence has a generally faster response time.
Sampling diversity
The cool thing about Bard is that it employs the sampling diversity technique when generating responses. After churning out an output response, it also provides a draft of other possible responses to the prompt you entered. This is a technique that is achieved by adjusting parameters like temperature or using techniques like top-k, top-p, or nucleus sampling during the text generation process.
User experience
Generally, Bard’s GUI is intuitive and user-friendly. I daresay that even a user with little or knowledge of chatbots will find it easy to navigate the interface without the need for a walkthrough tutorial. The user does not have to leave the chat window to access the FAQ and Help & Support tab which in my opinion is super useful.
I have taken the liberty to compare and contrast Bard and Chat GPT in an upcoming article. I believe these two will be the archrivals when it comes to chatbot innovation.
