Google Is Baking AI Into Gmail, Docs, And Other Workspace Apps – Here’s What It Can Do

AI has been all over the news in recent weeks, thanks in part to the hype surrounding ChatGPT — a large language model AI chatbot that was released by Google’s rivals (OpenAI and Microsoft). Google responded to the news that Microsoft’s Bing would be getting a ChatGPT-based update by unveiling its own AI. Google Bard was shown to the world via a tweet, but unfortunately, the unveiling didn’t go as well as Google would have hoped.

Bard is an experimental conversational AI service, powered by LaMDA. Built using our large language models and drawing on information from the web, it’s a launchpad for curiosity and can help simplify complex topics → https://t.co/fSp531xKy3 pic.twitter.com/JecHXVmt8l

— Google (@Google) February 6, 2023

The unveiling centered around a GIF showing a “user” asking Bard a few questions. Unfortunately, as many people spotted, not all of Bard’s answers were accurate. Bard gave several answers, but one answer in particular was wildly inaccurate. The AI claimed that the telescope took the first pictures of a planet outside of our solar system. However, this feat was actually achieved by the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope back in 2004. 

Google issued a statement shortly after the incident saying it will incorporate the feedback along with that from its tester program to ensure that “Bard’s responses meet a high bar for quality, safety and groundedness in real-world information.” Still, this error, along with one made by Bing chat, and many others, show that while AI has made amazing strides — it’s still far from perfect. So, if you’re using AI to help write your emails and word docs, you should probably give it a thorough proofread afterwards.