AI Assistants Face Off: Google Bard vs Microsoft Bing Chatbot
Table of Contents
- Comparing the AI Assistant Interfaces
- Simple Factual Questions
- Complex Conversation Questions
- Performing Tasks
- Summarizing Information
- Getting Creative with the AI
- The Winner is Still Evolving
Comparing the AI Assistant Interfaces
The new Bing chatbot powered by GPT-3 feels much more like a finished, polished product ready for widespread use. It limits you to 20 queries per conversation and has a creative vs precise slider to control the conversation style. Meanwhile, Google Bard has a clean look like other Google products, but question inputs don't display visibly. Bard provides thumbs up/down buttons and shows 3 drafts per answer for transparency.
An interesting difference is that Bing tends to cite its sources more often when bringing in external information. Bard occasionally provides sources, but less consistently than Bing.
Bing Chatbot Conversation Limits
The 20 query limit per Bing conversation encourages users to ask focused, in-depth questions rather than open-ended chit-chat. This restriction may help avoid situations where the chatbot's responses become too unstructured or controversial.
Google Bard Drafting Process
Seeing the alternative drafts Bard considered allows some transparency into its reasoning process. However, the 3 drafts shown are unlikely to include responses that Google deemed problematic or concerning. So there may still be an element of curation happening behind the scenes.
Simple Factual Questions
For straightforward factual queries tested, Bing and Bard provided similarly decent results. Both assistants stumbled on some minor details, but broadly got the basics right. When checking concrete details like specs, it's still a good idea to verify with additional sources.
In this category of basic information questions, Bing and Bard are evenly matched so far, with room for improvement on both sides.
Complex Conversation Questions
When questions get more open-ended and touch on applying knowledge, Bing's more customizable settings make a difference. Switching to Creative Mode resulted in notably more nuanced, helpful explanations on trickier topics.
Bard's responses remain quite basic and literal. Without tuning options, Bard seems optimized only for simpler use cases right now. The ability to adjust parameters and turn up the depth is a clear advantage for Bing's usability.
Performing Tasks
An area where Bing clearly shines over Bard is actually using the AI assistant to accomplish practical goals like writing code. Bing can help debug software, generate usable HTML and websites, and more. Bard acknowledges it is unable to perform those complex processes as just a language model.
The impressive functionality Bing demonstrates for tackling coding and other real-world tasks makes it the winner in this category so far. As AI assistants evolve, robust task-handling abilities will likely continue separating the top contenders.
Summarizing Information
When provided lengthy input data to interpret and consolidate, Bard had an edge in accurately grasping the essence to generate a summary. Even when Bard missed some specific details, the overall meaning was conveyed more closely than Bing's attempts.
Generating digestible summaries from large information inputs has enormous potential use for AI assistants. This seems to be an early strength for Google, though Microsoft's offering may catch up with more training.
Getting Creative with the AI
Both tools can produce impressively inventive results when intentionally pushed into imaginative territory. Bard plays things a bit safer, while Bing's tendency to dive deeper into the creative abyss is part of what forces guardrails like conversation limits.
Artistically untethering the assistants' capabilities affirms that while oversight is still necessary, their creative potential continues seeing amazing growth.
The Winner is Still Evolving
Taken as a whole, Bing's versatile functionality and customization give it an edge for now over Bard's superior simplicity and summarization. However, both platforms are rapidly evolving, as are the underlying AI models powering them.
The long-term winner is far from set as the speed of progress in this domain continues accelerating quickly. But having multiple impressive options benefits users, raising the standard of utility for AI-enhanced services.
FAQ
Q: Which AI assistant is better at simple questions?
A: Google Bard and Bing chatbot were evenly matched at simple factual questions.
Q: Which AI assistant provides more detailed answers?
A: Bing chatbot in creative mode gives more nuanced and detailed responses.
Q: Can the AI assistants write code?
A: Bing chatbot has shown the ability to generate simple HTML and JavaScript when given clear tasks.
Q: Which AI summarizes information better?
A: Google Bard edges out Bing chatbot for summarizing information like videos, but often gets details wrong.
Q: Which AI assistant is more creative?
A: Bing chatbot generates more wildly creative responses, while Google Bard seems more limited.
Q: Which is the top AI assistant right now?
A: Bing chatbot was slightly stronger across the board, but both continue to rapidly evolve.
Q: Will AI assistants replace search engines?
A: It's unclear if chatbots will completely replace search, but they may work together as complementary technologies.
Q: Should I switch from Google to Bing?
A: It depends on your needs - Bing offers richer conversations, while Google is more limiting.
Q: Will Google catch up to Bing chatbot?
A: The competition between the tech giants will likely lead to quick improvements on both sides.
Q: What's next for AI assistants?
A: Expect capabilities like processing images and video, not just text conversations.