Explained: What is Google's AI-powered Bard capable of?

Bard is quite forthcoming about its unreliability and other shortcomings, including its potential for mischief in next year’s US presidential election. Bard explained that its creators at Google “thought Shakespeare would be a good role model for me, as he was a master of language and communication.” But the chatbot also found some admirable traits in “HAL,” the fictional computer that killed some of a spacecraft’s crew in the 1968 movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. “We both have our own strengths and weaknesses, and we both have the ability to learn and grow.” During our wide-ranging conversation, Bard didn’t display any of the disturbing tendencies that have cropped up in the AI-enhanced version of Microsoft’s Bing search engine, which has likened another AP reporter to Hitler and tried to persuade a New York Times reporter to divorce his wife. “I could be used to create fake news articles or social media posts that could spread misinformation about candidates or their policies,” Bard warned. When asked who is the greatest guitarist of all time, Bard responded with a broad list of candidates ranging from well-known rock artists such as Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin to jazz virtuosos like Django Reinhardt before making the case for Jimi Hendrix “as a strong contender for the title, his music continues to influence and inspire guitarists around the world.” Bard Even with Bard’s occasional miscues, it seemed savvy enough to ask about its potential role in reaching the singularity, a term popularised by computer scientist and author Ray Kurzweil to describe a turning point in the future when computers will be smarter than humans.