Key Points
- LaMDA is a conversational language model built by Google, while Google Bard AI is a generative AI chatbot developed by Google that initially used LaMDA but now uses the PaLM 2 language model.
- LaMDA is a language model used in Google Assistant, Google Search, and Google Translate, while Google Bard is a chatbot that can engage in conversation on various topics and create different text formats.
- LaMDA focuses on natural-sounding conversations and detailed responses, while Google Bard is more knowledgeable, creative, and multimodal, able to understand and respond to text, images, and audio.
- LaMDA is specialized for dialogue and text applications, while Google Bard has a more diverse range of potential uses, including creative writing, medical tools, and legal tools.
Being such a new and rapidly evolving field, there are all kinds of developments in the world of AI. There are hundreds of tools, language models, and applications for AI. Plus, we’re just getting started. Two terms you may have come across are LaMDA and Google Bard AI. Trying to figure out how these differ and what they actually are can be a bit confusing. If you feel confused, then this is for you. In this article, we’ll highlight the differences between LaMDA and Google Bard AI.
LaMDA vs. Google Bard: Side-by-Side Comparison
| Aspect | LaMDA | Google Bard |
|---|---|---|
| Owner | ||
| Release Date | May 2022 | February 8th, 2023 |
| Language Model | LaMDA 2 | PaLM 2 |
| Uses | Customer Service Chatbots, Q&A, Translation, Research | Content, Q&A, Virtual Assistant, Translation, Research |
| Number of Languages Supported | 75 | 40 |
| Dataset | 137 billion | 1.3 trillion |
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LaMDA vs. Google Bard: What’s the Difference?
Although LaMDA and Google Bard get brought up in the same conversation, they are different in their applications. LaMDA is short for Language Model for Dialogue Application, and it’s a conversational language model that was built by Google. It’s the foundation for several language models that have come after, like GPT-3, which is the technology behind ChatGPT. On the other hand, Google Bard AI is a generative AI chatbot developed by Google that was initially powered by LaMDA. Now, it uses the language model called PaLM, which is more advanced and provides more accurate results.
Now that you have a bit of a foundation of these two technologies, let’s look at the key differences between the two.
Foundation and Release
LaMDA is a large language model that is powered by Google AI. Google originally introduced it to the world as Meena back in 2020, and they announced the first generation of LaMDA in 2021. However, the roots of the projects began in 2017, when the language model started to get trained on human stories and dialogue. It’s built on an open-source framework called Transformer, which is a neural network architecture invented by Google Research. In 2022, they introduced the second generation, which can draw in text from numerous sources to help formulate more natural conversions.
While LaMDA had been in development for years, the success of ChatGPT prompted the release of Google Bard. Google Bard was first rolled out to a test group of 10,000 users, before going public. Since its release, it’s seen mixed reviews, when compared to other chatbots from Bing and OpenAI. However, its switch to using the PaLM 2 language model can help it produce more accurate and complex results.
Applications and Use Cases
Since LaMDA is a language model, it can be used in a variety of different ways. There is no public-facing application that is LaMDA. Instead, it will be used within an existing app. For example, Google Assistant uses LaMDA to translate and generate text and answer common questions. It’s also used in Google Search to better understand search queries and provide relevant results. In addition, it powers Google Translate to help translate one language to another.
On the other hand, Google Bard is a generative AI chatbot. It can engage in conversation on a range of different topics and can create a variety of different text formats, like writing, code, poems, emails, and more. It’s more of an open-ended tool and doesn’t operate based on a pre-defined script. The responses are creative, open-ended, and based on real-world information. Over time, it will evolve to produce more human-like responses to questions and queries.
Key Features
LaMDA is a large language model powered by Google AI. It’s the engine that powers a lot of user-facing AI apps, as you learned above. Since it’s a language model, the goal is to be able to hold natural-sounding conversations, even on pretty complex topics. It’s also open-ended and does not follow a script regarding answers. Finally, since it’s trained on such a large volume of information, it’s very knowledgeable and can give detailed responses. LaMDA also heavily focuses on dialogue applications. Keep in mind that you can’t access these features via a public-facing app. Instead, it will serve as the engine inside other applications.
Compare this to Google Bard, which is essentially a public-facing version of LaMDA. Therefore, it offers some of the same functionality and features and has the same goals. However, since it no longer uses LaMDA and relies upon an improved language model, it can be even more knowledgeable and creative. It’s also multimodal, so it can both understand and respond to a variety of inputs, like text, images, and audio.
Future Uses and Development
Both of these technologies are very new and still in development. Even though they’re similar, they serve different purposes. For example, LaMDA is a specialized language model, so its future will focus on dialogue and text applications. You’ll see it used for customer service bots, virtual assistants, and other uses that require natural-sounding language.
On the other hand, Google Bard’s future is more diverse. We can use it across similar applications like chatbots and virtual assistants. But it we can also use it to develop creative writing tools, medical tools, legal tools, and a variety of different software.
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LaMDA vs. Google Bard: Must-Know Facts
- One of Google’s engineers claimed that LaMDA is sentient (although refuted by Google shortly after).
- Google named Bard after the meaning of the word poet from Celtic traditions.
- Bard was originally based on Google LaMDA but has since grown to another language model, PaLM 2.
- LaMDA has been in development since 2017.
- Google Bard was trained on over 1.56 trillion words and continuously improves based on user input.
LaMDA vs. Google Bard: Which One Is Better? Which One Should You Use?
As you can see, looking at LaMDA and Google Bard isn’t really a direct comparison, since the tools are so heavily intertwined. The better question is, which tool is right for what you want to accomplish? For example, if you want to use Google Translate or Google Assistant, then you’ll be using LaMDA. While, if you want more in-depth responses, then you can use Google Bard. As of right now, the results for the two tools are fairly similar when comparing translated text. However, Google Bard may become more advanced in the future, since it’s using PaLM 2, which is larger and more powerful.
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