ChatGPT vs Bard: AI [Rap] Battle

Google recently publicly released Bard: a chatbot that works in a similar way to ChatGPT. I have been using Google's Bard since its launch and have seen many Twitter threads that claim ChatGPT is dead because of Bard. These threads inspired me to compare both chatbots in terms of features and, more importantly, the results they provide. Today, I want to answer the question: which should you use, Google's Bard or ChatGPT? I will only compare the free versions in terms of both features and output, so we will not consider ChatGPT plugins or GPT-4 here.

Let's start with what's most important to all of us: who will win the AI rap battle? Let's see.

ChatGPT vs Google’s Bard Features Comparison

Now seriously, let’s start with what the two models have in common:

• Both models are very big language models based on the Transformer architecture (that is why GPT is Generative Pretrained Transformer).

• They both have a free version.

• They both can provide you with multiple answers to the same question. In Bard, you should press "View other drafts" while in ChatGPT there is a button "Regenerate response."

Features Bard has over ChatGPT:

• It can export results to Google Docs/Gmail or Google it.

  

  Google Bard’s output

• Bard has access to the internet or the latest data (I am not sure which of those), while ChatGPT is limited to 2021 knowledge. Though Bard can't summarize articles by URL, unlike some Twitter gurus mentioned, you can ask questions about recent events and Bard is able to answer them.

Features ChatGPT has over Bard

• ChatGPT has a chat history, which is available if you allow OpenAI to use your conversation for training. If you want more privacy, then you will not be able to use the chat history.

ChatGPT vs Bard Output Comparison

Now let us compare the most valuable: output of both models. I know that there are millions of ways to use both models, so I decided to focus on my specific daily use cases.

First, I asked the models about the topic of today's newsletter. Prompt: "I am writing an article comparing OpenAI ChatGPT and Google Bard. What do you think, which model is better?"

For me, both answers seem like fairy tales, although ChatGPT mentioned that its knowledge is limited to 2021 and Bard was not released at that time.

ChatGPT vs Bard in Brainstorming Ideas

I like to use chatbots to brainstorm ideas. In order to compare them, I took a prompt from my previous post “How to create a no-code AI startup in 24 hours”. Prompt: “Let's brainstorm business ideas together in fintech. You will ask yourself 1000 questions that should generate more ideas, and you will answer these questions.”

This is ChatGPT's output. The chatbot does exactly what I asked for. It stopped after 15 questions. Then, all I needed to do was write "continue." Now, let's look at Bard.

As you can see, Bard's response is less relevant. Although it provided me with some questions and answers, they are not as structured as those from ChatGPT.

ChatGPT vs Bard in Writing Code

Let us ask both chatbots to develop an Ad Block Chrome Extension. Prompt: Create a Chrome Extension that will find all ads on the page and block them.

ChatGPT provided me with complete instructions on how to build an extension. Moreover, I can simply copy and paste all the necessary files and request further improvements.

So, what do we see here? Bard's output is completely meaningless. It's just some strange steps and a useless code snippet that will not remove any ads from a web page. Google, if you are going to create an AI that will take over humanity, I am not excited.

My Conclusion

1. ChatGPT is better at many tasks. It is very good at providing answers to questions, writing code, and interacting with you.

2. In many cases, Bard doesn't know the answers but still convincingly lies. Let me ask both chatbots to summarize my previous blog post. You can see that while ChatGPT honestly says it can't do it, Bard provides some output. However, the problem is that this output is based on the URL itself (thanks to how-to-create-a-no-code-ai-startup-in-24-hours) and its imagination.

When to Use Bard

1. You don't want to pay for ChatGPT plugins and want a model that has access to the latest information or events.

2. You want something simple like a text summary. Although I am developing a Chrome extension called Too Long that will allow you to summarize any article with one click. So feel free to subscribe to the waiting list if you are interested.

3. You work at Google.

When using any AI model, we should remember that the model can't think. It has no brain. What it actually does is predict one next word at a time. If you are interested in the details of this process, I wrote an article called How ChatGPT Works and Why It Will Not Replace Good Content Authors.

In the end, here are a couple of photos of the recent event in London with OpenAI's CEO, Sam Altman.

What do you think of Artificial General Intelligence? Are you afraid of it? Are you excited? Should I make a post about it? You can reply to this email.

That is all for today. Thank you for reading, and please leave your feedback about the post below. If you like my content, feel free to share it with your friends or on social media.

Cheers,
Denis