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Alphabet’s Chairman Opens Up About Google’s Bard AI says, ‘These models still in Infancy'

Alphabet Chairman John Hennessy has spoken out about ChatGPT competitor, Google's Bard AI. The announcement was intended to demonstrate that Google has technology similar to the popular ChatGPT chatbot, but Hennessy says the company is still hesitant to productize it because it does not believe it is ready for the public yet.

“I think Google was hesitant to productize this because it didn’t think it was ready for a product yet, but, I think, as a demonstration vehicle, it’s a great piece of technology,” said Hennessy, who has been the chairman of the Google parent company since 2018. He also said that generative artificial intelligence is still a year or two away from being a truly useful tool for the general public. Hennessy was speaking at the Celesta Capital Summit in Mountain View, California. In his presentation on key trends for 2023, Hennessy briefly mentioned Google Bard of its sudden interest in ChatGPT and Generative AI.

Hennessy claimed that Google was slow to release its ChatGPT competitor in part because it still provided incorrect answers. Google is one of the most popular consumer products, and entities such as YouTube and Search have occasionally provided incorrect information in the past. That history appears to be instilling trepidation in the company. Hennessy also cautioned that AI chatbots are still in their early stages of development. And he is not alone in his concerns; Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and OpenAI cofounder and CEO Sam Altman have both expressed similar reservations. “I think these models are still in the early days — figuring out how to bring them into a product stream and do it in a way that's sensitive to the correctness, as well as issues like toxicity,” Hennessey told CNBC on Monday. “I think the industry is struggling with that.” Hennessy also added during the conference, echoing CEO Sundar Pichai’s response, “You don’t want to put a system out that either says wrong things or sometimes says toxic things.” He responded when employees asked if the company was falling behind ChatGPT. The tech industry has to be “a little more careful about the situation we create in civil society,” he acknowledged. Hennessy was impressed with ChatGPT’s abilities since it is moving faster than thought. On the other hand, he declined to comment specifically on the public’s reaction to Google’s Bard.