4 new ways to use Bard AI 🌟
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4 new ways to use Bard AI 🌟
Google’s chatbot has new features... and flaws
Google’s Bard is improving as an alternative to ChatGPT. Read on for Bard’s best new tricks and its limitations. Plus: what each of the leading AI tools does best.
Fact check your AI queries
Bard has a new fact-checking button. Press the “G” button to have Google fact-check Bard’s AI response. Sentences highlighted in green are backed up by at least one Web source. To see that reference, click on the green text. Sentences in brown are dubious — they lack a clear origin source online.
Neither ChatGPT nor Claude has fact-checking built in yet, so this is a distinct way for Google to capitalize on the strength of its search engine.
Why Bard’s new fact-checking button is necessary: AI chatbots love to please you. That’s why they’ll make up stuff or “hallucinate,” serving up answers they think you want. Generative AI services are language engines, not information engines. They’re excellent at generating language but not reliable for facts/knowledge. That’s why Google is giving Bard a fact-checking button.
Query your Google Docs
Bard can now analyze your Google Docs, Gmail and Google Drive files. I fed Bard a Google Doc with a long transcript of a workshop I led and it helpfully summarized the session. Other useful queries: pull out notable quotes, compare multiple documents, and suggest additions or revisions for a given doc.
Caveat: In my tests, Bard sometimes failed to locate a doc I asked about or analyzed irrelevant docs. When it did work, the results were helpful.
Bard’s Privacy notice: Google says content from your Gmail, Docs and Drive is not seen by human reviewers, used by Bard to show you ads, or used to train the Bard model. But its privacy page also says “Please don’t enter confidential information in your Bard conversations or any data you wouldn’t want a reviewer to see…”
Explore maps and flights with AI
Bard’s new “extensions” allow it to search in other services, such as Google Maps and Google Flights. That’s useful for comparing routes, checking on potential flight costs, or estimating how long a trip might take.
Caveat: When I asked Bard about the best time to book a February flight to Italy, it confusingly gave me conflicting responses depending on whether Bard used its own AI or queried Google Flights.
Find helpful YouTube videos
Bard can answer queries with relevant YouTube videos. That’s useful if you want to better understand a complex topic or learn how to do something. You can search YouTube directly, but because Bard understands ordinary language, it can provide helpful videos even if you don’t know what keywords to look for.
Other Bard benefits
Create a table. Bard can structure replies in table format, which is useful if you’re generating a feedback rubric, assessing pros and cons, or comparing products. Bard can also helpfully export the table into a Google spreadsheet. It can also export responses to a Google Doc or a Gmail draft.
Build on others’ queries. If you’re collaborating with someone, you can take their query about urban planning, for example, or one about badminton’s rules, and follow-up or elaborate on it. Alternatively, you can find prompts online and adapt them for your purposes.
Multiple drafts. Bard offers two alternatives to each of its responses so you can pick one that suits you.
Query in any of 40 languages. Bard also lets you revise any of its responses to be simpler, longer, shorter, more professional or more casual.
Limitations
Some of Bard’s new AI tricks didn’t work well for me.
Gmail fail. I prompted Bard numerous times to query my Gmail; in each case it analyzed a few random email messages and provided negligible insight. Your results may vary depending on how you use Gmail and how specific a query you provide.
Picture flop. My experiments testing Bard’s image analysis left me unimpressed. Example: I uploaded a Times Square image to Bard and though it correctly identified New York City, it inexplicably dated the recent picture to the mid 20th century, even though it correctly identified some of the billboard advertisements for new products and musicals.
When to use each AI chat tool
Use Bard to… fact-check AI results with Google. See Bard’s FAQ.
Use Claude to… analyze a huge document of up to 70,000 words. Read more.
Use Poe to… interact with your own custom AI bot. Read more about Poe.
Use ChatGPT to… get high-quality creative responses. See 7 ways to use it.
Use ChatGPT Plus to… capitalize on plug-ins like these useful add-ons.
Use Pi to… get casual coaching or conversation w/ a friendly AI. Read more.
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4 new ways to use Bard AI 🌟
This gives me an idea: I currently have 71 text files containing "conversations" I've had with ChatGPT. I thought the descriptive file names would be helpful, but I need a way to search them for snippets of text. Right now, the only way to do that is with GREP, a cumbersome process.
[edited comment to add more info]
I asked Bard to give me a plan for getting those text files into Google Docs. I did NOT like the suggestion, which was to convert them one by one! So I asked it if merging the files into a single Google Doc was just as effective. Here is Bard's reply:
Yes, merging the text files first and then creating one giant Google Doc would be just as effective, if not more effective, for querying purposes.
This is because merging the text files would allow me to index the entire corpus of text at once, rather than having to index each individual text file separately. This would make it faster and more efficient to query the text.
In addition, merging the text files would make it easier for me to identify relationships between different parts of the text. For example, if two text files discuss the same topic, but in different ways, I would be able to identify this relationship more easily if the text files were merged into one.
Overall, I recommend merging the text files first and then creating one giant Google Doc. This will make it easier and more efficient for me to query the text and identify relationships between different parts of the text.
To merge the text files, you can use a variety of tools and methods. For example, you could use a text editor or a programming language to merge the files into one. You could also use a third-party tool or service to merge the files.
Once you have merged the text files, you can upload the merged file to Google Drive and open it with Google Docs. Google Docs will automatically convert the merged file to a Google Doc format.
Once the merged file has been converted to a Google Doc, you will be able to query it using me.
Good post. I would respectfully disagree with this part though:
"Neither ChatGPT nor Claude has fact-checking built in yet, so this is a distinct way for Google to capitalize on the strength of its search engine."
Claude-2 has an excellent Citations list at the end of its responses, links it referenced in the response.