Chat GPT is the biggest name in Large Language Models and gained the imagination of the general public at the end of 2022 through the beginning of 2023. It’s considered one of the most advanced AI Chat Bots available today.
The fourth generation, Chat GPT-4 showed massive improvements in performance over previous models and added the capability for the Chat Bot to recognize images, and the addition of plugins allow Chat GPT to be extensible and access datasets that it otherwise would not have access to. The training set is limited to data that was available prior to September 2021.
As with any new technology, competitors and alternatives have popped up. We explore the current landscape and look at the differences between Chat GPT and other chat bots along with which use cases each one is best suited for.
Chat GPT is available by signing up for a free account through OpenAi.com
Google Bard, Google’s Answer to Chat GPT
After being caught off guard with how advanced Chat GPT was, Google didn’t waste any time pushing their competitor to public preview. At the time of writing Bard is not open to the public, but you can join a waitlist and request early access.
Benefits of Google Bard over Chat GPT
There are several reasons that we like Google Bard over ChatGPT.
- Google Bard pulls information in from the internet and has information on current events.
- Text from Google Bard can more easily be copied and pasted into other text editors. The formatting of Chat GPT can be hit or miss when copying it in to different text editors.
- The Google It button is conveniently located in case the information that you receive from Bard is not enough information.
- The Google Bard Interface is cleaner and feels more modern. While Chat GPT is effective, it feels utilitarian, while Chat GPT feels more modern.
Google Bard is available without a waitlist and can be accessed through the Google Bard website.
Google Bard can Now Help Program
One of the biggest drawbacks of Google Bard since it was launched was the lack of technical knowledge that it was able to help people out with. All of that changed in an April 2023 update to the chatbot. Google added a ChatGPT level of functionality to Bard.
To compare the code that the two programs write, we asked it to write a simple Excel Macro, and as you can see the results are very similar but slightly different approaches to the same problem. It’s going to be great having another program that can help people with coding.
We anticipate Google Bard to have some very serious computer programming skills. Google has been working with DeepMind for years and their computer programming AI was reported to be at the level of an average computer programmer back in 2022.
The sample on the right was written with OpenAI’s paid tier, ChatGPT-4. Bard is still in beta, but is completely free to use once you are approved from Google’s waitlist.
Bing Chat a Free ChatGPT Alternative
Bing Chat is an interesting alternative to ChatGPT because it’s actually powered by GPT-4, OpenAI’s most recent version. Microsoft, the owners of Bing have invested over $10 billion into OpenAI and are busy integrating ChatGPT capabilities into all of their products.
Two of those products are Microsoft’s Bing Search and Edge Internet Browser. For these use cases, ChatGPT has been modified to provide shorter more succinct answers to questions, but gained the capability to cite its sources and pull in real-time information from the broader internet.
For writing purposes, Bing Chat can be promoted using the Compose feature. It’s anticipated that similar functionality will soon be integrated with Microsoft’s entire office suite including Microsoft Outlook and Word. They are branding these new functionalities under the Microsoft Copilot 365 brand name. It’s unclear the timeline of when these features will be rolled out and if they will have fees associated with them.
Bing Chat has some limitations in terms of capabilities compared to regular ChatGPT, it won’t be as useful creating long form content or computer programming due to how short its responses are.
If you’re hesitant to download Microsoft Edge, we recommend giving it a try. It’s a free and easy way to access GPT-4 and has improved greatly overly internet explorer of the past. The following screenshot is of the Bing Bar in Microsoft Edge, which is accessible by clicking the big blue “b” in the top right corner of the browser.
Quora Poe vs Chat GPT
Quora, the largest question and answer site on the internet has launched its own AI language model called Poe. However, it is not backed by their own AI models. Instead it was developed to allow people to interact with models like ChatGPT from their mobile phones using a text message or mobile phone application style of interface.
The biggest differentiator with Poe is that it allows users to easily change which model is behind the scenes answering questions. We are big fans of ChatGPT at the moment, but it’s nice that there is an option that allows people to find a language model that best suits their needs.
As the space continues to evolve, it is likely that each AI model will have a different personality and that some will be better suited to answering questions about various topics or completing
Jasper Chat aims to be ChatGPT for Creators
While ChatGPT and Google Bard are trained on very wide datasets, Jasper AI developed Jasper Chat with creators in mind. They are targeting use cases such as marketeers developing new ad copy, businesses, and bloggers. They’ve even gone so far as to integrate Jasper with popular SEO tools like Surfer SEO and claim to be able to quickly write optimized blog articles that will rank on page 1 of Google.
Facebook LLAMA and Open-Source Large Language Models
A big concern within academic circles is how many resources it takes to create a Large Language Model (LLM) like ChatGPT. It was developed over several years and cost billions of dollars in R&D to create. Consolidating datasets and finding information to train it on, format the data, and then further fine tune the models to be safe and predictable require a lot of resources.
This creates a concern that AI chat bots could become exclusive to the realm of large technology companies like Microsoft and Google. Facebook in turn released on open-source model of their own named LLaama. You can request to download a copy of it from github and even begin building your own chatbot model. Stanford University used LLama to create an offshoot called Alpaca which requires surprisingly inexpensive computer hardware to train and run.
What is the Future of Large Language Models?
We are in the early stages of a technical revolution and an entire new industry is being built around it. The AI chat bots and language models that we are using today will likely look simplistic in future years. It will be much like how the first iPhone was a complete game changer, and looks like a toy by today’s iPhone standards.
As the industry evolves there will be new entrants, and new specialized models that excel at different tasks. We will also see new AI powered chat bots integrated into most of the computer software that we use today, making it easier and more accessible to use advanced features.
Most importantly, we will see chat bots created that have different price points. For example, a large Fortune 500 corporation may want the safety and reputation of OpenAI’s ChatGPT backing their products. One of their goals is to create a safe chat experience for its users. Alternatively, there will be companies that want to use an Open Source solution to avoid paying large fees to OpenAI or Microsoft for access to the model.
It’s an exciting technology and will be fun to see how it continues to evolve over the coming years.