ChatGPT vs. Bard; Effort vs. Results

Hey friends! I recently came across a quote from "The Making of a Manager" that made me think about what’s going on between ChatGPT (Microsoft/OpenAI) and Bard (Google):

The author, Julie Zhuo, shares an example of how Facebook Photos, with fewer features and a less polished UI, overtook Flickr as the leading online photo-sharing platform.

Flickr vs. Facebook Photos

Back in the day, Flickr had all the latest photo-sharing features: cool filters, albums, and a beautiful UI.

They had teams and teams of engineers working on the product (Flickr) and countless man hours went into launching the latest feature and improving the tiniest detail.

According to Julie, the initial Facebook Photos UI looked objectively terrible, had almost 0 features, and had a tiny team working on it.

But, they knew their main selling point was social, so they introduced the ability to tag friends in photos.

So even though Facebook Photos was difficult to navigate, didn’t have any filters users can apply, and couldn’t even reliably upload dozens of photos at once, people flocked to Facebook Photos so they could tag their family and friends!

Result > Effort.

ChatGPT vs. Bard

(Disclaimer: I know nothing about Bard's development, and all opinions are my own)

This example made me think about the ongoing friendly rivalry between ChatGPT and Bard 😉.

First off, I have to say I 100% respect and admire Google’s (by extension our CEO Sundar Pichai’s) adherence to ethical AI development (source).

I personally believe that AI, like any tool, can be used for good or evil, so it would behoove the entire human race to develop AI ethically (for example guns are tools that can be used for good and evil, and firearm regulation works to ensure guns are mainly used for good).

At the same time, the realistic / practical side of me can’t help but wonder: Will people care that Google (Sundar) tried to do the right thing 10 years down the road if ChatGPT emerges victorious and becomes the dominant conversational AI?

Of course I am not saying that Microsoft / OpenAI are NOT adhering to AI Ethics, but they’re clearly more aggressive and willing to move faster.

If Microsoft had slowed down Bing's rollout for the "greater good," would we care today?

Will Result > Effort here as well?

But. Who knows! I have faith that Bard will improve and it’s still too soon to say who will emerge victorious.

Go Google 😉!

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