Google has announced that its Bard chatbot now powered by the Gemini Pro model is now available in Nigeria as it expands the service globally starting from February 1, 2024.
The company noted that the updated Bard now comes with support for over 40 languages including Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Hindi, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Tamil, Telugu, and Malayalam.
In December, Google launched its new generative AI models with flagship Gemini Ultra, “lite” Gemini Pro, and Gemini Nano, which is designed to run on devices like the Pixel 8. At the same time, the company updated Bard with Gemini Pro for conversations in English.
Google did not quantify the improvements but said that the chatbot will be better in terms of understanding and summarizing content, reasoning, brainstorming, writing, and planning.
Image creation tool
With the new update, Google said Bard users can now generate images with the AI tool in English in most countries around the world, at no cost.
- “This new capability is powered by our updated Imagen 2 model, which is designed to balance quality and speed, delivering high-quality, photorealistic outputs. Just type in a description — like “create an image of a dog riding a surfboard” — and Bard will generate custom, wide-ranging visuals to help bring your idea to life,” the company said in a statement released on Thursday.
Measures against abuse
With the realization such a tool with capabilities to create images could be abused by users, Google said it has put measures in place to prevent its misuse.
- “Consistent with our AI Principles, image generation was designed with responsibility in mind. For instance, to ensure there’s a clear distinction between visuals created with Bard and original human artwork, Bard uses SynthID to embed digitally identifiable watermarks into the pixels of generated images.
- “Our technical guardrails and investments in the safety of training data seek to limit violent, offensive or sexually explicit content. Additionally, we apply filters designed to avoid the generation of images of named people. We’ll continue investing in new techniques to improve the safety and privacy protections of our models,” the company said.
Pushing ahead with top rivals like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google in October last year infused Google Assistant with Bard’s AI capabilities so users can do things like plan a trip or make a grocery list. In November, it opened up Bard in English to teenagers with restrictions that prevent Bard from generating unsafe content such as illegal or age-gated substances.
