Bard Is Not Trained On ChatGPT: Google Denies It Relied On Microsoft’s AI For "Training Purposes"

Microsoft-funded OpenAI launched ChatGPT before Google's Bard. Although Google has been putting multiple resources behind its Bard Generative AI platform, it is seemingly trailing behind in comparison with ChatGPT. Now, rumors are afloat that Google plugged ChatGPT into Bard to train its chatbot to close the gap.

Google has countered that if it is lagging behind it does not mean the company secretly relied on a rival's product to train its own. The search giant has strongly denied allegations about using data from OpenAI's ChatGPT to train Bard.

Google Accused Of Plugging ChatGPT Data Into Bard

Google launched Bard, a rival to the OpenAI's ChatGPT platform recently. The Generative AI platform has had a bumpy ride, and now Google is being accused of using ChatGPT's data to train and improve Bard.

According to a report by The Information, Google has been training Bard using data from OpenAI's ChatGPT. The data was allegedly scraped from a website called ShareGPT.

NEW: Prominent Google AI researcher resigned after warning Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai and other senior execs that Bard—Google’s rival to ChatGPT—was *using data from ChatGPT*.

Big no-no in that world. https://t.co/a5NeclJPK5 w/ @jon_victor_ pic.twitter.com/YEZqEqpzPS

— Amir Efrati (@amir) March 29, 2023

The report relies on third-party allegations, claims The Information, but adds that it was a former Google AI researcher who reportedly spoke out against using that data.

The report claims a Google AI engineer named Jacob Devlin left the search giant to immediately join its rival OpenAI. Before leaving the company, he allegedly attempted to warn Google not to use that ChatGPT data as it would violate OpenAI's terms of service.

Moreover, Bard's answers derived from such data would look too similar. The publication claims that Google stopped using that data after his warnings. Google likely dumped that portion of the training to play it safe.

Did Google Use ChatGPT To Train Its Generative AI Platform?

It would be difficult to prove if Google relied on a competitor's product to train its exact rival. However, Google would certainly take numerous precautions to protect itself and its products from such accusations.

Incidentally, The Information has also claimed that Google is forcing its DeepMind division to help the Google Brain team beat OpenAI with a new initiative called Gemini. In other words, Google is putting in a lot of resources to bolster Bard. Needless to mention, Google already has far more user data and search data to plug into the Generative AI platform.