Chatbot Bard to be available in Europe soon

Google is responding to the success of ChatGPT, the text robot developed by OpenAI, with Bard, which was initially made available to select users in the U.S. and U.K. two months ago. As of Wednesday, the search engine giant is offering the AI in 180 countries without a waiting list, though one significant region is missing: the 450 million people in the European Union cannot currently access Bard or the company's other generative AI technologies.

Rumors and speculation for Bard's unavailability in the European Union followed the announcement Wednesday at Google I/O 2023, with speculation that EU privacy and online security laws, as well as negotiations over the AI Act, a regulation to regulate artificial intelligence in the EU, may play a role.

Further confusion was caused by the fact that one can see from a Google document that the AI is curiously said to already be available in individual European locations. These include the uninhabited volcanic island "Bouvet Island" in the South Atlantic as well as the Åland Islands, an autonomous region of Finland, and the Norwegian regions of Jan Mayen and Spitsbergen.

Fears have been raised that the use of AI technologies such as Bard may not be possible in Europe for some time. However, Google CEO Sundar Pichai confirmed at the I/O developer conference that Bard will be brought to the European Union. Pichai emphasized the importance of European countries such as Germany, France, Italy and Spain in launching new Google products.

The exact reasons for the delay in bringing Bard to Europe have been unclear. However, Google will work to adapt Bard to local norms and regulations to ensure the launch goes smoothly. The Bard chatbot was initially released to select users in the U.S. and U.K. two months ago. Like ChatGPT, the AI system can answer queries and represents an advancement in artificial intelligence in that, unlike ChatGPT, up-to-date information from the Internet is available in the training data.

Some reports even missed the fact that the bot is also not available in Canada, where lawmakers recently passed the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act (AIDA) to advance the regulation of AI. AIDA establishes guidelines for the assessment, risk management, monitoring, data anonymization, transparency, and record-keeping practices of AI systems. In addition, AIDA provides for penalties in the form of fines, which can be as high as 3% of a company's global revenue or $10 million.

With Bard, Google is countering the success of startup OpenAI's ChatGPT text robot. Two months ago, Bard was initially released to select users in the US and UK. The AI system works as a chatbot and can answer queries in fully generated sentences.

It remains to be seen when exactly Bard will be available in Europe and how Google will adapt it to European standards and regulations. The exact details about the introduction of Bard in Europe will be announced by Google at a later date.