Google's AI Bard can now help you write and debug code
Search engine giant Google has now equipped its artificial intelligence (AI) model Bard with the ability to write and debug code, Reuters reported. Increasing the scope of services provided by Bard is important for Google as it tries to catch up with Microsoft-backed OpenAI.
ChatGPT took the internet by storm when it was released in November last year, and Microsoft has been aggressively pushing to incorporate AI into its products. One such attempt is the revival of its search engine Bing which hopes to displace Google's dominance in the area.
Strengthening its AI will be key for Google to ensure that it does not lose its leadership position in the foreseeable future, and that would also mean equipping Bard with skills that GPT-4 has, such as writing code.
What can Google Bard do with code?
According to the Reuters report, Google has equipped Bard to write code in 20 programming languages which include the likes of C++, Java, and Python, among others. Additionally, the AI can also provide explanations for the snippets of code, a tool that would be extremely helpful for beginners.
Since Bard now has some level of understanding of the output a piece of code creates, it can also help in resolving issues with the code. All the user needs to do is type, "This code didn’t work, please fix it," for Bard to get to work again and make it work as desired.

Google cautions users that currently, Bard might give out incomplete bits of code that will need to be double-checked prior to them being used. Additionally, the tool can be tasked with creating more efficient or faster working code with a simple request like "Could you make that code faster?"
Interesting Engineering has previously reported how OpenAI has a similar tool called Codex which can help coders in their programming tasks. Microsoft has added this feature to GitHub, the repository for code, and dubbed it Copilot for its ability to write code alongside the user. Such tools are largely intended to help users save time on repetitive tasks involved in writing code rather than create something new from scratch altogether. Also, CoPilot cannot debug the code it has written.
While this is a good tool to add to Bard, Google also needs to unveil some unique AI tools that the Microsoft-OpenAI partnership has not yet tapped into if it intends to compete with them in the future. If Google spends time and resources apeing OpenAI's products alone, the AI race between the two might as well be declared over right now.