During Google I/O, it was announced that Bard is now launched in English in 180 countries. But why are Canada and Europe absent?

15.05.23 – 20:00

Google was rumored to have been pretty stressed out about ChatGPT and the fact that Microsoft quickly implemented it into its Bing search service. So they quickly launched their own chatbot Bard, but perhaps a little too hastily when it looked stupid at first. It was therefore only available for a small test audience. But since then, Google has been working around the clock.

At the main Google I/O enterprise developer conference, one of the elements of the program was to talk about the news with Bard and about AI development in general. Similar to when ChatGPT took a big step forward with the upgrade to GPT-4, Bard now has PaLM 2 under the hood. It’s an LLM (Large Language Model) that Google says can code, translate, and “reason” better than GPT-4.

It sounded good, and it got even better when Google announced in big print that Bard would now be launching in 180 countries. Admittedly only in English to begin with, but still. However, it didn’t take long for users to report that they couldn’t use Bard at all. After going through the list of supported countries, something was revealed that Google hid during the presentation. No European nation is allowed access to Bard. Nor Canada!

Strangely enough, Google doesn’t say a word about why. But maybe one can get a hint from this bland answer on the website Android Authority:

Bard will soon be able to support all 40 major languages, and while we have not finalized the timeline for expansion plans, we will roll it out gradually and responsibly, and continue to be a helpful and committed partner. for regulators as we navigate these new technologies together.

Can we imagine that legal considerations are the reason why Google assures that it “will continue to be a useful and committed partner for the authorities”? In fact, Canada recently introduced legislation to regulate artificial intelligence that requires companies to perform risk assessments, have a risk management plan, monitor, anonymize data, log events, and be transparent about how they handle this. The EU is having similar discussions as GDPR compliance continues to come into question, as well as Italy banning ChatGPT last month for the same reason.

The website Winfuture made it easy and asked Bard himself, who gave the following answer:

Google is working hard to comply with the GDPR, and once it does, Bard will be available in EU countries. In addition to GDPR, other factors may delay the availability of Bard in EU countries. For example, Google may need to obtain additional licenses or certifications to operate Bard in these countries.

However, it should be clarified that the chatbot is not a spokesperson, it only summarizes what others have already written online.