Richard Bard Popular Books

Richard Bard Biography & Facts

Gemini, formerly known as Bard, is a generative artificial intelligence chatbot developed by Google. Based on the large language model (LLM) of the same name and developed as a direct response to the meteoric rise of OpenAI's ChatGPT, it was launched in a limited capacity in March 2023 before expanding to other countries in May. It was previously based on PaLM, and initially the LaMDA family of large language models. LaMDA had been developed and announced in 2021, but it was not released to the public out of an abundance of caution. OpenAI's launch of ChatGPT in November 2022 and its subsequent popularity caught Google executives off-guard and sent them into a panic, prompting a sweeping response in the ensuing months. After mobilizing its workforce, the company launched Bard in February 2023, which took center stage during the 2023 Google I/O keynote in May and was upgraded to the Gemini LLM in December. Bard and Duet AI were unified under the Gemini brand in February 2024, coinciding with the launch of an Android app. Gemini has received lukewarm responses. It became the center of controversy in February 2024, when social media users reported that it was generating historically inaccurate images of historical figures as people of color, with conservative commentators decrying its alleged bias as "wokeness". Background In November 2022, OpenAI launched ChatGPT, a chatbot based on the GPT-3 family of large language models (LLMs). ChatGPT gained worldwide attention following its release, becoming a viral Internet sensation. Alarmed by ChatGPT's potential threat to Google Search, Google executives issued a "code red" alert, reassigning several teams to assist in the company's artificial intelligence (AI) efforts. Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google and parent company Alphabet, was widely reported to have issued the alert, but Pichai later denied this to The New York Times. In a rare move, Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who had stepped down from their roles as co-CEOs of Alphabet in 2019, were summoned to emergency meetings with company executives to discuss Google's response to ChatGPT. Brin requested access to Google's code in February 2023, for the first time in years.Earlier in 2021, the company had unveiled LaMDA, a prototype LLM, but did not release it to the public. When asked by employees at an all-hands meeting whether LaMDA was a missed opportunity for Google to compete with ChatGPT, Pichai and Google AI chief Jeff Dean stated that while the company had similar capabilities to ChatGPT, moving too quickly in that arena would represent a major "reputational risk" due to Google being substantially larger than OpenAI. In January 2023, Google sister company DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis hinted at plans for a ChatGPT rival, and Google employees were instructed to accelerate progress on a ChatGPT competitor, intensively testing "Apprentice Bard" and other chatbots. Pichai assured investors during Google's quarterly earnings investor call in February that the company had plans to expand LaMDA's availability and applications. History Announcement On February 6, 2023, Google announced Bard, a generative artificial intelligence chatbot powered by LaMDA. Bard was first rolled out to a select group of 10,000 "trusted testers", before a wide release scheduled at the end of the month. The project was overseen by product lead Jack Krawczyk, who described the product as a "collaborative AI service" rather than a search engine, while Pichai detailed how Bard would be integrated into Google Search. Reuters calculated that adding ChatGPT-like features to Google Search could cost the company $6 billion in additional expenses by 2024, while research and consulting firm SemiAnalysis calculated that it would cost Google $3 billion. The technology was developed under the codename "Atlas", with the name "Bard" in reference to the Celtic term for a storyteller and chosen to "reflect the creative nature of the algorithm underneath".Multiple media outlets and financial analysts described Google as "rushing" Bard's announcement to preempt rival Microsoft's planned February 7 event unveiling its partnership with OpenAI to integrate ChatGPT into its Bing search engine in the form of Bing Chat (later rebranded as Microsoft Copilot), as well as to avoid playing "catch-up" to Microsoft. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told The Verge: "I want people to know that we made them dance." Tom Warren of The Verge and Davey Alba of Bloomberg News noted that this marked the beginning of another clash between the two Big Tech companies over "the future of search", after their six-year "truce" expired in 2021; Chris Stokel-Walker of The Guardian, Sara Morrison of Recode, and analyst Dan Ives of investment firm Wedbush Securities labeled this an AI arms race between the two.After an "underwhelming" February 8 livestream in Paris showcasing Bard, Google's stock fell eight percent, equivalent to a $100 billion loss in market value, and the YouTube video of the livestream was made private. Many viewers also pointed out an error during the demo in which Bard gives inaccurate information about the James Webb Space Telescope in response to a query. Google employees criticized Pichai's "rushed" and "botched" announcement of Bard on Memgen, the company's internal forum, while Maggie Harrison of Futurism called the rollout "chaos". Pichai defended his actions by saying that Google had been "deeply working on AI for a long time", rejecting the notion that Bard's launch was a knee-jerk reaction. Alphabet chairman John Hennessy acknowledged that Bard was not fully product-ready, but expressed excitement at the technology's potential.A week after the Paris livestream, Pichai asked employees to dedicate two to four hours to dogfood testing Bard, while Google executive Prabhakar Raghavan encouraged employees to correct any errors Bard makes. 80,000 employees responded to Pichai's call to action. In the following weeks, Google employees roundly criticized Bard in internal messages, citing a variety of safety and ethical concerns and calling on company leaders not to launch the service. Seeking to prioritize keeping up with competitors, Google executives decided to proceed with the launch anyway, overruling an unsympathetic risk assessment report conducted by its AI ethics team. After Pichai suddenly laid off 12,000 employees later that month due to slowing revenue growth, remaining workers shared memes and snippets of their humorous exchanges with Bard soliciting its "opinion" on the layoffs. Google employees began testing a more sophisticated version of Bard with larger parameters, dubbed "Big Bard", in mid-March. Launch Google opened up early access for Bard on March 21, 2023, in a limited capacity, allowing users in the U.S. and UK to join a waitlist. Unlike Microsoft's approach with Bing Chat, Bard was launched as a standalone web application featuring a text box and a disclaimer that the chatbot "may di.... Discover the Richard Bard popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Richard Bard books.

Best Seller Richard Bard Books of 2024

  • Home at Grasmere synopsis, comments

    Home at Grasmere

    Dorothy Wordsworth & William Wordsworth

    A continuous text made up of extracts from Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal and a selection of her brother's poems. Dorothy Wordsworth kept her Journal 'because I shall give William pl...

  • Resurrecting Easter synopsis, comments

    Resurrecting Easter

    John Dominic Crossan & Sarah Crossan

    In this fourcolor illustrated journey that is part travelogue and part theological investigation, bestselling author and acclaimed Bible scholar John Dominic Crossan and his w...

  • The Friendly Orange Glow synopsis, comments

    The Friendly Orange Glow

    Brian Dear

    At a time when Steve Jobs was only a teenager and Mark Zuckerberg wasn’t even born, a group of visionary engineers and designerssome of them only high school studentsin the late 19...

  • Love Changes Everything synopsis, comments

    Love Changes Everything

    Rosie Harris

    Fourteenyearold Trixie Jackson hoped she had a future to look forward to. But when she is sacked from the local factory she is forced to work as a housekeeper for one of her father...

  • Birdwatchingwatching synopsis, comments

    Birdwatchingwatching

    Alex Horne

    Alex Horne is not a birdwatcher. But his dad is, so with the prospect of fatherhood looming on his own horizon, Alex decided there was no better time to really get to know both his...

  • The Legends of Christmas Treasury synopsis, comments

    The Legends of Christmas Treasury

    Dandi Daley Mackall & Lori Walburg

    This gorgeously illustrated Christmas collection of bestselling books in the Legends series from Zonderkidz explores the true stories behind many holiday traditions, including cand...

  • Jonathan Livingston Seagull synopsis, comments

    Jonathan Livingston Seagull

    Richard Bach

    Experience Jonathan Livingston Seagull’s timeless and inspirational message like never before in the new complete edition of this philosophical classic, perfect for readers of all ...

  • Jonathan Livingston Seagull synopsis, comments

    Jonathan Livingston Seagull

    Richard Bach

    Now, for the first time ever, a new complete edition ebook original of a timeless classic that includes the neverbeforepublished Part Four and Last Words by Richard Bach.

  • The Evolution of Beauty synopsis, comments

    The Evolution of Beauty

    Richard O. Prum

    A FINALIST FOR THE PULITZER PRIZENAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, SMITHSONIAN, AND WALL STREET JOURNALA major reimagining of how evol...

  • Bird Migration synopsis, comments

    Bird Migration

    Ian Newton

    The phenomenon of bird migration has fascinated people from time immemorial. The arrivals and departures of different species marked the seasons, heralding spring and autumn, and p...

  • Sweet Bird of Youth synopsis, comments

    Sweet Bird of Youth

    Tennessee Williams

    Now with an insightful new introduction, the author's original Foreword, and the oneact play, The Enemy: Time, on which Sweet Bird of Youth was based. Tennessee Williams knew how t...

  • Books of a Feather synopsis, comments

    Books of a Feather

    Kate Carlisle

    In this novel in the New York Times bestselling Bibliophile Mystery series, San Francisco bookrestoration expert Brooklyn Wainwright’s latest project is for the birds, but it may h...

  • A Diary of The Lady synopsis, comments

    A Diary of The Lady

    Rachel Johnson

    Rachel Johnson takes on the challenge of saving The Lady, Britain's oldest women's weekly, in her hilarious diary, A Diary of The Lady: My First Year and a Half as Editor.'The whol...

  • The Car Share synopsis, comments

    The Car Share

    Zoe Brisby

    'I LOVED THIS BOOK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!' Amazon reviewer 'Outrageously funny!' Amazon reviewer 'Extremely touching' Amazon reviewer 'An absolute delight' Netgalley reviewerThe PERFECT C...

  • The Brainrush Trilogy Box Set synopsis, comments

    The Brainrush Trilogy Box Set

    Richard Bard

    Over 2000 5Star Reviews! Called "A Terrifically Entertaining Thriller!" by Publishers Weekly, Book1 of the Brainrush series was named The Wall Street Journal #1 Bestselling Action/...

  • Animation Development synopsis, comments

    Animation Development

    David B. Levy

    Whether a novice curious about the cartoon production process, a visual arts student who has not yet experienced that big break, or a seasoned professional looking for valuable ins...

  • Lysistrata and Other Plays synopsis, comments

    Lysistrata and Other Plays

    Aristophanes & Alan H. Sommerstein

    The Acharnians/The Clouds/Lysistrata'We women have the salvation of Greece in our hands'Writing at a time of political and social crisis in Athens, the ancient Greek comic playwrig...

  • Echoes synopsis, comments

    Echoes

    Ellen Datlow

    The essential collection of beloved ghost stories, compiled by the editor who helped define the genreincluding stories from awardwinning, bestselling authors such as Joyce Carol Oa...

  • Brainrush synopsis, comments

    Brainrush

    Richard Bard

    Publishers Weekly heralded this first book in Richard Bard's Brainrush thriller series as "terrifically entertaining" and "inventive and compelling." It went on to earn The Wall St...

  • No Refuge synopsis, comments

    No Refuge

    Richard Bard

    Wall Street Journal #1 bestselling author Richard Bard, who entertained fans with his wildly successful Brainrush thriller series, now unleashes the heartpounding series finale in ...

  • Mama Black Widow synopsis, comments

    Mama Black Widow

    Iceberg Slim

    “Iceberg Slim breaks down some of the coldest, capitalist concepts I’ve ever heard in my life.” Dave Chappelle, from his Netflix special The Bird RevelationThe most gritty and real...

  • Fiona the Hippo Activity Kit synopsis, comments

    Fiona the Hippo Activity Kit

    Zondervan

    Fiona the Hippo Activity Kit is a companion to Fiona the Hippo illustrated by Richard Cowdrey. This guide can be utilized in the classroom, in a home school setting, or by parents ...

  • The Man Who Made Mark Twain Famous synopsis, comments

    The Man Who Made Mark Twain Famous

    Cappy McGarr & Ken Burns

    In The Man Who Made Mark Twain Famous, Cappy McGarr shares how he  became an Emmynominated cocreator/executive producer of the Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for American Hum...

  • Against All Odds synopsis, comments

    Against All Odds

    Richard Bard

    The highly anticipated series finale to the #1 Wall Street Journal bestseller Publishers Weekly called “a terrifically entertaining thriller!”In this conclusion to Richard Bard’s p...

  • Commentary on the Torah synopsis, comments

    Commentary on the Torah

    Richard Elliott Friedman

    In this groundbreaking and insightful new commentary, one of the world's leading biblical scholars unveils the unity and continuity of the Torah for the modern reader. Richard Elli...

  • Brainchild synopsis, comments

    Brainchild

    Richard Bard

    The first three books in #1 Wall Street Journal bestselling author Richard Bard’s Brainrush series garnered over 2,000 Amazon 5Star reviews, setting the stage for the continuing st...

  • When Things Get Dark synopsis, comments

    When Things Get Dark

    Ellen Datlow, Joyce Carol Oates, Josh Malerman, Carmen Maria Machado & Paul Tremblay

    The Stoker Awardwinning chilling anthology of 18 short stories in tribute to the genius of Shirley Jackson, collecting today’s best horror writers. Featuring Joyce Carol Oates, Jos...

  • Sea-Birds synopsis, comments

    Sea-Birds

    James Fisher & R. M. Lockley

    SeaBirds introduces us to the seabirds of the North Atlantic, an ocean in which about half the world seabird species have been seen at one time or another. This edition is exclusiv...

  • Survivors synopsis, comments

    Survivors

    Terry Nation

    Survivors of a global plague battle for life on an empty planet. A gripping vision of a postapocalyptic world...'A fine piece of British postapocalyptic fiction' 'Nation's novel is...

  • Pimp synopsis, comments

    Pimp

    Iceberg Slim

    “[In Pimp], Iceberg Slim breaks down some of the coldest, capitalist concepts I’ve ever heard in my life.” Dave Chappelle, from his Nextflix special The Bird RevelationPimp sent sh...

  • Beyond Judgment synopsis, comments

    Beyond Judgment

    Richard Bard

    With Publishers Weekly heralding the first book in his Brainrush thriller series as “terrifically entertaining” and “inventive and compelling,” and Book2 holding a death grip on th...

  • Supreme Court Decisions synopsis, comments

    Supreme Court Decisions

    Richard Beeman & Jay M. Feinman

    A selection of the landmark Supreme Court decisions that have shaped American societyPenguin presents a series of six portable, accessible, andabove allessential reads from America...

  • Racing for the Bomb synopsis, comments

    Racing for the Bomb

    Robert S. Norris

    In September 1942, Colonel Leslie R. Groves was given the job of building the atomic bomb. As a career officer in the Army Corps of Engineers, Groves had overseen hundreds of milit...

  • The Enemy of My Enemy synopsis, comments

    The Enemy of My Enemy

    Richard Bard

    The Enemy of My Enemy was the #1 Top Rated (best reviewed) Action/Adventure for 10 straight months....Bestselling author Richard Bard returns with his highly rated Brainrush thrill...

  • The Early Birds synopsis, comments

    The Early Birds

    Laurie Graham

    The Early Birds is the touching and funny followup to The Future Homemakers of America. 'Funny, heartwarming and a real treat. I would recommend it to anyone!' Katie Fforde'Wit and...

  • Sentient synopsis, comments

    Sentient

    Jackie Higgins

    Perfect for fans of The Soul of an Octopus and The Genius of Birds, this “masterpiece of science and nature writing” (The Washington Post) explores how we process the world around ...

  • Gifted, a Brainrush Novella synopsis, comments

    Gifted, a Brainrush Novella

    Richard Bard

    From #1 Wall Street Journal bestselling author comes a heartpounding adventure of love, loyalty, and survival.A gifted 7yearold boy and his teen siblings are ripped from their peac...

  • Shakespeare Basics for Grown-Ups synopsis, comments

    Shakespeare Basics for Grown-Ups

    E. Foley & B. Coates

    An essential guide to Shakespeare, from the international bestselling authors of Homework for GrownUps The Bard was so incredibly prolific that even most Shakespeare scholars would...

  • A Very Fiona Christmas Activity Kit synopsis, comments

    A Very Fiona Christmas Activity Kit

    Zondervan

    A Very Fiona Christmas Activity Kit is a companion to A Very Fiona Christmas illustrated by Richard Cowdrey. This guide can be utilized in the classroom, in a home school setting, ...