Model
lamda
LaMDA (Language Model for Dialogue Applications) was a conversational model Google previewed at its I/O conference in 2021, trained specifically on dialogue to hold open-ended conversations rather than to score on benchmarks. Google did not release it publicly, and it became widely known in 2022 when one of the company's engineers claimed it was sentient — a claim Google and outside experts rejected. Its dialogue work fed into Bard, the chatbot Google launched in early 2023 in response to ChatGPT.
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Google opens Bard to a public waitlist
Six weeks after its announcement and stock-price stumble, Bard opened to waitlisted users in the US and UK, still running on a lightweight LaMDA and with no fixed release date elsewhere.
Models & capabilities
Google announces Bard
Announced as a lightweight version of LaMDA for trusted testers; two days later a factual error in Google's own promotional ad wiped roughly $100bn off Alphabet's market value.
Models & capabilities · Labs & people
Google opens LaMDA to the public through AI Test Kitchen
Access rolled out gradually via a waitlist to an Android app, arriving weeks after Google fired engineer Blake Lemoine for publicly claiming the model was sentient.
Models & capabilities
A Google engineer claims LaMDA is sentient
Blake Lemoine published transcripts arguing the model was a person and was placed on leave for breaching confidentiality; Google called the claim unfounded.
Culture & impact · Labs & people
Google announces LaMDA and TPU v4 at I/O
A single TPU v4 pod combined 4,096 chips for over one exaflop of compute, while LaMDA was pitched on open-ended conversation rather than benchmark scores.
Models & capabilities · Compute & infrastructure