Hong Kong not a part of '180 countries' which have Google’s ChatGPT rival Bard

Google on Wednesday announced that the wait list for Bard, which was launched in March this year, has been removed.

The AI chatbot, which people in the United Kingdom and the United States earlier had limited access to, has now been opened up for 180 countries around the world.

The announcement was made by Google in its I/O developer conference where it also stated its plans to integrate it into search after a similar move was made by Microsoft with ChatGPT.

However, the complete list of territories where Bard has been made available was not published by Google, but like ChatGPT, the AI chatbot cannot be used by people in Hong Kong currently.

When attempts were made by people to access the service on Thursday, they received a message saying that “Bard isn’t currently supported in your country. Stay tuned!”

In a blog post which stated about Bard's expanded service on Wednesday, Google stated that more territories and countries are “coming soon”.

When quizzed about the absence of Bard in Hong Kong, the plans were not explained by Google for specific markets.

“Bard is in its early days – and given how new the technology is, we want to roll it out thoughtfully and responsibly,” said a Google spokeswoman in an emailed statement.

Microsoft-supported OpenAI, which is the creator of the controversial ChatGPT, has also not made its services available in Hong Kong. The company has a list of 163 markets where the AI chatbot is available.

Most of the countries not listed among the markets of ChatGPT are either sanctioned or the nations which exhibit tight internet controls like Russia, Iran, North Korea and China.

WATCH | Bard : Google's AI powered chatbot coming to 180 countries

However, both ChatGPT and Bard can be accessed by people through virtual private networks (VPNs), although extra steps have been taken by OpenAI to stop this by blocking a few VPN connections and creating a requirement of a phone number to create an account.

Bard is a rival to Open AI's ChatGPT. Currently, Google is racing to catch up with Microsoft which has moved forward to integrate ChatGPT-like powers in different arrays of its products, which includes the Bing search engine.

The technology in Bard will provide features like filling in the text to help write emails and suggesting ideas for creating artwork by looking into a picture of available supplies.

Bard will also be able to hold human-like conversations and can be used for creative collaboration, like generating software code or creating a caption for a photo.

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