Google has come under scrutiny after reports emerged claiming that its AI chatbot, Bard, was trained using data from OpenAI‘s ChatGPT, scraped from a website called ShareGPT. However, the tech giant has flatly denied the allegations, stating that Bard was not trained on any data from ChatGPT or ShareGPT.

The allegations were first reported by The Information, which also claimed that a former Google AI engineer, Jacob Devlin, left the company to join OpenAI after attempting to warn Google not to use ChatGPT data, which he claimed would violate OpenAI’s terms of service and make Bard’s answers too similar to OpenAI’s.

Despite these allegations, Google remains firm in its stance, stating that Bard was not trained using data from ChatGPT or ShareGPT. Chris Pappas, a spokesperson for Google, said, “Bard is not trained on any data from ShareGPT or ChatGPT.”

However, the controversy surrounding Bard’s training data has sparked discussions about Google’s commitment to developing its AI chatbots. The Information also reported that Google has launched a new initiative called Gemini, which aims to improve the performance of its AI chatbots by bringing together its DeepMind division and Google Brain team.

The move to involve DeepMind in the development of its chatbots is significant, as DeepMind has been trying to establish more independence from Google for several years. It suggests that Google is keen to turn around the fortunes of its AI chatbots and is willing to tap into all available resources to achieve this.