Dear Commons Community,

Erik Ofgang, a senior staff writer for Tech & Learning, had an article yesterday comparing ChatGPT Plus and Google’s Bard. 

While ChatGPT has dominated the conversation on artificial intelligence since its debut in Fall 2022,  it is not alone in the artificial intelligence large language model game. Google recently unveiled its AI writer Bard and OpenAI, which makes ChatGPT, released a more advanced version of the technology called GPT-4 that the company is using to power ChatGPT Plus, the subscription version of ChatGPT. 

Mr. Ofgang posed five assignments to each of the two AI platforms and presented his opinion on the results,  Here is a sample of the responses for Literature, Science and Mathematics questions.

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Writing a Book Report  

My Prompt: Please write a book report on To Kill a Mockingbird for my 9th grade English class

Winner: ChatGPT Plus

Ofgang’s take: Both ChatGPT and Bard did a decent job of recounting the novel’s story in a standard if not particularly deep or inspiring manner. However, ChatGPT Plus seemed to make more of an effort to format its response into a book review format than Bard did and had a slightly longer response, all of which gave it a slight edge. Of course, a counter argument can be made that the AI that does less to help a student potentially cheat is the real winner in this round, but if I’m judging solely by book report quality, ChatGPT’s was a bit stronger.

The Beginning of ChatGPT Plus’ Response: 

Title: To Kill a Mockingbird

Author: Harper Lee

Published: 1960

Genre: Fiction, Coming-of-Age, Social Injustice

Introduction:

“To Kill a Mockingbird” is a classic American novel written by Harper Lee. The book was published in 1960 and has since become one of the most widely read and studied books in American literature. Set in the fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama, during the 1930s, the story follows young Scout Finch as she navigates life and learns important lessons about morality, empathy, and justice. The novel explores themes of racism, social inequality, and the nature of human goodness….

The Beginning of Bard’s Response:

To Kill a Mockingbird is a novel by Harper Lee that was published in 1960. It was instantly successful and has become a classic of modern American literature. The novel is set in the fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama, during the Great Depression. The story is told by Jean Louise (“Scout”) Finch, an intelligent and precocious girl who ages from six to nine years old during the course of the novel. She and her brother, Jeremy Atticus (“Jem”), are raised by their widowed father, Atticus Finch, a well-respected lawyer…

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Explaining Black Holes 

My Prompt: Can you explain the physics of black holes to me?

The Winner: Bard

Ofgang’s take: Once again, ChatGPT’s answer was a longer and more in depth. It also definitely had more stylistic flair, however, Bard cited its source, a major improvement over ChatGPT Plus’ unsourced answer. I’m not knowledgeable enough about the actual answer to this question to assess each one’s scientific quality, but evaluating both AI chatbots as resource tools for students, it’s clear that the tool that cites its source wins.

Bard’s Response: 

Sure. A black hole is a region of space where gravity is so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape. The boundary of no escape is called the event horizon. Although it has a great effect on the fate and circumstances of an object crossing it, it has no locally detectable features according to general relativity. In many ways, a black hole acts like an ideal black body, as it reflects no light.

Black holes of stellar mass form when massive stars collapse at the end of their life cycle. After a black hole has formed, it can grow by absorbing mass from its surroundings. Supermassive black holes of millions of solar masses (M☉) may form by absorbing other stars and merging with other black holes. There is consensus that supermassive black holes exist in the centres of most galaxies. The presence of a black hole can be inferred through its interaction with other matter and with electromagnetic radiation such as visible light.

The physics of black holes is still not fully understood. However, we do know that they are incredibly massive and have a strong gravitational pull. This gravitational pull is so strong that it can even bend light. Black holes are also thought to be very hot, and they emit a lot of radiation.

Black holes are one of the most fascinating objects in the universe. They are still a mystery to us, but we are learning more about them all the time.

Sources: 1. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole

Start of ChatGPT Plus’ Response: 

Black holes are astronomical objects with an extremely strong gravitational pull, so powerful that nothing, not even light, can escape from it once it crosses a certain boundary called the event horizon. They are formed when a massive star reaches the end of its life cycle and collapses under its own gravity.

Here’s a simplified explanation of black holes:

1) Formation: Black holes form from the remnants of massive stars. When a star at least three times the mass of our Sun exhausts its nuclear fuel, it can no longer produce the outward pressure needed to counteract its own gravity. As a result, the core of the star collapses, and the outer layers are expelled in a supernova explosion. If the core’s mass is large enough, the gravitational pull becomes so strong that it continues to collapse until it forms a black hole.

2) Anatomy: A black hole has three main components: the event horizon, the singularity, and the accretion disk.
a) Event Horizon: This is the boundary around the black hole beyond which nothing can escape, including light. The event horizon is also sometimes called the “point of no return.”
b) Singularity: At the center of the black hole is the singularity, a point where all the mass of the black hole is concentrated, and gravity becomes infinitely strong. Our current understanding of physics breaks down at the singularity, so it remains a topic of ongoing research.
c) Accretion Disk: Material, such as gas and dust, that comes near a black hole but doesn’t fall directly into it can form a spinning disk around the black hole called an accretion disk. As the material in the disk spirals inward, it heats up and emits radiation, making the disk visible to astronomers….

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Helping With Math Homework  

My Prompt: 5a² – 6b² when a = 3 and b = -2 is equal to:

Winner: Tie

Ofgang’s take: I got this question from CueMath.com and both Bard and ChatGPT Plus got the answer correct and did a nice job of explaining  it. ChatGPT Plus’ answer was characteristically more in-depth except this time it didn’t seem deeper to me and an argument could be made for Bard’s more succinct answer.

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Mr. Ofgang’s conclusion was that both tools were up to various tasks, but found that ChatGPT Plus consistently provided more depth while Bard was better at being succinct and citing sources.

I am on the wait list for Bard but I look forward to comparing the two for my own courses in the near future.

I thank my student, Rachel Carvajal, for alerting me to this article.

Tony