Much like its Search Engine Experience (SGE), Google limited its Bard AI to users 18 and older. But after opening SGE up to teens, it's now it's rolling out Bard to kids as young as 13 in most countries. Along the way, Bard will gain new capabilities aimed at learning.
How old you need to be to access Bard depends on where you live. Google will unlock Bard for any teen who meets the minimum age requirement to manage their own Google Account. For many countries, that's 13, but in some instances, you'll need to be older. But starting tomorrow, Google is opening up Bard access to any teen meeting that minimum requirement.
Google envisions teens using Bard to help in the classroom and with learning. A teen could ask Bard to help think of ideas for a science project or to help them learn more about a specific period in history for a report. The idea is supposed to be that Bard won't do all the work for you but give you a hand in generating ideas or finding facts.
Along with that comes new math capabilities. While Bard could theoretically just provide the answer to an equation, Google enhanced the teen version to do more. Before you get the final solution, Bard will walk through the steps required to solve a math problem. Bard is still providing the solution, so there might be room for improvement if this is aimed at learning. But as the new math feature is available to anyone, getting that final answer may be helpful to parents struggling to assist with math homework.
Bard can also help with data visualization and create charts from data or tables included in a prompt. Provide Bard with a list of volunteer hours worked, and it can make a bar chart, for instance. Google suggests teens could also ask for writing tips when crafting a class speech or help research universities for college applications.
Google, naturally, promises it's approaching AI "responsibly." The company says it consulted child safety and development experts and worked with the Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI) as well. "FOSI's research found that most teens and parents expect that GenAI skills will be an important part of their future," according to Stephen Balkam, FOSI founder CEO, who says Google is taking a "thoughtful approach to expanding Bard access to teens."
Whether or not schools will accept classroom work crafted with help from an AI chatbots (Bard, ChatGPT, or otherwise) is another question entirely. Determining when AI is even used is getting harder every day.
