I'm surprised they got rid of the Bard name. It struck me as a really smart choice since a Bard is someone who said things, and it's an old/archaic enough word to not already be in a zillion other names.
Gemini, on the other hand, doesn't strike me as particularly relevant (except that perhaps it's a twin of ChatGPT?), and there are other companies with the same name. EDIT: I can see the advantage of picking a name that, like "Google" also starts with a "G".
Just as one data point, bard.com redirects to some other company (bd.com), whereas Gemini.com is a company by that name.
I'd be curious on the scuttlebutt on how this decision was reached!
I'm not surprised -- I thought Bard was terrible branding. It's all associations with Shakespeare and poetry and medieval England, and as much as I might personally enjoy those, it's extremely backwards-looking, with archaic connotations. Also it sounds close to "beard" -- hairy stuff.
Gemini sounds like the space program -- futuristic, a leap for mankind. It's got all the right emotional associations. It's a constellation, it's out in space, it's made of stars. Plus it contains "gem" which feels fancy, valuable, refined.
I'm not saying Gemini is the best name I've ever heard or even close to it, but it feels 100% appropriate, in a way that Bard does not.
Gem-in-eye? Ouch!
Also, Gemini was appropriate for the space program because (a) there were two astronauts in the capsule and (b) because of the constellation, "aiming for the stars" and all that. For the Google project however I can't come up with a plausible explanation - Google doesn't even try to give a reason for the name either.
I mean it makes sense to me. The AI is your digital assistant. It's a relationship between two minds, man and machine.
I see that angle, but those two things are complementary, not identical. It's not a clone of me — it's something that I ask questions of because I don't know the answer. If it were pitched as a bot that would draft email responses for me automatically, then maybe I would see it fitting better as my 'twin'.
I think you're reading too much into what a twin is. It's not a copy! Real-life twins ask each other questions all the time, because just because one of them learns something doesn't mean the other one automatically learns it too via mind-meld.
I'm not saying all twins are identical. But they are all of the same species. What I want in an assistant is that it is very different from me. It has perfect memory and knows lots of things that I don't know.
You're using an overly strict definition of the word and over-interpreting it to boot. Consider this definition:
It sounds like you're thinking of the adjective form of the word, which is why you are thinking of a much broader definition. I was using the noun form, since Gemini are noun twins.
If we were talking about the word "twins" in the abstract, the broader definition might make sense. But we aren't — we're talking about Gemini. If that conjures up general notions of "matched-ness" for you, that's great. When I think about Gemini, I think about mythological twins. I don't think about corresponding parts that complement each other.
For a product name to be successful, it should appeal to a wide range of people. If I'm way out in left field on this one, perhaps they've found a great name. But I would point out that my comment, which is critical of the name change, is the very first comment in the entire thread. I would take that as evidence that most people don't see the name and think "oh, it's like complementary items, like my brain and the AI".
To be clear, I was shocked to see this comment above all substantive discussion of the new release. I would have thought it would have been buried under examples of ways in which Ultra is better/worse than some other LLM.
Honestly, Google is called "Google". ChatGPT is called "ChatGPT". Maybe it'll be a joke, maybe people won't think about what they're calling it after 30 seconds.
This conversation is taking itself a bit too seriously for what's drifting into Pepsi logo gravitational pull territory, though.
Sure. Everyone has an opinion on what color the bike shed should be, too.
From The Decoder: >In April 2023, Alphabet announced the merger of its two AI units, Google Brain and Deepmind. The resulting Google Deepmind was to focus on developing large multimodal AI models. It was a big move that showed how much pressure Google was under due to the massive success of ChatGPT. Jeff Dean, head of Google Brain until the merger with Deepmind, became the new merger's chief scientist, with a direct line to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai. Dean now explains that the name Gemini, Latin for "twin," is directly related to the merger.
From Jeff Dean's Twitter:
The Decoder article - https://the-decoder.com/how-googles-gemini-ai-model-got-its-...
Jeff Dean's Twitter Post - https://twitter.com/JeffDean/status/1733580264859926941
Bicameral would have been better, IMO
It's more on the nose but probably less right from a marketing perspective.
During Project Gemini, it was pronounced it Gem-in-ee.
https://youtu.be/JeAUx6-vSmc?feature=shared
Which is closer to the proper Latin pronunciation (which would have a hard G although ecclesiastical Latin would have a soft G).
Interesting. I don’t like the name at all because it makes me think of people who take horoscopes seriously. You’re impression seems to be untainted by that which is nice
Same here, I think I'm more on your side which I guess goes to show how all over the map subjective reactions can be.
But first of all, I thought the whole idea of alphabet was a kind of cheeky way of telling the world you had a portfolio of projects, one for each letter, And B is for bard would be perfect, and Gemini is about as incompatible as it gets given that g is claimed.
I also find it bizarre to say that association with Shakespeare, or the association with whimsical poetic expression is in any sense a bad thing. It's a clean, simple, fun name that's remarkably short and surprisingly unclaimed. And I don't even strongly associate it specifically with Shakespeare, that's like a background association as far as I'm concerned.
I think perhaps the real talk here is that Bard was kind of an emergency response to chat GPT, but also people have some pretty specific and distinct experiences with Bard and have an idea of its quality, and Google just needs to turn the page on the perception of Bard.
The name bard is tainted by ridicule.
Besides that, personally I always thought it was a bad fit. It sounds old and outdated to those that do not know what the word means and wrong to those that do: a bard sings songs and maybe does poetry.
A bard does not help or assist you. A bard can be a creative person, but is generally not considered especially wise or knowledgeable. A bard is also always a man, which does not gel very well with modern sensibilities.
I can see why they dropped it.
Ugh...such an Aquarian thing to say. /s
Funny, my mind goes to NASA and the Gemini program.
When I think of Gemini, I think of a digital twin, something which can work with what I have on Google, think like me, or do the things the way I do.
Bard was nice, too, but it was like another thing, separated from me. Gemini sounds more cooperative.
spoken like a true Sagittarius
The alliteration beauty of Google Gemini cannot be denied.
Only if you pronounce it with a hard G, like in GIF.
Or have I been mispronouncing ‘Google’ all this time?
We all say J-oogle, but only when you're not around.
Great, now its not fun anymore.
jif?
I think alliteration applies to pronunciation, not orthography. For example, "ceaseless sun" is an alliteration even though it is spelled with both C and S. I wonder if there is a word for the orthographic counterpart, which you describe here (and which I note in another comment, as the benefit of both starting with G).
Though I agree bard isn't the best name, gemini is a worse name.
Bard has connotations, but by it's self it makes one think of a person that talks well.
WTF is gemini? It is a twin, but this is a singular product. Beyond that it's just generic. It doesn't tell you what it does at all.
Not with regular people. Bard is just "old" to them.
Think of the syllables. Copilot. Gemini. They need to be close to the market leader on a subconscious level.
When the competition is called "ChatGPT", maybe the naming isn't as important to normal people as we think?
Big idea but maybe they should have just named it Google
They kind of didn't name their OK Google assistant anything other than "Assistant". What about ChatGooglePT?
LOL, maybe I'm a bit jaded but Gemini sounds like some kind of cryptocurrency scam.
I hear echoes of astrology, personally, and not good ones.
When I read new thread responses, I briefly thought that I wrote[1] your reply and was confused lol. Great minds think alike. I feel vindicated about my weird opinion.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39306764
Ha, that's too funny -- I missed yours somehow or else I would have commented underneath it.
Gemini as a zodiac sign: "Smart, passionate, and dynamic, Gemini is characterized by the Twins, Castor and Pollux, and is known for having two different sides they can display to the world. Expert communicators, Gemini is the chameleon of the Zodiac"
Which is pretty on the nose for an AI project. A chameleon with two different sides (good/evil?) and expert communicator
80 years ago, sure.
It's a hint about how to use it if you want to circumvent the censorship.
This. It creeps women out. It's difficult enough getting them to use an AI tool.
My wife commented on this when she saw it in Google News. Something about some dude in a medieval pub.
That isn't at all the association I have with that word. I think of the astrological sign instead, so to me the association is pseudoscience and a hint of being bipolar.
This sort of thing is part of what makes naming things difficult. You can't count on any name having the same connotations to everyone.
even though i liked Bard, it is only one (extra) letter away from being the word "bad". "Bard" is cooler imo but "Gemini" starts with "G", has "gem" (a rare, valuable thing) in it, and sounds pretty. Personally i don't care at all either way though.
I'm sure "Bard" was primarily a Shakespeare reference (The Bard of Avon, frequently just The Bard), and I liked it too. An appropriate name for a technology that's all about language.
Gemini sounds cool and sci-fi though, and maybe it's a bit easier to localize since it's just straight Latin.
To me, bard just sounds phonetically gross. Reminds me of “fart” or “beard.” It calls to mind medieval stuff: the Monte Python mud scene, Skyrim’s most annoying NPCs, plucking lutes. But Gemini? That sounds like a legendary space mission; this collective engineering push against the boundaries of human knowledge.
I do not have refined tastes. My b.
Trying saying it non-rhotically, like a British television presenter
Sounds like "bot", which is good from a topical perspective, but bad from a false-positive perspective.
If you really give it some gusto ("baaaaaaahuhhd") nobody will confuse them :-)
That sounds closer to a working class Massachusetts pronunciation.
Yes, just in time for a Super Bowl commercial: Smaht Bahd
WTF? Do people normally think about words in this way, utterly divorced from their meaning?
Yes, people that can hear similarities between words do that.
Understand that this is not condesending in any way, as I do not have this experience.
If there are these "Feelings" around these words, how is any sentence correctly taken at face value. How does one communicate to these people the direct and correct meaning of the terms used.
For example, sentence sounds like seance, do they feel like i'm asking the spirits of the dead ?
Correct sounds like wrecked, do they assume that everything is broken in the above sentence.
Is communication with fraught with unknown minefields of unintended emotions and misundestandings ?
Not at all, these "unintended" emotions can be ignored for the most part. But if you ask me, then google is in my foreigner ear one of the stupidest brand name I know of due to its phonetical ressemblance with some words from my native tongue.
Barti the only bard to me
When I hear "bard", I think of this guy from the Asterix comics first: https://asterix.com/en/portfolio/cacofonix/ - who is notorious for getting on everyone's nerves with his constant singing.
I remember when the iPad was announced, and everyone said that people would only ever think of feminine products when they heard the name. It might have been true for a few months, but now it seems quaint that we ever had such concerns.
Well, it is one. I wish they'd choose a slightly more unique name but camping on well-known words is a beloved tech tradition.
Bard is really funny to me to make fun of. It feels like the discount version of ChatGPT. Like the way that (ironically) TV shows would get microsoft sponsoring and the characters would say "oh you should Bing that", a phrase no human would normally say, and I like to be "ah let me see what Bard thinks about this".
I thought “Bard” was an Asimov reference: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Someday_(short_story)
(on top of the more obvious references)
It's too close a match for it not to be
Well the ending sure sounds like an LLM getting stuck:
https://blog.gdeltproject.org/llm-infinite-loops-failure-mod...
It also rhymes with Card as in Orson Scott Card.
"Gemini" must refer to its inherently multimodal origins?
It's not a text-based LLM that was later adapted to include other modalities. It was designed from the start to seamlessly understand and work with audio, images, video and text simultaneously. Theoretically, this should give it a more integrated and versatile understanding of the world.
The promise is that multimodality baked in from the start, instead of bolting image recognition on to a primarily text-based LLM, should give it superior reasoning and problem-solving capabilities. It should excel at complex reasoning tasks to draw inferences, create plans, and solve problems in areas like math and programming.
I don't know if that promise has been achieved yet.
In my testing so far, Gemini Advanced seems equivalent to ChatGPT 4 in most of my use cases. I tested it on the last few of days worth of programming tasks that I'd solved with ChatGPT 4, and in most cases it returns exactly what I wanted on the first response, compared with the a lengthy back-and-forth required with ChatGPT 4 arrive at the same result.
But when analyzing images Gemini Advanced seems overly sensitive and constantly gives false rejections. For example, I asked it to analyze a Chinese watercolor and ink painting of a pagoda-style building amidst a flurry of cherry blossoms, with figures ascending a set of stairs towards the building. ChatGPT 4 gave a detailed response about its style, history, techniques, similar artists, etc. Gemini refused to answer and deleted the image because it detected people in the image, even though they were very small, viewed from the back, no faces, no detail whatsoever.
In my (limited) testing so far, I'd say Gemini Advanced is better at analyzing recent events than ChatGPT 4 with Bing. This morning I asked each of them to describe the current situation with South Korea possibly acquiring a nuclear deterrent. Gemini's response was very current and cited specific statements by President Yoon Suk-yeol. Even after triggering a Bing search to get the latest facts, the ChatGPT 4 response was muddy and overly general, with empty and obvious sentences like "pursuing a nuclear weapons program would confront significant technical, diplomatic, and strategic challenges".
It seems odd to me that would work better necessarily considering that humans evolved different capabilities many millennia apart and integrated them all with intelligence comparatively late in the evolutionary cycle. So it’s not clear that multimodal from the get go is a better strategy than bolting on extra modalities over time. It could be though since technology is built differently from evolution but interesting to consider
I get all the multi-modality stuff, but what is it about the word "Gemini" that invokes that, to you?
It's not a bad name, but personally when I first heard the name Bard I chuckled because LLMs had already come under so much criticism for their tendency to embellish the truth or say stuff that is just straight up false but sounds cool.
Bards were the people who kept history and genealogy before written history. Think like Homer rather than Shakespeare. I think the name was meant more to evoke the idea that the AI is a repository of all linguistic knowledge in the same way that the bard was. And maybe also the idea that the AI was at your service in the same way the bard was at the service of the ruler.
Gemeni, or the twins, is a deeply symbolic name for anyone who knows Greek history. It’s the story of Castor and Pollux, and in many versions of the story one brother killed the other only to beg for them to come back. It’s ominous to use this brand name for AI.
It’s also associated to the Gemini killer and Joseph Testa and Anthony Senter who were famous as the mafia’s Gemini twins hitmen.
I think better brands could have been had.
It does sound like some battlefield AI system from Robotron. “Sir, Gemini is charged and ready for battle.”
Gemini was a stepping stone to a moonshot, which is almost certainly why the name was chosen.
Edit: another poster shared the etymology, the merger between Google Brain and DeepMind. I shall eat my words.
Perhaps. Corporate entomologies tend to be very well rehearsed stories, and I’ve been around the valley long enough to know those stories aren’t always the whole story.
I would encourage you to read the Kissinger / Schmidt book before settling your opinion.
That origin story may be true. But it doesn’t make the whole story necessarily.
https://time.com/6113393/eric-schmidt-henry-kissinger-ai-boo...
"Corporate entomology" is a lovely term, evoking surreal (and yet strangely familiar) images of cockroaches in suits.
Brilliant!
Now there's a ready-made Far Side concept.
For me it's associated with Gemini crypto and their horrible Gemini Earn investments in Genesis: https://www.web3isgoinggreat.com/?id=gemini-genesis-and-dcg-...
The crypto Gemini was named after the Winklevoss twins.
Also the Gemini Lounge, where Roy DeMeo and his crew killed and dismembered people targeted for hits by the Gambino family.
I've never heard of any of these people and I doubt most others have either. Maybe you have to be a true crime enthusiast to know the lore? Whereas if the name were Zodiac, then I would at least be aware there's a potential murderer connection.
"Bard" always struck me a bad naming - unfamiliar, unfriendly, too cerebral. I think the name was an impediment against establishing a household brand.
The Witcher is one of Netflix's most watch shows. I'd also imagine that most people in English speaking countries have been exposed to Shakespeare's nickname in high school English classes.
It’s generally a common trope in fantasy and Romanticist literature. It’s also a word that exists in virtually all European languages in a similar form (bard, bardo, barde, бард), although similar but different forms may be a negative.
Yes, but I didn't want to assume that most people read literature. Even if they hadn't, "bard" is definitely out there.
I don't think it's that out there. You'd have to be quite uninformed to have never heard of it. It's no verderer or reeve (medieval positions that most people actually will not have heard of).
I meant "out there" as in a word people are exposed to. Not "out there" as in outside of most people's experience.
Maybe named for The Bard’s Tale?
It's possible that it sounds even worse in other languages. That is, it might sound like bad words, onomatopoeia for bodily functions, or common exclamations (that would lead to lots of false positives).
I think it could have been established as a brand in the US, given Google's scale. Put a lute in the branding, run some funny commercials, and you're done.
EDIT: one thing no amount of branding can fix — the likelihood that people reach for "doh, Bard" (a la Simpsons) when Bard messes up. I could see that becoming a thing.
Gemini is Latin, my guess is it more easily translates to other languages than Bard.
Who translates product names?
"How does that translate to ..." means "how well does that work in" some other area or context; more analogous to a mathematical translation than a linguistic translation.
Just a confusing turn of phrase. They almost certainly didn't mean "what does that translate to ..." in another language.
Harmonising product names across regions is hard: Jif was a bathroom cleaning solution in the UK, but it's name was changed to Cif to match the name elsewhere in Europe; and that name sounds silly to UK ears. Meanwhile GIF were always presumed to be pronounced like "gift" (a present) without the final T; but we learnt the creators preferred "Jif" which sounds silly to UK ears because it sounds like a cleaning product! (And also wasn't JIF already a file extension (JPEG Interchange Format).
Anyway ... language is hard.
One man's bathroom cleaning solution is another man's creamy peanut butter.
“a floor wax and a dessert topping.”
One man’s creamy peanut butter is another man’s crunchy peanut butter.
I think the suggestion was that it would work well as-is in other languages. It would certainly be natural in romance languages.
Bard is latin too: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bardus#Etymology_2
Bard: fat inept old guy who gets by telling stories of yore
Gemini: a crypto exchange
Clearly they shouldn’t be asking the 21 year old interns what to call it.
Now before anyone in google gets butthurt like they usually do I doubt I could do much better but Gaia IMO would have been mint you know it starts with G is four letters and represents a nebulous deity. Took 3 seconds but hey I’m not paid to think. In fact I’m not paid at all
Edit> Gemini ultra is the best llm so far ( it seems) - apart from the name good job guys
And it has ai in it's name.
If that's the reason, they should've gone with Moai (more AI)
thats even better lol. hey 缾 how come so few comments? you have a few accounts or what? I feel priviledged.
huh I didn’t even notice that I guess I’m sleepy
They’ve plastered “bard” ads everywhere in Tokyo for a while. Surprised to kill the name so quickly, the marketing team in Japan probably had no idea
(Personally, I never liked how Bard sounded. Can’t put my finger on why, it was just not a pleasant name to me)
Barudu?
Baaado (バード)
They also did a lot of (cringe) ads in Brazil.
Same here. Bard is not a sexy name. Gemini is way more sexy. (Neither is ChatGPT, or Google though either). I can't wait until we can call the assistant whatever we want, like Jarvis.
In an increasingly commodity game (the big player LLM game), it’s already starting to hit the asymptote on the main levers: ties to NVIDIA and/or TSMC, serious financing capacity, and enough engagement channel to push it through. (There is much great work happening outside of the Peninsula).
I always thought GPT-4 was a little “HAL 9000” of a name for broad-based adoption, but the jury seems in, and the jury rules “cyberpunk is in”.
The broad name is ChatGPT, not GPT-4
That’s fair, though given the stark UI cue / cost difference, I’m not surprised when I overhear in a random cafe or bar: “yeah but what did ChatGPT Four say?”
In any event, it seems that the image of a Decepticon ready for battle on your behalf has a lot more traction than the image of a quaint singer/priest/poet always there with a verbal shot in the arm when the going is tough.
They literally call it "ChatGPT 4" (with a colored 4) in the app though
The Bard name gave me a warm fuzzy feeling immediately transporting me back to my youth playing (or at least trying to play) Bard's Tale. The name evoked adventure, excitement and a good dose of dread. And, the idea of it being "role playing" struck me as a master meta stroke.
Gemini, from the mythological standpoint, seemed to make more sense to me from an overall business/marketing standpoint. "This AI thing right here is your twin, see? It'll finish your sentences and stuff."
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/the-bards-tale/id480375355
And similarly anyone playing modern tabletop RPGs will probably associated "Bard" with the smart, charismatic person who buffs the party and debuffs your enemies; perfect for an AI assistant
And if the brand took off, I imagine you could “Bard” something as a verb but not “Gemini” it.
Perhaps they're hoping people will stick with "google it".
Bard just sounds terrible phonetically. Bard. Like something you find in Home Depot or some kind of old timey woodworking tool. Barf. Bored. Bard.
Yes I know what it really means but it doesn't change the fact that it's a terrible word.
That's an incredibly subjective take. I don't agree at all. I don't care what they call it but I don't understand this reasoning.
I thought it was just supposed to be a pun on “gen’ AI”
Then they'd have gone with Genie.
Which would be kinda genius on their part, but Google isn't that kind of company anymore.
As a Brit I’ll be glad to see the word association gradually return to that of our greatest playwright rather than something appropriated by big tech.
I'm so glad that they've changed the name :) Bard is really difficult for me, a non-native English speaker, to pronounce correctly. I think most people from my country (Vietnam) pronounce Bard as "bahd". Gemini on the other hand is so easy to pronounce.
There presumably was a time when Google considered going more into the “assistant” branding. They own assistant.ai but they don’t do much with it.
Bard sounds archaic, almost like an unintelligent persons name, no offense to the bards out there.
To me Gemini is just sort of generic and uninteresting. There has to be hundreds or thousands of products and companies based on the name "Gemini" - "Bard" was at least interesting, different and distinct.
I've no idea about the quality of the product itself, I have never had a reason to use it. It's long past cliché now but I wouldn't get too attached to a Google product that is definitely costing a lot of money but which has no clear pathway to turning a profit. I think they will keep it ticking over until the hype train moves on from Chatbots/LLMs, and then it'll join the Google Graveyard @ https://killedbygoogle.com
I thought it was in reference to Trurl's Electronic Bard, which just about presciently predicted LLM output (though the process is a bit more dramatic, what with how it simulates the whole universe to get to that output): https://electricliterature.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Tr...
Bard felt like Google was treating LLMs as merely an amusing spinner of tales, just a narrative UI layer over the "real stuff" of the Google Search.
Symbolizing both human origin intelligence and AI becoming super-intelligent together. I think it's a good name because it draws on ancient human mythology and serves as a reminder of the concept of alignment.
Gemini is not distinct and memorable. It feels like a muddled compromise.
I'd name it GooGaa or Googa. Like "Google" and "goo-goo-gaa-gaa" (baby's first babbling). It's flowing, friendly & familiar.
Honestly surprised I'm the first to mention the name collision with the retro-modern linked documents protocol I keep hearing about (on HN) https://geminiprotocol.net/docs/faq-section-1.gmi
But glass half full, maybe it's for the better to have one's name shadowed by a Google product if one prefers to avoid eternal septembering one's community.
There are other considerations when naming something like this. "Bard" likely could never be a wake word on its own, for instance, but I'd imagine that "Gemini" will be at some point.
Astrologically, Gemini is associated with Communication. Specifically social, superficial, quick, back and forth communication. The sign is ruled by Mercury which is associated with Intelligence and being the messenger of the Gods. Mercury is often depicted with winged shoes as the planet itself is the fastest moving planet, orbiting the sun every 88 days. Mercury is considered to be dualistic (The Twins) and also rules the sign of Virgo, an earth sign that is associated with more deep cold analytical categorization.
The got rid of Bard, and missed the opportunity to either name it Genesys or Legion.
The real question is what's nearby each name's vector embedding in terms of whatever similarity metric Gemini will use to talk about the world. That's their new canonical ontology, after all.
One awkward thing is that Google's Gemini app is currently the third result searching Gemini on the Play Store-- after some bitcoin related applications. The namespace is occupied.
Same reason Arthur Anderson changed it’s name.
Bard was panned. Change the name, lose the bad press.
Bard showed some creativity in name selection. Gemini does not. You see that everywhere. Or at least my first thought was about the Gemini spacecraft
I'd suspect they're just trying to start over - Bard kinda got pegged as Google's dumb, not-as-good, late-to-the-party clone of ChatGPT. It got teased a lot. I'm not sure Gemini is much different (still more impressed with GPT 3.5 & 4) but I guess the name change gives them a bit of a reset.
I think they should have named it gAIl.
I agree. The original reason [1] for the gemini name seems artificial for a generic chatbot. It is OK for the model, and I'm sure a lot of "work" was put into "validating" it for the assistant, or... was it?
[1] https://the-decoder.com/how-googles-gemini-ai-model-got-its-...