Mistral AI, the young French company specializing in generative artificial intelligence, had already distinguished itself by launching its first language models. Today, it is doing it again by unveiling Chat, its own chatbot which intends to compete with ChatGPT from OpenAI.
There was ChatGPT, now there is Le Chat. Unlike the famous OpenAI chatbot, Le Chat is French. The conversational agent is launched by Mistral AI, a young French start-up very advanced in artificial intelligence (AI). She has already shared language models (Mistral 7B and Mixtral 8x7B), in September and December 2023.
How to test Le Chat, the Mistral AI chatbot
To try Le Chat, everything happens on the official Mistral AI website.
- Go to the site;
- Click on the button “ Cat ”, at the top right of the screen. It allows you to go to the dedicated discussion section. You can also click directly on this link, to go even faster;
- Create an account on Mistral AI (by filling out the classic form or using the Google or Microsoft connection tools);
- Accept the terms of use;
- That’s all !
Once these launch glitches have been resolved, it will be possible to chat with Le Chat. Be careful, however: the tool is still in beta and its answers may be inaccurate (a warning appears under the text entry box). Early users are also asked to point out any “oddities” in the reasoning, usefulness or impartiality of the AI.
We were able to use it for a few moments and there are indeed sometimes some imperfections in his answers. By asking him to explain his knowledge on Numerama, he was generally fair, except on the date of foundation. The site went online in 2002. Of course, it was not yet called Numerama: it was renamed as such in 2008.
What models are available on Le Chat?
Currently, the Mistral conversational agent uses three versions of its language models: Mistral Large, Mistral Small and Mistral Next. The latter is a “ prototype ”, described by the company as “ designed to be brief and concise. » Mistral Large was announced on February 26, the same day as the release of the Cat.
Once on the talk page, a window at the top right allows you to choose the language model — by default, Mistral Large is active. He has ” superior reasoning skills “. The Small model is presented as being “fast and economical”. In other words, we guess that he therefore has less reasoning abilities.
What features are offered on the Mistral AI chatbot?
Chat hardly provides any other features other than these.
We can note :
- The ability to delete each chat opened with the conversational agent (a small trash can icon is visible when hovering over the mouse).
- You can also request a regeneration of the response.
- You can also change the theme (dark or light).
The tool claims to be able to understand and generate text in various languages (including English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Russian, Japanese, Korean, Chinese). However, the public should expect uneven quality depending on the language used.
No internet access for Le Chat!
Another limit to consider: The Cat “ cannot access the Internet. » Mistral AI has not indicated the freshness of the information to which the chatbot has access, but Le Chat says it stops at information from 2021. The startup also warns that the answers sometimes risk being false or obsolete. It is not said when Le Chat will be connected to the net.
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