That's a
really interesting point about the source attribution that I hadn't considered. No answers should come from a single source, but citations directly contradict that. Randomly spitballing, it's interesting to consider that Google's Alpha Zero (chess) used a sort of hybrid approach. Alpha Zero didn't just pick a move based on its training, but instead also ran random internal simulations of games following its choices, and picked whichever had the best overall outcome. Mixing traditional min-max systems with neural network based "parsing." It'd be interesting if Bard generates a number of responses, and cross references those against search to discard poor quality results, and points to 'high quality results' (like random internet comments) when they overlap strongly.
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But the point I am largely making is that these bots lack not only understanding but also knowledge. One example was when somebody was trying to play chess with one of these programs, and when ChatGPT would make an illegal move, and was told so, it would correct itself with things like "Sorry you're right, my move was illegal because it would have left my king in check." Except that had nothing to do with why it was illegal. It was ChatGPT simply reciting highly weighted reasons for why a chess move might be illegal. It would then play another illegal move, and then repeat the apology with a new random reason.
By contrast in our conversation here you made me think about something I had not thought about before (Bard offering citations) which will now forever significantly influence every thought I have on this topic, and even enabled me to completely rethink my assumptions about how Bard functions. And that is because you've expanded my knowledge. By contrast, such a comment to a chatbot would simply be, if anything, another negligibly weighted comment dumped into their training set - no more or less important than a "Bard is sentient" type comment.