China’s ChatGPT: Tech giant Baidu unveils “Ernie,” the Chinese answer to AI chatbot technologies

Beijing — Days immediately after preferred artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT’s developer OpenAI released its most up-to-date version, GPT4, Chinese tech giant Baidu, greatest identified for its search engine and map solutions in the nation, revealed its AI answer to the globe. In a prerecorded video presentation, Baidu’s celebrity founder Robin Li showcased the “Ernie” (Enhanced Representation of Expertise Integration) chatbot, which he stated could comprehend human intentions and provide responses approaching human level.

The service hasn’t however been released for the basic public to attempt out, but the occasion listed functions such as understanding Chinese language, producing writing, and performing mathematical calculations, which overlap with ChatGPT’s functionality.

There have been some highlights through the presentation, such as the presentation of a poster that Ernie was stated to have conjured up primarily based on text descriptions, but all round, investors seemed unimpressed with the prerecorded launch.

Baidu’s stock cost on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange fell by as significantly as ten% at one particular point through the unveiling, but the stock recouped its losses in Friday trading.

Robin Li, chairman and chief executive officer of Baidu Inc., seems in a launch occasion for the company’s Ernie chatbot in Beijing, China, on March 16, 2023.

Qilai Shen/Bloomberg by means of Getty Pictures

The Reuters news agency stated a restricted quantity of folks received codes to attempt the Ernie application immediately after the launch on Thursday, promptly turning to social media platforms to offer you their testimonials, such as some side-by-side comparisons with American-created chatbots such as Microsoft’s Bing, which utilizes ChatGPT technologies.

A single particular person stated on China’s Twitter-like platform Weibo that Ernie had managed to provide an “O.K.” response to a query about a philosopher, for instance, but they noted that there was “a definite gap involving Ernie bot and Bing.”

Reuters quoted the reviewer, a technologies blogger who goes by the manage Chapingjun, with additional than two.four million followers on Wiebo, as saying the gap in functionality was “not insanely significant,” and noting that, “in particular concerns (Ernie) even performed greater than Bing.”

Regardless of the lackluster launch occasion, Ernie is most likely to take pleasure in a substantial market place benefit on its household turf more than U.S.-created merchandise, due to each China’s personal drive for technological independence, and Western sanctions.

At the annual meeting of China’s legislature that wrapped up Monday, a revamp of China’s science and technologies ministry was announced, with the stated aim of pursuing “self-reliance” amid growing U.S. restrictions on the sale of sophisticated processing chips and manufacturing gear to China.

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