Baidu founder Robin Li claimed that his company’s large-scale language model has finally caught up with OpenAI’s advanced GPT-4, claiming that his country is leading the race to develop artificial intelligence that can rival the United States.
The billionaire took to the stage in Beijing on Tuesday to run Ernie 4.0 through a Q&A designed to demonstrate his ability to provide instant answers and solve complex problems. Li told us that Ernie is on par with OpenAI’s pioneering products in terms of complexity and general functionality. The converted steel factory, now an auditorium, was packed with people.
The famous Ernie chatbot now has over 45 million users, a milestone that still lags behind ChatGPT’s estimated 180 million users, even though the US bot was launched months ago. China’s search leader, often described as a local search engine similar to Google, is counting on artificial intelligence to help it outpace rivals such as Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Tencent Holdings Ltd. that control other parts of the web. Baidu shares fell about 1.5% on Tuesday.
Baidu launched a wave of aggressive investment in China after ChatGPT demonstrated the disruptive potential of generative artificial intelligence, which can produce videos and content with simple commands. It is considered a front-runner in a race against big local tech companies and dozens of new startups to create a next-generation platform for the world’s largest internet market.
They are trying to compete with American companies such as Microsoft and Google, building services such as ChatGPT and Dall-E, but U.S. sanctions on China’s use of state-of-the-art chips to train and run artificial intelligence models, coupled with Beijing’s strict censorship, This may result in Chinese companies being unable to use the most advanced chips to train and run artificial intelligence models. Their prospects are clouded.washington is tighten Restrictions on shipments of artificial intelligence chips to the country have added to the uncertainty.
“Ernie is not inferior to GPT-4 in any way,” Li told the audience.
Because AI models are extremely complex, scoring them is challenging. Li immediately tested the latest version of Ernie Bot. He fielded questions on topics such as buying a property, posed math problems and was asked to write a novel set in the ancient world of martial arts. That’s in stark contrast to March, when the tech mogul unveiled China’s first answer to OpenAI’s hot-button robot via a scripted video.
As early as June, Baidu said that an early version of Ernie surpassed OpenAI’s chatbot based on GPT-3.5 in general capabilities. It also cited tests by a local official newspaper saying it performed better than GPT-4 on a number of Chinese features. Baidu now hopes Ernie Bot can become a core business alongside online marketing, helping to regain users lost to universal apps run by TikTok owner ByteDance Ltd. and Tencent.
Baidu integrates Ernie into flagship products such as search, maps, file sharing, work collaboration and data analysis.
Like its domestic rivals, Baidu has benefited from the government’s clear endorsement of a technology that has the potential not only to enhance entire industries but also improve a struggling economy.
August, China officially recognized The first batch of generative artificial intelligence services published in China include products from emerging companies such as Baidu and ByteDance as well as major technology companies. Ernie Bot once topped the download list of China’s iPhone app store, with more than 1 million users on the day of its release, but it was soon surpassed by mainstream services such as Tencent’s WeChat.
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