Chinese tech giant Baidu is making waves in the artificial intelligence world with the release of its new chatbot, ERNIE 4.0. Baidu’s CEO, Robin Li, boldly claimed that ERNIE 4.0 is on par with OpenAI’s latest offering, ChatGPT, stating that it is “not inferior in any aspect to GPT-4.” Li showcased ERNIE 4.0’s impressive capabilities during a live demonstration, highlighting its ability to generate a car commercial, solve complex math problems, and even create a plot for a martial arts novel from scratch. While primarily functioning in Mandarin Chinese, the bot can also handle English queries and responses, albeit at a less advanced level.
Li explained that ERNIE 4.0 represents a significant improvement in terms of understanding queries, generating complex responses, and memory capabilities. The bot can remember previous instructions, allowing it to create sophisticated storylines with conflicts and characters. Li humorously remarked, “We always complained that AI was not intelligent enough. But today, it understands almost everything you say, and in many cases, it understands what you’re saying better than your friends or your colleagues.”
Charlie Dai, Vice President and Research Director of Technology at Forrester, commended Baidu for being the first Chinese vendor to claim comparable performance to GPT-4. He expressed cautious optimism about this development, highlighting China’s long-term investments in AI and machine learning. However, more benchmarking evidence may be needed to fully substantiate Baidu’s claims.
Although Baidu’s live demonstration failed to impress investors, with its shares down 1.4% following the presentation, the company remains at the forefront of generative AI in China. Baidu launched its initial version of ERNIE Bot in March, and after gaining popularity, publicly released it in August. The newest iteration, ERNIE 4.0, will initially be available to invited users, with no specified date for its public release.
Baidu faces competition from other Chinese companies, such as Alibaba and SenseTime, who have also unveiled their own ChatGPT-style tools. Baidu differentiates itself by emphasizing its advanced understanding of Chinese queries and its ability to generate diverse responses involving video and audio content. In comparison, OpenAI’s GPT-4 can analyze photos but currently only generates text responses.
According to Charlie Dai, while Baidu is a market leader in China, the competition in this space is just beginning, with other tech leaders like Alibaba, Huawei, JD Cloud, SenseTime, and Tencent vying for dominance. Some critics argue that this competition will further fuel the existing US-China rivalry in emerging technologies. However, Li has dismissed these comparisons, asserting that Baidu’s platform is not a tool for confrontation between China and the United States.
In addition to ERNIE 4.0, Baidu announced updates to its suite of services, integrating the latest upgrades from ERNIE. The company’s popular search engine can now produce more specific results using the tool, while its mobile mapping app assists users in booking services like taxis. Dai noted that Baidu is the first Chinese tech leader to modernize a majority of its products with an AI model.
Baidu’s introduction of ERNIE 4.0 marks a significant milestone in the development of AI technology in China. While the competition is fierce, Baidu’s advancements in understanding and generating Chinese language queries are paving the way for further innovation. As China continues to invest heavily in AI, we can expect even more exciting developments in the coming years.
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