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Chinese tech giant Baidu is set to challenge GPT-4.
Baidu's billionaire CEO, Robin Li, confidently stated that the company's latest artificial intelligence chatbot, ERNIE 4.0, is in no way inferior to OpenAI's ChatGPT, the latest version. During the annual flagship event, Li made this direct comparison to showcase the advancements of ERNIE Bot.
During the onstage presentation, Li showcased the capabilities of the bot, demonstrating its ability to swiftly create a car advertisement, solve intricate mathematical problems, and even develop a plot for a martial arts novel entirely from scratch. Although the bot primarily functions in Mandarin Chinese, its primary language, it also possesses the capability to process and provide responses in English, albeit at a slightly lesser proficiency level. Li emphasized that these demonstrations underscored the substantial enhancements made to the bot's comprehension of queries, generation of intricate responses, and memory capacity.
Baidu CEO Robin Li announcing an upgrade of ERNIE Bot, its generative AI chatbot.
Baidu
While coming up with ideas for the novel, for instance, the bot was able to remember previous instructions and create sophisticated story lines by adding conflicts and characters, said Li.
"We constantly griped about AI's lack of intelligence," he joked.
"But now, it comprehends nearly everything you utter, and in numerous instances, it comprehends your words more proficiently than your acquaintances or coworkers."
Chinas moment
Charlie Dai, vice president and research director of technology at Forrester, said Baidu is "the first vendor in China" to claim it could perform as well as GPT-4.
"We require additional benchmarking evidence to substantiate it, but I am cautiously optimistic that this marks a significant milestone for China: its GPT-4 moment, a result of its substantial investment in AI and machine learning," he informed CNN. In contrast to a prerecorded presentation in March that left investors unimpressed, Li showcased the bot live."
Following the presentation, Baidu's shares in Hong Kong experienced a 1.4% decline, indicating that investors remained unimpressed. Baidu (BIDU) has emerged as a leader in China's pursuit to leverage generative AI, which forms the foundation for innovative systems like ChatGPT and its upcoming iteration, GPT-4.
SHANGHAI, CHINA - JULY 6, 2023 - Visitors at the 2023 World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai, China, on July 6, 2023, marvel at the remarkable "ERNIE Bot," Baidu's groundbreaking artificial intelligence large model. On August 31, 2023, "ERNIE Bot" became fully accessible to the general public, establishing itself as a frontrunner in the field of artificial intelligence. (Photo credit: CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images)
CFOTO/Future Publishing/Getty Images
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ERNIE Bot was unveiled by the Beijing-based company in March and later launched publicly in August. Li mentioned that the latest version of the bot will initially be released to invited users, without specifying a specific date for its public availability.
ERNIE Bot has rapidly gained popularity, amassing over 45 million users and dominating the Chinese app stores at one point, as reported by the company. In a March report by Goldman Sachs analysts, ChatGPT exceeded 100 million users within the first two months of its release.
Homegrown competition
Baidu faces competition in China from companies like Alibaba (BABA) and SenseTime, who have also showcased their own ChatGPT-inspired tools. Baidu asserts its service's superiority lies in its comprehensive understanding of Chinese queries and its ability to generate diverse responses including video and audio formats.
By comparison, GPT-4 is also able to analyze photos, but currently only generates text responses, according to its developer, OpenAI.
This illustration picture shows the AI (Artificial Intelligence) smartphone app ChatGPT surrounded by other AI App in Vaasa, on June 6, 2023.
Olivier Morin/AFP/Getty Images
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Baidu is a market leader in China, said Dai.
The competition in this field has recently commenced, and AI industry giants such as Alibaba, Huawei, JD Cloud, SenseTime, and Tencent all have the potential to seize the forefront. Critics argue that these new offerings from Chinese companies will exacerbate the ongoing rivalry between the US and China in emerging technologies. Li has attempted to disassociate himself from this comparison, stating before that their company's platform is not intended for the confrontation between China and the United States.
Baidu has previously highlighted ERNIE's superiority over ChatGPT in certain cases, showcasing its bot's higher scores on academic exams compared to OpenAI's. Additionally, the Chinese company revealed on Tuesday that it has integrated the latest enhancements from ERNIE into its suite of services. Baidu's widely-used search engine can now provide more specific results with the help of this tool, and their mobile mapping app facilitates service bookings like taxis, as stated by Li.
By doing so, "Baidu is also the first Chinese tech leader that has made substantial progress in modernizing the majority of its products" with an AI model, said Dai.
