China’s Baidu cancelled the public showcase of its Ernie AI bot, a chatbot that is supposed to rival OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Instead, they chose to show the AI bot to select tech firms behind closed door, under pressure from the Chinese government.
Baidu, the largest tech company in China, was supposed to showcase Ernie AI, their own AI chatbot that is modelled after OpenAI’s ChatGPT in a public event earlier today. However, at the last moment, the event was cancelled, with Baidu showcasing Ernie behind closed doors, to a group of tech firms. The reason? Experts believe it was because of pressure from the Chinese government.
Baidu announced on early Monday that it had postponed a scheduled media and public display in preference of a closed-door gathering with businesses trying the artificial intelligence-powered bot.
Baidu is not just China’s largest search engine provider, but also the largest tech software company. Many people have often called the tech giant the Chinese Google, not just because of their similar dominance of search engines, but because of the similarities in the scale of operations and the diverse businesses both the companies are involved in .
Baidu said it had altered the structure of the event to accommodate “strong demand” from the 120,000 companies that had queued up to try Ernie.
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Baidu revealed Ernie earlier this month, joining a flurry of companies releasing rivals to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which has taken the tech world by surprise since its November premiere.
Baidu’s stock dropped after a pre-recorded presentation by CEO Robin Li on March 16 revealed that Ernie missed features found in ChatGPT’s follow-up GPT-4, such as the ability to create text in reaction to a picture. The company’s stock subsequently rebounded significantly as users shared their platform experiences online.
As per an Al Jazeera report, China’s attempts to replicate Chat GPT have been hindered by Beijing’s stringent restrictions on the internet, which supplies the sources of information chatbots use to simulate human speaking, according to tech experts, though local variants such as Ernie may still find success in the home market.
Also read: AI frenzy: Chinese tech firms are scrambling to make AI generative bots like ChatGPT
The Chinese government has vowed to increase its support for AI development, and the country’s tech behemoths, such as Huawei, Alibaba, and Tencent, are developing their own forms of the technology.
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