Apple’s app store has many fake Ernie bot apps developed by small-time iOS developers. As a result, Chinese tech giant Baidu is suing these developers as well as Apple for allowing these fake apps on the Apple App Store.
Chinese search engine giant Baidu, has filed lawsuits against “relevant” app developers and Apple over fake copies of its Ernie bot app available on Apple’s app store.
Ernie is Baidu’s equivalent to the West’s ChatGPT, however it’s now only offered in a restricted preview to individuals with test accounts. According to Baidu, there are no formal releases of the chatbot.
The company’s AI-powered Ernie bot, launched last month, has been touted as China’s closest answer to the US-developed chatbot ChatGPT.
Baidu said in a statement on Monday that it has filed a case at a Haidian District People’s Court in Beijing against the accused creators of Ernie-powered apps, as well as Apple, which let the software onto its stores.
“At the moment, Ernie does not have any official app,” Baidu stated late Friday in a statement released on its official “Baidu AI” WeChat account.
“Until our company makes an official announcement, any Ernie app you see on the App Store or other stores is a forgery,” it stated.
Baidu also took to Weibo in late March to complain that some websites and internet communities were selling access to test versions of Ernie for profit, which it claimed “seriously affects the normal testing order of Ernie, harms the user experience, and violates Ernie test rules and relevant laws and regulations.”
The company stated that it would suspend or limit access to those shared test accounts, and that it would take legal action against anyone detected transferring or selling testing accounts.
Over the weekend, at least four bogus Ernie applications were purportedly available in Apple’s App Store.
The teaser for Ernie’s launch featured a big language model that responded to inquiries with varied degrees of accuracy and went blank when posed questions that would offend Beijing sensitivities.
Also read: AI frenzy: Chinese tech firms are scrambling to make AI generative bots like ChatGPT
The company planned to hold a public demonstration in late March. That demonstration did not take place as planned, and the number of attendees was substantially decreased, leaving much of the media and public out.
The demo was “transformed into a closed-door communication meeting for the first batch of invited testing enterprises” so that “more in-depth and comprehensive technical exchanges and interactions” could take place.
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