Baidu, the Chinese search engine giant, introduced ChatGPT rival Ernie Bot. Since ChatGPT blew the world away, Baidu has been widely regarded as the top Chinese candidate to build an equivalent of the OpenAI chatbot. Ernie is only available for invite-only testing and others must be put on a waiting list.
Chinese Baidu announces ChatGPT rival Ernie
Baidu CEO Robin Li gave a one-hour presentation on Ernie that only offered a small glimpse into the chatbot. Industry observers inside and outside China pointed to the fact that, instead of showing Ernie through a live demo, Baidu opted for a long presentation with pre-recorded Ernie’s answers. Shares of the company also fell 10% in Hong Kong following Li’s presentation.
Also See: OpenAI Launches GPT-4 & ChatGPT Plus Members Can Start Using It Right Away!
In slides, Li presented the prompts for Ernie and his answers in five functional areas:
- Writing Literature: The user asked Ernie for advice on writing a sequel to the acclaimed sci-fi novel “The Three-Body Problem.”
- Formal writing: The user asked Ernie to suggest names for a large-language model company that helps small and medium-sized businesses digitize.
- Logic and reasoning: Ernie was asked to solve the famous “chickens and rabbits” math puzzle.
Chinese interpretation: The user asked Ernie to define a traditional Chinese idiom and write a poem based on the phrase. - Multimodal Generation: Ernie was asked a question (“Which city is best for implementing smart transportation?”) and asked to perform “multimodal” tasks based on the first prompt, such as reading the answer in a Chinese dialect and generate an image based on the text.
Baidu was apparently trying to demonstrate what Ernie could accomplish. The answers were satisfactory; yet investors were unimpressed. Let’s see what Baidu will do to make its chatbot better.
See also: Apple engineers are reportedly working on ChatGPT-like AI
