Thursday’s launch was to have been a watershed moment for China’s technology industry, lifting the lid on how AI has progressed in the world’s largest internet economy. The omission raises questions over Ernie’s ability to match OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which has both impressed and worried users since its November launch. Chinese AI efforts lag behind their US rivals at the moment, though they should catch up over time thanks to vast data hoards and experience with rapid rollouts, according to industry pioneer and bestselling author Kai-Fu Lee.
Baidu Inc. debuted China’s answer to ChatGPT via a recorded video, disappointing investors hoping for a real-time demo of the country’s highest-profile entry in a race to dominate transformative technology.
Billionaire founder Robin Li took to a Beijing stage to introduce his company’s “Ernie Bot,” a landmark moment for a search leader that’s struggled in recent years to revitalize growth. But instead of putting the service through its paces in real-time, he talked over a scripted video of interactions with artificial intelligence (AI). Baidu’s shares fell 6.4% in Hong Kong, wiping out about US$3 billion of value.
