Baidu Inc.’s ChatGPT style bot service, Ernie 3.5, has reportedly surpassed OpenAI’s GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 in general abilities and specific Chinese-language capabilities.
The claim follows a test conducted by China Science Daily, a state newspaper, utilising AGIEVal and C-Eval datasets, widely used benchmarks for evaluating AI models, reported Bloomberg.
This announcement comes on the heels of Baidu experiencing a significant surge in its stock price after positive assessments from brokerages, including Citigroup, regarding its newly unveiled ChatGPT-like bot.
Baidu’s founder, Robin Li, presented Ernie Bot through a recorded video, leaving investors disappointed due to the absence of a real-time demonstration. However, the recent test results appear to have bolstered investor confidence.
Ernie 3.5 outperformed OpenAI’s models and demonstrates improved training and inference efficiency, enabling faster iterations and cost-effective upgrades. This has sparked competition among domestic tech firms like Alibaba and Tencent. The integration of Ernie Bot across various business lines highlights Baidu’s ambition to become a popular AI app and emphasizes the strategic importance of foundation models for global economic growth.
Baidu has invested heavily in AI research and development and has allocated a $140 million venture fund to invest in startups similar to OpenAI. However, the generative AI industry faces challenges, with Chinese regulators requiring approval for such services and US sanctions impacting access to high-quality chips for training AI models.
While Baidu’s Ernie Bot claims superiority over ChatGPT, some scepticism remains. The underwhelming demonstration of Ernie Bot through a pre-recorded video and the postponement of a press briefing for demonstrating integration for cloud computing services have raised doubts among traders and investors. Further independent testing and public access to Ernie Bot will be crucial in gauging its true capabilities and competitiveness compared to ChatGPT.
As the AI landscape continues to evolve, the emergence of Ernie Bot as a formidable competitor to ChatGPT signals the increasing global competition in the AI market, especially in natural language processing and understanding.
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