ChatGPT's Chinese counterpart, Baidu's "Ernie Bot," has now reportedly recorded a user base of 200 million, nearly doubling its user count since it recorded over 100 million users last December. The daunting user count helps the AI chatbot to maintain China's most popular AI chatbot.
The CEO of the Chinese internet giant, Robin Li, disclosed the new milestone at a meeting in Shenzhen on Tuesday. Public access to the chatbot was granted eight months ago.
(Photo: JADE GAO/AFP via Getty Images) This photo, taken on July 20, 2022, shows the Baidu logo on its headquarters building in Shenzhen, in China's southern Guangdong province.
The firm last disclosed that statistic when the user base hit over 100 million in December. According to Li, Ernie Bot's application programming interface (API) is used 200 million times a day, which indicates that users have asked the chatbot to perform activities that many times a day.
According to Li, the chatbot now has 85,000 enterprise clients. As one of the first eight AI chatbots China approved, Ernie Bot was the first domestically produced ChatGPT-like chatbot to be disclosed in the country last March. However, it wasn't until August that it received approval for public release.
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Baidu's AI Ventures
AI-wise, Baidu proved to be significantly advancing, particularly since Apple and the Chinese tech behemoth recently conducted discussions about utilizing Baidu's AI capabilities.
According to sources, Apple is competing with the Chinese company to incorporate its generative artificial intelligence technology into its products in China.
This is the most recent instance of the American tech giant's attempts to expand its artificial intelligence capabilities. The company has been investigating the possibility of enlisting outside partners to aid in hastening its AI goals. It talks about leveraging the technologies of businesses like Google and OpenAI to power its mobile features.
People who know the matter claim that Apple has been looking for a local supplier of generative AI models in China, mainly because China requires these models to be approved by its internet regulator before being made available to the public.
Following the regulation's announcement in August, Beijing has approved more than 40 generative AI models, including Baidu's Ernie Bot.
As of now, no models developed by international developers have been approved, and it is unclear if any foreign enterprises have asked for government authorization.
Due to local legislation, China cannot access cutting-edge generative AI models like Google's Gemini and OpenAI's ChatGPT.
The latest Galaxy smartphone from Apple rival Samsung employs Baidu's Ernie in China and Gemini outside of China to enable some AI capabilities.
Ernie Bot and the Military
Controversies surrounding Ernie Bot surfaced online when the AI company claimed it was connected to Chinese Military research. The company immediately denied the claims.
Baidu denied the South China Morning Post article, referencing an academic paper from a university connected to the People's Liberation Army cyber warfare branch.
The paper said that the institution had tested its AI system on two AI chatbots, Ernie and Spark, both of which are comparable to ChatGPT.
The PLA Information Engineering University scholarly study explains how researchers offered Ernie Bot prompts to generate simulated military response plans for Libyan troops against a US military invasion. The corporation highlighted that Ernie Bot "is available to and used by the general public."
Baidu contended that the writers would have used the features accessible to any user dealing with such AI tools if they had employed huge language models, such as Ernie Bot.
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