BAIDU- ERNIE BOT

                                                               BAIDU- ERNIE BOT

Blog Credit: Trupti Thakur

Image Courtesy: Google

Ernie Bot, which stands for “Enhanced Representation  b  of Knowledge Integration,” is still in development but was presented due to high demand.

Baidu announces Ernie in AI chatbot battle

Chinese search engine Baidu revealed its plans of launching a ChatGPT-style AI chatbot called ‘Ernie Bot’. Baidu’s Hong Kong-listed shares jumped as much as 13.4% on the news. Ernie, meaning “Enhanced Representation through Knowledge Integration,” is a large AI-powered language model introduced in 2019. The news comes after years of work by Baidu to shift from online marketing to more advanced technologies, which has cost the company billions of dollars in research into AI.

About the ERNIE project

Since then, the ERNIE project has evolved, allowing users to write poems and papers or use text prompts to automatically generate images, according to the spokesperson. It is now in its third iteration. Language models are trained on vast troves of data online in order to generate compelling responses to user prompts. Researchers are “continuously working” to upgrade the technology to allow it to learn multiple tasks like humans.

The ERNIE project is now the third revision. It can compose essays and poetry or use text prompts to produce graphics for its users automatically.

About the Google Bard

Google has announced the launch of its own AI chatbot, after the success of Microsoft-backed OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Google’s Bard is a new conversational AI chatbot, which the tech giant has decided to release to trusted users and is still in the testing stage. Google is planning to release the chatbot with a lightweight model version of LaMDA (Language Model for Dialogue Applications), which will require less computing power and more feedback for the chatbot.

Baidu, the Chinese search giant, introduced its new chatbot, Ernie Bot, in a pre-recorded video presentation on Thursday. This unveiling came as competition to the Microsoft-backed ChatGPT and other similar chatbots. Ernie Bot, which stands for “Enhanced Representation of Knowledge Integration,” is still in development but was presented due to high demand.

Development of Ernie Bot

Baidu CEO Robin Li mentioned that the first version of Ernie Bot was developed in 2019, and it is the result of many years of hard work. The company has invested in artificial intelligence for over a decade and has shifted its focus to AI applications, including autonomous driving technology. Ernie Bot is expected to be used in various applications such as searches, AI cloud, autonomous driving, and smart devices.

Ernie Bot’s Functionality

During the demonstration, Ernie Bot was asked questions related to a Chinese science-fiction novel, “The Three-Body Problem,” and was requested to create an image based on prompts. According to Li, 650 companies have signed up to use Ernie Bot, and it can be implemented in various applications.

Competition with ChatGPT and other chatbots

The launch of Ernie Bot comes a few months after OpenAI’s ChatGPT was introduced. ChatGPT can answer questions and even write essays, demonstrating its AI-chatbot capabilities. Many other Chinese companies are also developing similar chatbots, indicating the competition in the market.

Baidu’s Investment in Artificial Intelligence

Baidu spent 23.3 billion yuan ($3.4 billion) on research and development, equivalent to about a fifth of its revenue, in the 2022 fiscal year. The company is known for its search engine in China, but it has shifted its focus to artificial intelligence, including developing autonomous driving technology and other AI applications.

The AI product showcases proficiency in five generative use cases:

• Literary creation
• Business writing
• Mathematical calculation
• Chinese language understanding
• And multi-modal generation.

 

                                                                                  Blog By: Trupti Thakur