'Talk About Something Else': Chinese AI Chatbot Toes Party Line

Baidu's ERNIE Bot, a ChatGPT-like chatbot, has been rolled out to the public but is heavily censored, providing state-approved responses to sensitive questions and occasionally refusing to answer them at all.

voanews.com

Relevant topic timeline:

8/23/2023

Baidu sees China’s ‘pro-innovation” AI regulations auguring well for Ernie Bot

Baidu CEO expresses optimism about the eventual public release of Ernie Bot and other ChatGPT alternatives in China under new AI regulations.

8/30/2023

Baidu opens up its ERNIE generative AI to the public

Baidu has made its generative AI product and large language model, ERNIE Bot, publicly available, allowing users to fully experience its abilities, such as understanding, generation, reasoning, and memory, and obtain human feedback to improve the user experience.

8/31/2023

Baidu gets China's green light to release its ChatGPT-like Ernie bot to the public

Chinese tech giant Baidu has opened access to its Ernie bot to the public, indicating a more relaxed AI policy stance from Beijing, following the release of generative AI projects by Chinese companies in response to the popularity of OpenAI's ChatGPT.

9/1/2023

Baidu’s Ernie Bot dealt with 33 million questions on its first day, although some had it stumped

Baidu's Ernie Bot generative AI service received 33 million questions on its public debut, becoming the most popular app in China, but faced challenges in answering some queries and providing fair responses, highlighting the difficulties of public chatbot services in the country's tightly controlled speech environment.

9/2/2023

China's government-approved AI chatbots were released to the public this week. Baidu's chatbot Ernie reportedly says a Chinese military takeover of Taiwan is possible.

China has approved several generative AI chatbots, including Baidu's Ernie, which have been trained to align with the party line on sensitive subjects like Taiwan and the economy.

9/3/2023

Meet Ernie, China’s answer to ChatGPT

Chinese tech giant Baidu is making a comeback with its premier AI chatbot, Ernie, attracting significant attention and excitement, signaling the potential for a resurgence in Chinese tech, although challenges such as US export controls and increasing authoritarianism pose risks to its success.