Baidu, China’s leading search engine, is planning to launch a conversational AI service similar to OpenAI’s ChatGPT. The service will be based on Baidu’s Ernie system, a large-scale machine-learning model that excels in natural language understanding and generation. The move comes as ChatGPT has gained popularity in the tech world for its ability to answer questions, write in a human-like manner, and even code.
Microsoft has invested $1 billion in OpenAI and plans to integrate aspects of ChatGPT into its Bing search engine, while Google sees it as a threat to its search business. The company is reportedly accelerating the development of its own conversational AI technology and may showcase 20 or more AI products and a chatbot for its search engine at the upcoming I/O conference in May.
Baidu, which has faced slowing growth in search, sees conversational AI as a potential solution and is eager to compete with its rivals. However, the technology has also faced challenges. The New York City public schools have also banned ChatGPT over cheating concerns as it can create content that is difficult to differentiate from student-created work.
