Baidu, a Chinese search engine company shares plunged as much as 10 percent after the firm unveiled its ChatGPT-like AI software, with investors not impressed by the bot’s exhibition of linguistic and maths skills.
The Artificial Intelligence-powered ChatGPT has caused success for its capability to write essays, poems, or programming code on request within seconds, sparkling overall worries of cheating or of professions becoming obsolete. Chinese tech giants have entered the global hurry to create rival software, with Alibaba and JD.com also reporting similar projects.
But Baidu’s “Ernie Bot”, disclosed at a press event in Beijing on Thursday, fell short of expectations with the firm’s co-founder Robin Li showing only a pre-recorded demonstration of the software’s capabilities, rather than a live interaction.
The firm showed audiences a screen recording of the bot answering questions about the popular Chinese science fiction novel “The Three-Body Problem” and developing a plot summary. It also showed off Ernie Bot’s algebra skills and generated audio in the Sichuanese and Hakka dialects of Chinese.
Baidu’s Hong Kong-listed shares fell after the software was unveiled, sliding by more than 10 percent at one point. The firm’s shares regained barely later, down about 7 percent on Thursday afternoon.
Baidu says it plans to merge the bot into its search engine as well as its smart home devices, with “real-world applications across industries”.
But China’s severe censorship and US restrictions on chip sales could restrict Baidu and other Chinese companies’ AI purposes.
ChatGPT is banned in China, but OpenAI’s Chatbot is gaining a base of Chinese users who use virtual personal networks to get around the ban, deploying it to write essays and cram for exams.
