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Baidu Ernie 4.0: A New & Serious AI Contender from China
10/29/23
Editorial team at Bits with Brains
Chinese technology giant Baidu has unveiled the latest version of its generative artificial intelligence (AI) model, Ernie 4.0, claiming its capabilities are on par with those of Open AI's pioneering GPT-4 model.
The announcement was made by CEO Robin Li at an event in Beijing, where he showcased the model's memory capabilities and demonstrated it writing a martial arts novel in real-time.
Ernie 4.0, which stands for 'Enhanced Representation from kNowledge IntEgration', is a multimodal model that has been integrated across all Baidu's products, including Baidu Drive and Baidu Maps. This is similar to what Google and Microsoft are doing. The model now allows users to access functions with natural language queries powered by Ernie, a significant improvement from the previous version where users had to search through thousands of options.
Despite the impressive demonstration, the launch of Ernie 4.0 was met with skepticism from some analysts, noting that the launch lacked major highlights compared to the previous version and that concrete upgrades were not immediately clear.
Baidu remains optimistic about the potential of Ernie 4.0. The company has been at the forefront of AI models in China. Baidu launched a chatbot powered by Ernie, dubbed ErnieBot, in March, and despite initial disappointment from investors due to only pre-recorded demonstrations being shown, Ernie has amassed 45 million users since being opened for public use.
ErnieBot has five major abilities: literary creation, commercial copywriting, mathematical logic calculation, Chinese comprehension, and multi-modal generation. These abilities were showcased during the event, with Li demonstrating Ernie 4.0 creating advertising posters and videos.
Baidu's commitment to AI is evident in its significant investment in research and development, with the company spending a total of US$3.4 billion in 2022! Reportedly, there are over 650 companies, including Sina Finance and Baixin Bank, signed up to use ErnieBot in a variety of applications such as searches, AI cloud, autonomous driving, and smart devices.
Despite the mixed reception, Baidu's unveiling of Ernie 4.0 is a significant milestone. With China now home to at least 130 large language models (LLMs), representing 40% of the global total and behind only the United States' 50%, the country is poised to be a major player in the global AI landscape. As Baidu continues to innovate and improve upon its AI models, the potential for Ernie 4.0 and future versions to rival and even surpass models like GPT-4 remains a distinct possibility.
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