Baidu has revealed its Ernie AI chatbot, and the result has been similar to Google’s AI reveal in that it has stumbled out of the gate.
Like Google, Baidu has been working overtime to catch up with Microsoft’s Bing AI. Baidu has finally “revealed” its Ernie chatbot, but the reveal did little to reassure investors that the company has a viable product.
According to Ars Technica, company founder Robin Li only showed a pre-recorded demo of the product at the big reveal. Li tried to emphasize the company’s progress, despite the lackluster showing:
“Sometimes when we use it we are pleasantly surprised, sometimes we may think there is an obvious error,” Li told the audience. “But one thing is for sure, it’s advancing very fast.
“Its extremely strong ability to comprehend and express language will allow any company to get closer to their customers,” Li added. “It’s an opportunity for every company and it will even have an impact on every single person.”
In the aftermath of the “demonstration,” Baidu’s stock tanked by 10% over fears that the company’s AI efforts may not be in as good a position as investors hoped. The sentiment is one shared by at least some Baidu employees.
“We can only explore by ourselves. Training ChatGPT took OpenAI more than a year, and it took them another year to tune GPT-4,” said one Baidu employee. “It means we’re two years behind.”
As for some details, Baidu reported $371.3 million in net revenue (a 94.4 percent increase from a year earlier) rather than the $360.3 million analysts had forecast. Also, the company reported $175.9 million in net profit (up 171.3 percent) instead of $156.2 million.