Baidu's Ernie Bot falls short of expectations in highly-anticipated launch
Chinese search engine giant Baidu has announced the launch of its new chatbot, Ernie, in response to the buzz surrounding OpenAI's GPT-4 and Microsoft 365's AI makeover.
Following Baidu CEO Robin Li's one-hour presentation on Ernie, which offered only a brief glimpse into the chatbot's capabilities, the public has been left largely underwhelmed. Ernie is currently only available for testing through invitation and a waitlist.
Although Li presented prompts and pre-recorded answers in five functional areas, including literature writing, business writing, logic and reasoning, Chinese interpretation, and multi-modal generation, the lack of a live demo left industry observers inside and outside China unimpressed.
Baidu's shares fell by up to 10% in Hong Kong following Li's presentation, leading some to question whether the company had rushed the launch due to OpenAI's recent advancements.
