Baidu Scrambles To Ready China's First ChatGPT Equivalent Ahead of Launch

A week away from the March 16 launch of Baidu's ChatGPT equivalent, employees at China's biggest search-engine operator said they are racing to meet the deadline with the chatbot still struggling to perform some basic functions. From a report: To develop the artificial-intelligence-powered chatbot, dubbed Ernie Bot, hundreds of people have been working around the clock, people familiar with the project said. Other teams have been asked to lend their staff and their powerful computer chips, which Chinese companies can no longer buy because of U.S. sanctions, they said. The AI model that is the basis of the chatbot is still being trained with data ahead of the scheduled launch, a highly anticipated event in China's tech industry, some of the people said. Some employees said they haven't had sufficient time to build a well-functioning product. Baidu plans to roll out the product in stages, first opening it up for public testing to a restricted pool of users, people briefed about the plan said. Last month, Baidu said that it will embed Ernie Bot into its search engine first and will open it to the public in March.

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[Virtucon]

The time for us to be more careful about what businesses and technology we export to China and what technology we allowed them access to was over 30 years ago. They have received a massive boost as have other nations based on the wholesale exporting of manufacturing and other technologies. This of course made big profits for the companies that were allowed to do it while subsequently damaging our own future. When you have Chinese gov't intelligence officers being convicted [justice.gov] you get an idea of how bad the s

Re:Using Stolen Tech

[AmiMoJo]

Baidu, Google, and Facebook all had this kind of tech before ChatGPT came along. They just didn't think to make it public, because it has obvious flaws (gives the wrong answer, gaslights the user, goes nuts) and because nobody really predicted that as soon as anything even half baked was available people would be flooding Amazon with AI written books and so forth.

You might recall a Google engineer was fired for going public with his assertion that Google's chatbot was sentient a few months before ChatGPT was launched. They were all just sitting on it, not realizing that they had something potentially marketable.

Baidu demonstrated a fairly advanced system a few years ago, as well as other AI tech like being able to imitate a voice from only a few seconds of sample. It's not really surprising considering how much money they have put into AI R&D.

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[real_nickname]

I think parent was referring to GPU export ban not algo ban. I don't think an export ban on fully open researchs ever existed (and is impractical obviously).

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[real_nickname]

Is it even legally possible to forbid another nation to buy things? Merica can ban export from its territory, I don't think they can ban foreigner reseller. If some united statian do illegal export they are the offender, not the buyer.

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[aldousd666]

It's not a GOOD idea, and it's not 'illegal' but it's probably not what you think. Sanctions are imposed by agreements. "If you trade with China, we stop trading with you, or charge you double" stuff like that. The US sticks our nose in all of our trading partners business, threatening them with sanctions, or networks of sanctions from other compliant allies, or just threatens to cut them off the entire financial system, if they don't comply with trade sanctions. The US has the most power to do this, bu

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[real_nickname]

I'm aware of USA applying sanctions to other countries when they don't follow theirs rules, but it has nothing to do with doing illegal activities (contrary to the twisted american centric view of the parent). Concerning GPU, it seems to be an US only thing and limited to powerful chips such as A100. Probably enough since it may be very hard to get a lot of nvidia A100 without buying from nvidia directly. Also it's funny to see nvidia developing chips (A800) in order to continue exporting to china consideri

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[Anon78906799]

I'm not sure who enforces them, but it's definitely legally possible to forbid companies from selling things to specific nations (and practicable to get friendly nations to folow suit) - look at the international sanctions against Russia and Belarus, over the invasion of Ukraine.

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[real_nickname]

Nations forbid theirs companies to export, not other countries to import. So if an american company exports gpu to china, its the american company legal problem not china. Any countries can allow export to Russia, they don't violate any laws. they just make their friends or, worst, masters angry leading possibly to devastating economic sanctions(no judge is involved here).

Ahead of Launch

[cstacy]

Why does it make me nervous when I hear the words "China", "scramble", and "ahead of launch" together like this?

I don't know about this AI stuff. I prefer good old straight algorithms, in a procedural style. "Path. Follow path. Gate. Open gate, through gate, close gate. Last ferry 6.30, so run, run, run."

Ernie, tell me the story

[presidenteloco]

of the Tiananmen tank guy.