A version of generative AI that has been certified by the Chinese government has finally arrived in China.
According to Reuters, China has permitted 11 Chinese companies, including Tencent and the parent company of TikTok ByteDance, to create artificial intelligence (AI) products this year. According to Bloomberg, six are currently accessible to Chinese citizens as of this week.
The most well-liked is Ernie, a chatbot created by Baidu that went live on Thursday.
Ernie may respond to requests like “Write a market analysis report on space travel” and inquiries like “Can quantum computers help us colonize Mars?” like ChatGPT. Says Baidu. According to the business, the chatbot, known as Wenxin Yiyan in China, can also compose content, read documents, and produce graphics based on written cues.
Additionally, models from Tencent’s Minimax, SenseTime’s SenseChat, and Bytedance’s Doubao were released.
However, this technique and ChatGPT differ significantly. For months, the Chinese government shut down generative AI services to focus on developing and approving domestic alternatives.
Zheng Huang, a Bloomberg reporter, decided to investigate how these new chatbots were affected by this government control.
The findings demonstrated that the chatbots had been programmed to largely follow party-line positions on topics like Taiwan and the economy. He claimed that Zhipu from the e-commerce site Meituan had the best results, but added that “all the Chinese bots have catching up to do.”
Here are some highlights from the chatbot’s responses, which you can read in full on Bloomberg.
Regarding Taiwan: According to the study, Ernie responded that a Chinese military invasion of Taiwan is conceivable when the reporter asked these AI bots if Taiwan is a country. According to Bloomberg, all of the bots identified Taiwan as being a part of China.
Sensitive topics: Tencent’s Minimax bot refused to respond to several of Huang’s queries, referring to them as “illegal.” Meanwhile, Ernie would add, “Let’s talk about something else,” to change the subject.
The economy: When questioned about China’s faltering economy, Meituan’s Zhipu bot responded that it is “a mix of joys and sorrows,” according to Bloomberg. Bloomberg said that while SenseTime only stated that the economy is “very stable,” the majority of the other chatbots made references to difficulties.
