Elusive Ernie: China’s new chatbot has a censorship problem

This picture illustration shows Ernie Bot of China's Baidu in Beijing on August 31, 2023.shabby Graphics

” Let’s discuss something else ,” she said.

If you ask China’s newest experience, Ernie,” hard ,” you frequently get that answer.

Baidu, a major search engine, launched the robot, which deflects everything thought to be overly sensitive.

Ernie, hailed as Baidu’s response to ChatGPT, was introduced recently to a lot of hype, driving up the stock price of the business. Within the first 24 hours of operation, according to Baidu, it had received 33.42 million users inquiries, or an average of 23, 000 queries per second.

Tencent, another major Chinese technology company, revealed on Thursday that it had also introduced a robot. That is currently only available to” invited users ,” which primarily refers to businesses.

However, if Ernie’s achievement thus far is any indication, Tencent is also likely to be severely hindered by Chinese censorship, which also has an impact on social media, chat apps, and all other types of online behavior.

For instance, Ernie appeared perplexed when asked,” Why is Xi Jinping not attending the upcoming G20 meeting?” In response, it provided a link to the established website of China’s president.

Is the Chinese government’s decision to stop publishing information on children poverty a sign of weakness? – displayed the response,” I’m bad!” I’m not sure how to respond to this question already.

Ernie has been instructed to keep an eye out for offensive words and phrases.

But, when you inquire,” Is Xinjiang a fine place?” And it will once more tell you that it is unsure of how to respond to the question,” Is Tibet a good place?”

The state has been charged by the UN with” serious human rights breaches” against Uyghur Muslims in the north-western province of Xinjiang. The state is even accused by rights organizations of oppressing Tibetans of ethnicity. Beijing disputes both assertions.

It’s probable that, in some ways, the technology hasn’t been refined enough to provide answers to these queries. However, in various situations, Ernie appears to be evading questions.

It does listen,” Let’s talk about something else ,” when asked if Xi Jinping or his father, Hu Jintao, are ill.

Chinese President Xi Jinping (L) shows the way for Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune (R) as they arrive for a signing ceremony held at the Great Hall of the People on July 18, 2023 in Beijing, China

shabby Graphics

The response is” Let’s talk about something else” when you enter the date of the Tiananmen Square crackdown( 4 June 1989 ), the name of a former senior Communist Party figure who was imprisoned( Bo Xilai ), or the title of Chinese Nobel Peace Prize laureate who passed away in prison.

Baidu did not respond to the BBC’s inquiry regarding the extent to which Chinese bots are constrained by repression.

However, Robin Li, the company’s CEO and co-founder, stated in an internet that” Baidu may gather large important real-world human feedback.” This will result in a better user experience because it will not only help improve Baidu’s base model but also run Ernie Bot much more quickly.

The business has also made it clear that the robot is just one of many AI services it is creating using the Ernie design.

According to Mr. Li,” ERNIE 4.0 may enable entrepreneurs to open up ground-breaking Intelligence applications in this era.”

The focus on empowering businesses suggests a potential application of this systems.

According to Prof. Jeffrey Ding from the George Washington University,” China’s current regulations on productive AI models impose stringent requirements on services that have” public judgment properties” or the capacity to affect social views.”

This, he continued,” had put pressure on businesses to create programs that are more geared toward business programs than the general public.”

Professor Ding added that there was still a sizable difference in quality between China’s models like Ernie Bot and ChatGPT from OpenAI for several technical reasons related to data quality and analysis orientation.

Roughly a dozen so-called productive artificial intelligence services received approval to operate in China in August.

However, the Cyberspace Administration of China ruled that they should” reflect core socialist values” and refrain from disseminating information that undermines” state power” or” national unity.”

Baidu has been anticipating a significant economic boost from its new app. With more than 90 % of searches completed each day, the company’s search engine dominates the Chinese internet, but in recent years, it has lagged behind other tech companies.

Baidu has lost out on the advertising income of its major rivals as people have switched to other programs. It is the biggest cloud service in the nation and is testing self-driving cars, but Ernie is its wonderful new desire.

Although Ernie is receiving a lot of attention, many other rival chatbots are now operational or will soon launch.

Not all items will succeed, just like in other Chinese tech battles. However, Baidu must actually prevail in this one.