China’s Baidu has rolled out Artificial Intelligence (AI) chatbot Ernie Bot to the public, which has seen it ranked first in popularity on Apple’s app store in China.
Ernie bot will be available to the general public after being in limited mode since it was released in March. It is one of the first domestic AI apps to be fully available to the public in China.
Speaking on the rollout of Ernie Bot to the public, Baidu’s CEO Robin Li said,
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“We are thrilled to share that Ernie Bot is now fully open to the general public starting August 31. In addition to Ernie Bot, Baidu is set to launch a suite of new AI-native apps that allow users to fully experience the four core abilities of generative AI: understanding, generation, reasoning, and memory”.
By making it widely available, Baidu will be able to gain “massive” human feedback to improve the app at a swift pace, the CEO said.
Since OpenAI’s ChatGPT surged in popularity last year, the chatbot was however not allowed in China, which saw the need for Baidu to develop homegrown chatbot in a major leap for the country’s tech sector.
Ernie bot and other Chinese generative AI apps will therefore adhere to the core values of socialism and regain from threatening national security and promoting terrorism, violence, or ethnic hatred.
On August 15, China’s “interim regulation” for the management of generative AI services took effect. The rules said they would not apply to companies developing the Al tech as long as the product was not available to the mass public.
That’s more relaxed than a draft released in April that said forthcoming rules would apply even at the research stage. The latest version of the rules also did not include a blanket license requirement, only saying that one was needed if stipulated by law and regulations. It did not specify which one. China has generally increased regulation on personal data protection and network security.
Service providers are also advised to conduct security assessments and submit filings on their algorithms to the authorities if their software is judged to have an impact on public opinion.
During an earnings call, Baidu CEO Robin Li called the new rules “more pro-innovation” than regulation, and said the company was quite optimistic about the future for a better regulatory environment.
It is worth noting that several other Chinese companies are also rolling out AI products to cash in on the Artificial Intelligence gold rush.
Companies such as Alibaba, and Opera Web browser parent company Kunlun Tech, have been releasing a slew of generative AI products.