Chinese technology giant Baidu Inc (Baidu.com (NASDAQ:BIDU)) has claimed that its new artificial intelligence (AI) bot is on a par with OpenAI’s ChatGPT as the software was rolled out on Tuesday.
Unveiling the company’s latest bot, Earnie 4.0, at an event, Baidu chief executive Robin Li told audience members it was “not inferior in any aspect to GPT-4”.
“We always complained that AI was not intelligent enough,” he continued.
“But today, it understands almost everything you say, and in many cases, it understands what you’re saying better than your friends or your colleagues.”
Baidu’s Earnie bot has effectively become China’s response to the growing popularity of AI programmes elsewhere, which was kicked off by ChatGPT’s release late last year.
Though rivals such as Alibaba and Huawei are developing their own models, Baidu’s has become the frontrunner in China’s AI race, after Earnie was unveiled in March and released in August.
Earnie has subsequently gained around 45 million users, with Tuesday’s update saying the bot has “significantly improved” in terms of understanding and remembering queries.
Though it remains unclear when Earnie 4.0 will be publicly available, Baidu said the technology had been built into its other offerings, including search engines and mapping apps.