China's Baidu Unveils Ernie 4.0 to rival GPT-4
At its annual flagship Baidu World event held in Beijing this week, Baidu unveiled the newest generation of its AI model, Ernie 4.0, which it claims is on par with OpenAI’s GPT-4 model.
An AI to rival GPT-4?
According to a report on Reuters, company CEO Robin Li demonstrated the model's memory capabilities and showed it writing a martial arts novel in real-time. Ernie 4.0 was also shown creating advertising posters and videos.
“Ernie 4.0 has achieved a full upgrade with drastically improved performance in understanding, generation, reasoning, and memory,” Li said in a statement.
“These four core capabilities form the foundation of AI-native applications and have now unleashed unlimited opportunities for new innovations.”
Baidu first unveiled its ErnieBot chatbot in March, powered by Ernie. In August, Baidu was among several firms to receive government approval to release AI products to the public.
The race to develop powerful AI capabilities is heating up. Baidu is not the only company working on advanced AI models. OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft are also developing their own models, with OpenAI mulling creating its own AI chips to ensure adequate supplies and bring down cost.
According to reports, Microsoft is also developing a custom AI chip to reduce its dependence on Nvidia’s GPUs.
Last week, Beijing published proposed security requirements for firms offering services powered by AI. This includes a blacklist of sources that cannot be used to train AI models, a move some critics say will slow down the development of its AI technology.
OpenAI has not been resting on its laurels but has been making regular improvements and announcements.
Last month, OpenAI launched the ability for users to upload images to ChatGPT, and allow users to conduct a verbal conversation with the chatbot. It also launched DALL-E 3, its latest text-to-image tool that uses AI to generate images from text prompts.
Ernie 4.0 is now accessible to invited users on Ernie Bot, and the API will be available upon application to enterprise clients.
Paul Mah is the editor of DSAITrends. A former system administrator, programmer, and IT lecturer, he enjoys writing both code and prose. You can reach him at [email protected].
Image credit: iStockphoto/shansekala
