Baidu targets Apple over AI-powered chatbot
At least four fake “Ernie” bot apps allegedly found in Apple’s App Store | Chat bot touted as ‘China’s ChatGPT’ | Search engine giant Baidu controls 75% share of the China market.
Apple is facing a lawsuit from tech company Baidu over claims that its app store is selling counterfeit versions of an artificial intelligence-powered bot touted as China’s answer to ChatGPT.
In a statement, Baidu confirmed that it had filed the complaints in Beijing Haidian People’s Court against the developers behind the alleged fake applications, as well as Apple.
The company launched ‘Enhanced Representation through Knowledge Integration’(Ernie) last month, claiming in an official tweet that the bot “demonstrates proficiency in the latest trend of generative AI, from literary creation to business writing”."
But despite this fanfare, Ernie does not yet have an official app, and Baidu has confirmed the bot is only currently available to users who apply for and receive access codes.
“Until our company’s official announcement, any Ernie app you see from App Store or other stores are fake,” it said in a statement posted on its WeChat channel.
Research carried out by Reuters since the filings were lodged found there were still at least four counterfeit apps bearing the Chinese-language name of the Ernie bot in Apple’s app store.
The Ernie Bot is based on Baidu's language model ‘Ernie’, developed on its open-source machine learning framework and first launched in 2019. Baidu introduced the third generation of Ernie in May 2022.
This is another setback for the Chinese search giant, which saw its shares nosedive after the company unveiled the bot to a lukewarm response from investors on March 16.
Baidu CEO and co-founder Robin Li demonstrated a prerecorded video of what the bot can do rather than a live demonstration due to “time constraints”, according to a report by Nikkei Asia.
The company's Hong Kong-listed shares subsequently slumped by more than 10% at one point during the demonstration before ending the day down 6.36%, at 125.1 Hong Kong dollars, added the report.
In the demo video, the chatbot replied to simple queries about the sci-fi novel, The Three-Body Problem and its spin-off television series. It also penned a press release, answered a maths question and recited some words in Sichuanese.
During this presentation, Li claimed that more than 650 Chinese companies have already committed to incorporating the app into their own offerings.
While the Ernie bot address prompts in English as well, it is better equipped to grapple with Chinese languages.
But according to Nikkei Asia, Li has revealed plans to train the model with more language options.
Baidu's market share stands at more than 75% in China, where Google is banned
