Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Computing
  3. News

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

Chinese internet giant to launch its own version of ChatGPT, report says

Trevor Mogg
By

Chinese internet giant Baidu is planning to launch its own version of ChatGPT, a report claimed on Sunday.

The company will unveil its AI-powered chatbot in March, a person claiming to have knowledge of the matter told Bloomberg.

Recommended Videos

At the start, the tool, which is yet to be given a name, will be incorporated into Baidu’s main search services, the source said.

Related

While Chinese technology firms are already working on similar AI tools, Baidu’s sheer size means that its own involvement would be a landmark moment in a new sector that has huge potential to transform multiple industries.

According to Bloomberg, Baidu has already invested large sums of money in developing its Ernie system, an AI tool that it’s been working on for several years, and it’s this that will form the basis of its upcoming version of ChatGPT.

ChatGPT, developed by California-based OpenAI, has taken chatbot technology to a whole new level. Unveiled just a couple of months ago, the tool has been trained using massive amounts of web data and refined through human feedback, giving it the skill to respond in text form to human prompts in a way that’s both natural and creative.

While it still has a number of limitations, ChatGPT has so much potential that it may one day replace lawyers, teachers, writers, and more. It can even create computer code, so programmers will be watching their backs, too. Still, it’s possible that the technology will assist and augment these roles rather than replace them entirely.

Similar AI tools are also threatening to disrupt creative industries, with artists becoming increasingly concerned about text-to-image and text-to-video generators such as OpenAI’s Dall-E2 that could leave humans struggling to make a living from their craft.

In a sign of just how big the technology powering these AI tools is about to become, computer giant Microsoft recently announced a significant investment in OpenAI, believed to be in the region of $10 billion.

Google’s parent firm, Alphabet, is also investing heavily in developing competing systems amid fears that Microsoft could use ChatGPT to supercharge its Bing search engine, potentially impacting Google’s main revenue driver.

With China’s web giant Baidu reportedly all set to enter the space in earnest, the motivation to develop the skills of ChatGPT and similar technologies will only increase.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Trevor Mogg
Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
ChatGPT shortly devolved into an AI mess
A response from ChatGPT on an Android phone.

I've seen my fair share of unhinged AI responses -- not the least of which was when Bing Chat told me it wanted to be human last year -- but ChatGPT has stayed mostly sane since it was first introduced. That's changing, as users are flooding social media with unhinged, nonsensical responses coming from the chatbot.

In a lot of reports, ChatGPT simply spits out gibberish. For example, u/Bullroarer_Took took to the ChatGPT subreddit to showcase a response in which a series of jargon and proper sentence structure gives the appearance of a response, but a close read shows the AI spitting out nonsense.

Read more
The best custom GPTs to make ChatGPT even more powerful
A person typing on a laptop that is showing the ChatGPT generative AI website.

The introduction of Custom GPTs was one of the most exciting additions to ChatGPT in recent months. These allow you to craft custom chatbots with their own instructions and data by feeding them documents, weblinks, and more to make sure they know what you need and respond how you would like them to.

But you don't have to make your own Custom GPT if you don't want to. Indeed, there are tens of thousands of Custom GPTs already made by engineers around the world, and many of them are very impressive.

Read more
I used ChatGPT to help me make my first game. Don’t make the same mistakes I did
A person typing on a laptop that is showing the ChatGPT generative AI website.

Alongside writing articles about ChatGPT, coming to terms with AI chatbot has been a major mission of mine for the past year. I've found it useful for coming up with recipe ideas from a list of ingredients, writing fun alternate history ideas, and answering board game rules clarifications. But I wanted to see if it could do something more impressive: teach me how to make a game.
The first hurdle
I've wanted to make a game for a while now. I programmed a bunch of basic Flash games when I was a kid -- if you can find my Newgrounds profile, you can have a good laugh at them -- but I've had a few ideas ticking in my mind that have calcified into thoughts that will not shift. I need to make them someday and maybe someday is now.

But knowing how to start making a game isn't easy. I didn't really know what kind of game I was trying to make, or what engine I should use, or how you actually start making a game. Until recently, I just hadn't done it. I'd downloaded Unity once, became intimidated, and uninstalled it.

Read more