- tech360.tv
Baidu CEO Highlights ERNIE Chatbot's Superiority in Classical Chinese Language Tasks
Baidu CEO Robin Li highlights ERNIE 4.0's superiority in classical Chinese language tasks compared to OpenAI's GPT-4. ERNIE demonstrates its understanding of the complex Tang dynasty scheme, Qinyuanchun, while GPT-4 struggles with its composition rules. Li aims to change people's perceptions of Baidu's chatbot and believes that programming skills will become universal.
Baidu's co-founder and CEO, Robin Li, recently showcased the advanced capabilities of the company's latest AI chatbot, ERNIE 4.0, in handling classical Chinese language tasks. In a televised interview with Chinese state television, Li compared ERNIE's performance to OpenAI's GPT-4 and emphasised its superiority in creating poetry using the complex Tang dynasty scheme known as Qinyuanchun.
Li explained that if he were to ask GPT-4 to compose a poem following the Qinyuanchun scheme, the tool would become "totally confused" due to its lack of understanding regarding the structure and composition rules. He highlighted ERNIE's ability to grasp the nuances of the scheme, such as determining whether the first sentence should consist of four or five words.
This demonstration is significant as it comes amidst a surge of Chinese AI ventures receiving external investments from Baidu's competitors. Additionally, OpenAI's text-to-video model, Sora, has sparked a new wave of excitement in the global AI community.
During the interview, Li acknowledged that ERNIE falls slightly behind GPT in understanding English, as it hasn't been trained on as much English language data. However, he emphasised that comparisons between AI models are inevitable, and Chinese companies have always benchmarked their products against OpenAI's models. Li expressed his desire to change people's perceptions within a year and is not deterred by the differences between ChatGPT and Baidu's self-built chatbot.
In a bold prediction, Li stated that the profession of a "programmer" will eventually become obsolete as he believes that everyone will possess programming abilities as long as they can speak. He foresees English and Chinese as the only two programming languages in the future.
Furthermore, Li advised companies and entrepreneurs to refrain from constantly launching large language models, which he considers to be repetitive labor. He emphasised that true value is created through practical applications.
Baidu's investment in AI has yielded positive results, with its AI models and ERNIE chatbot contributing RMB 656 million ($91.5 million) to the company's revenue in the fourth quarter of last year. However, these contributions accounted for only 1.9% of the company's total earnings.
Li's remarks come ahead of the one-year anniversary of Baidu's ERNIEbot, which was launched on March 16, 2023.
Baidu CEO Robin Li highlights ERNIE 4.0's superiority in classical Chinese language tasks compared to OpenAI's GPT-4.
ERNIE demonstrates its understanding of the complex Tang dynasty scheme, Qinyuanchun, while GPT-4 struggles with its composition rules.
Li aims to change people's perceptions of Baidu's chatbot and believes that programming skills will become universal.
Credit: TECHNODE