China, Jan 16: Baidu, Inc., a leading AI and Internet company trading on NASDAQ as BIDU and on HKEX with counters 9888 and 89888, recently addressed concerns raised by two separate reports involving its artificial intelligence chatbot, ERNIE Bot.
One report involved an academic paper from a Chinese university that mentioned various large language models (LLMs) including GPT3.5, GPT-3.5-turbo, GPT4, HTML-T5, and Baidu’s ERNIE Bot.
Baidu clarified that ERNIE Bot is a public tool, widely used by the general public.
The academic paper in question detailed the use of LLMs, including ERNIE Bot, through standard functions available in generative AI tools, with no special access or business collaboration between Baidu and the paper’s authors or their institutions.
This clarification came after the South China Morning Post, which first reported on the academic paper, amended its initial report.
Another situation involved a report by the same newspaper, the South China Morning Post, which suggested a link between ERNIE Bot and Chinese military research.
The paper cited an academic study from the PLA Information Engineering University, claiming that researchers used ERNIE Bot and iFlyTek’s Spark for simulating military response plans.
Following this report, Baidu’s Hong Kong-listed stock experienced a significant drop.
However, Baidu firmly refuted these allegations, emphasizing that if the PLA researchers did use ERNIE Bot, they only had access to its public functions, identical to any other user.
The report initially implied a direct connection between ERNIE Bot and the PLA division, but this was later corrected to state that the PLA lab tested its system on Baidu’s AI model.
The fear among investors was that any perceived links between Chinese technology firms and the military or government could lead to sanctions similar to those faced by Huawei, considered by the U.S. as an espionage risk.
These incidents come against the backdrop of escalating tensions between China and the U.S., particularly regarding trade, technology, and the status of Taiwan.
Amid these tensions, Baidu has continued to innovate in the AI space, launching ERNIE Bot publicly in August 2023.
By December, the chatbot had amassed over 100 million users, marking Baidu’s significant stride in competing with global AI advancements.
In its response to both situations, Baidu reiterated its commitment to legal and ethical operations, emphasizing compliance with laws, regulations, and best corporate practices.
The company’s stance reflects the growing importance of AI ethics and governance in the increasingly digital and interconnected global landscape.
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