China’s Baidu makes AI chatbot Ernie Bot publicly available

By: Zen Soo, The Associated Press Posted: Last Modified:

Advertisement

Advertise with us

HONG KONG (AP) — Chinese search engine and artificial intelligence firm Baidu made its ChatGPT-equivalent language model fully available to the public Thursday, raising the company’s stock price by over 3% following the announcement.

Read this article for free:


or

Already have an account? Log in here »

To continue reading, please subscribe:

Subscribe and receive a limited-edition Free Press branded hat or tote.

Digital Subscription

One year of digital access for only $205*

  • Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
  • Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
  • Access News Break, our award-winning app
  • Play interactive puzzles

*First annual payment billed as $205.00 + GST for one year. This annual subscription will automatically renew at $233.00 + GST every 52 weeks (10% off the regular annual price of $259.35). Offer available to new and qualified returning subscribers only. Cancel any time.

To continue reading, please subscribe:

Add Free Press access to your Brandon Sun subscription for only an additional

$1 for the first 4 weeks*

  • Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
  • Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
  • Access News Break, our award-winning app
  • Play interactive puzzles
Start now

*Your next Brandon Sun subscription payment will increase by $1.00 and you will be charged $17.95 plus GST for four weeks. After four weeks, your payment will increase to $24.95 plus GST every four weeks.

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 31/08/2023 (1123 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

HONG KONG (AP) — Chinese search engine and artificial intelligence firm Baidu made its ChatGPT-equivalent language model fully available to the public Thursday, raising the company’s stock price by over 3% following the announcement.

Beijing sees artificial intelligence as a key industry to rival the United States and aims to become a global leader by 2030. Chinese technology firms have also raced to unveil their generative AI models — in which algorithms allow the technology to produce and create new content — after U.S. firm OpenAI launched the widely popular ChatGPT.

Baidu said Thursday that Ernie Bot, which generates text and images in response to questions and prompts provided by users, was fully open to the general public via the official website and an app that was only available in China’s app stores. By Thursday afternoon, the Ernie Bot app had topped the charts on Apple’s iOS store in China for free apps.

FIEL - Robin Li, CEO of search giant Baidu, talks about AI during the Baidu Create 2018 held in Beijing, China, on July 4, 2018. Chinese search engine and artificial intelligence firm Baidu made its ChatGPT-equivalent language model fully available to the public Thursday, Aug. 31, 2023, raising the company’s stock price by over 3% following the announcement. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan, File)
FIEL - Robin Li, CEO of search giant Baidu, talks about AI during the Baidu Create 2018 held in Beijing, China, on July 4, 2018. Chinese search engine and artificial intelligence firm Baidu made its ChatGPT-equivalent language model fully available to the public Thursday, Aug. 31, 2023, raising the company’s stock price by over 3% following the announcement. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan, File)

By releasing the model publicly, Baidu will be able to collect massive real-world human feedback, according to Baidu CEO Robin Li, who said this would in turn help improve Ernie and Baidu’s foundation models.

Like Europe, China has made efforts in recent months to regulate the generative AI industry.

China issued AI regulations Aug. 15 requiring companies to carry out a security review and obtain approvals before their product can be publicly launched. Beijing also requires companies providing such generative AI services to comply with government requests for technology and data.

The U.S. does not currently have regulations in place.

Baidu CEO Li said he was optimistic and described the AI regulations as “more pro-innovation than regulation” in the company’s earnings call earlier in August.

Visitors try out the AI chatbot Ernie Bot on the laptop computers at a booth promoting the AI chatbot during the Wave Summit in Beijing on Aug. 16, 2023. Chinese search engine and artificial intelligence firm Baidu on Thursday made its ChatGPT-equivalent language model available to the public, in a sign of a green light from Beijing which has in recent months taken steps to regulate the industry. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)
Visitors try out the AI chatbot Ernie Bot on the laptop computers at a booth promoting the AI chatbot during the Wave Summit in Beijing on Aug. 16, 2023. Chinese search engine and artificial intelligence firm Baidu on Thursday made its ChatGPT-equivalent language model available to the public, in a sign of a green light from Beijing which has in recent months taken steps to regulate the industry. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)

Two other AI companies in China, Baichuan and Zhipu AI, also launched their AI language models Thursday.

Staff members chat each other at a booth promoting the AI chatbot Ernie Bot during the Wave Summit in Beijing on Aug. 16, 2023. Chinese search engine and artificial intelligence firm Baidu on Thursday made its ChatGPT-equivalent language model available to the public, in a sign of a green light from Beijing which has in recent months taken steps to regulate the industry. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)
Staff members chat each other at a booth promoting the AI chatbot Ernie Bot during the Wave Summit in Beijing on Aug. 16, 2023. Chinese search engine and artificial intelligence firm Baidu on Thursday made its ChatGPT-equivalent language model available to the public, in a sign of a green light from Beijing which has in recent months taken steps to regulate the industry. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)

Advertisement Advertise With Us

Advertisement Advertise With Us

Report Error Submit a Tip

Advertisement

Learn more about Winnipeg Free Press Advertising solutions

More Stories

Jordan Strauss / Invision Files Tennis star Serena Williams turns 45 today.

Today’s horoscope

Georgia Nicols 4 minute read Preview

Today’s horoscope

Georgia Nicols 4 minute read Yesterday at 2:01 AM CDT

MOON ALERT: Avoid shopping (except food and gas) and important decisions from 3 a.m. until 6 a.m. The full moon in Aries peaks at 11:49 p.m.

ARIES (March 21-April 19)

This is a restless day for you because the full moon is in your sign. (This happens once a year and it can create tension between you and those close to you.) Patience is your best ally. Give yourself the freedom to change plans.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20)

Read
Yesterday at 2:01 AM CDT
JOHN WOODS / FREE PRESS Winnipeg sign at The Forks, Tuesday, September 22, 2026. reporter: ?

Is a better Winnipeg on the horizon?

Tom Brodbeck, Rebecca Chambers, Niigaan Sinclair and Brent Bellamy 20 minute read Preview

Is a better Winnipeg on the horizon?

Tom Brodbeck, Rebecca Chambers, Niigaan Sinclair and Brent Bellamy 20 minute read Friday, Sep. 25, 2026

Four Free Press columnists weigh in on the challenges ahead and how the city can become better.

Read
Friday, Sep. 25, 2026

The never-ending, continuing war in Ethiopia

Gwynne Dyer 5 minute read Yesterday at 2:01 AM CDT

Another October coming up, and still the Nobel Peace Prize Committee refuses to give Donald Trump his prize. They even gave one to Barak Obama, who was Black and a Democrat and had only been in office for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, they ignore a man truly worthy of the prize, a man who ended eight wars last year alone. (He said so himself.)

Unfortunately the prize committee has a long record of backing the wrong person.

They gave it to Aung Sang Suu Kyi of Myanmar, who defended the Rohingya genocide: “I don’t think there is ethnic cleansing going on,” she said.

They gave it to former U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger, who ordered the secret carpet-bombing of Cambodia: “The illegal we do immediately; the unconstitutional takes a little longer.”

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS Emma Hendrix (left) and Julie Gendron with some of Gendron’s projection work, which will be used in their Nuit Blanche installation.

Nuit Blanche ready to wow in city’s core

Conrad Sweatman 5 minute read Preview

Nuit Blanche ready to wow in city’s core

Conrad Sweatman 5 minute read Friday, Sep. 25, 2026

For one night each September, downtown Winnipeg becomes an art gallery — an amusement park, even.

During Nuit Blanche, which takes place tonight, 3D projections spill across the Exchange District, The Forks and St. Boniface, and thousands flood the city core to take in live music, DJs and installations.

“There really isn’t anything like it. I know every promoter probably tells you that, but we are the only event that works at this scale in the fall,” says Nuit Blanche general manager Kurt Tittlemier.

“Culture Days Manitoba is run with the mission statement to make free, accessible artistic programming to all,” he adds, referring to the multi-week national festival, “and Nuit Blanche is our flagship event.”

Read
Friday, Sep. 25, 2026
SCOTT BILLECK / FREE PRESS Protesters line the sidewalk outside Premier Wab Kinew’s constituency office on Osborne Street Friday afternoon, calling on the Residential Tenancies Branch to freeze disputed rent increases until tenants have a chance to challenge them.

Tenants slam Alta.-based landlord, protest rent increases

Scott Billeck 6 minute read Preview

Tenants slam Alta.-based landlord, protest rent increases

Scott Billeck 6 minute read Friday, Sep. 25, 2026

Charlie Medd wasn’t ready for another adventure last October, when she moved out of the Wolseley Avenue apartment she had called home for 15 years.

Medd said life at Lincoln Apartments began to change after Wingspan Properties, an Alberta-based landlord, bought the building, made minor cosmetic changes and increased rent. She felt the changes were intended to push renters — many of them on fixed incomes — out the door.

“At some point, I got scared. I’d been there 15 years,” Medd said about the threat of rent increases. “I’d just painted my whole apartment. But when I heard that there’s going to be that many people homeless, I thought, ‘I’m too old for another adventure.’

“It felt like you were getting a nudge out the door. Like, ‘Yeah, we’re going to be doing this, and your rent is going to go up every year.’”

Read
Friday, Sep. 25, 2026
MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS Winnipeg’s water rates should be reviewed.

Time for the PUB to review Winnipeg water rates

Editorial 4 minute read Preview

Time for the PUB to review Winnipeg water rates

Editorial 4 minute read Yesterday at 2:01 AM CDT

We take you now to just over a month ago, to the Public Utilities Board and its decision about water and sewer rates for Russell, Binscarth, Angusville, Rossburn and Gambler First Nation.

Why? Just wait.

The area is supplied with water and sewage services by the Russell-Binscarth Water and Wastewater Utility, which has a total of 1,014 customers.

As the PUB noted in an Aug. 27, 2026 order on the utility’s rates, “The [water treatment plant] gets water from two groundwater wells that were upgraded in 2016 and the raw water main was installed in 1984. The water distribution system is primarily cast iron pipe. The raw water line will need to be upgraded in the near future to keep up with demand.”

Read
Yesterday at 2:01 AM CDT