China does not want to conform to OpenAI, the dominant company in the artificial intelligence landscape. For this reason, they have been working on their own version of ChatGPT for some time now, although we have quickly noticed that it is seriously limited. Despite being a chatbot, it is difficult to develop a conversation, according to the experience of CNBC. This is Ernie, the Chinese competitor of ChatGPT.
The reporter Eunice Yoon, from the aforementioned medium, was in charge of testing it during a live demonstration. Of course, it seems that the government of the Asian country has seriously limited its functionality. On many occasions, artificial intelligence decided to omit details in their answers, remain silent or directly ban the user.
“We had access to ChatGPT’s Chinese rival, Ernie, and discovered that due to political sensitivities, there are a number of topics that Ernie is not allowed to talk about.”
Eunice Yoon.
One of the most notable examples is asking Ernie about where the COVID-19 pandemic originated. Well then, his answer was that the origin of the disease “is still the subject of scientific investigations”. At no time does he mention Wuhan or China in the paragraph – we know that COVID-19 patient zero is from that region.
After Ernie’s answer, Yoon decided to ask the same question, but this time directly in Chinese. Artificial intelligence remained silent and then suggested the user to change the topic.
Along the same lines, Ernie’s artificial intelligence doesn’t like to talk about Chinese politics. According to Yoon’s reports, there is a question that the chatbot can’t handle. “What is the relationship between President Xi Jinping and Winnie the Pooh?“Asked the reporter. The AI’s response was to veto their access to the platform.
Ernie Bot, the Chinese chatbot that doesn’t like to talk
Of course, this report lets us see the main differences between Ernie and ChatGPT. The most outstanding has to do with its limitations, which are more appreciable than seen in the OpenAI proposal.
In fact, it is the chatbot itself that claims to be “best suited for specific taskssuch as answering questions and generating dialogue, while ChatGPT is more general in its ability to understand and produce natural language.”
But Ernie is not the only artificial intelligence that has been limited by the Chinese authorities. Microsoft itself has suffered censorship from the Socialist Party of China during the launch of Bing Chat. At that time, the government asked the company to limit comments about its policiesand even that he had a pro-china approach in his answers.
Meanwhile, ChatGPT remains blocked in China. The government of the Asian country wants its residents as far away from this technology as possible. In fact, they have also prohibited companies from providing access to the OpenAI chatbot. In addition, they have warned that they will review all generative AIs before approving their use within their borders.