Chinese search engine giant Baidu’s shares have fallen by up to 10% after the company unveiled its AI chatbot Ernie, which aims to rival the popular ChatGPT, backed by Microsoft.
Ernie is powered by Baidu’s deep learning model, Enhanced Representation through Knowledge Integration (Ernie).
However, the bot’s demonstration, shown in a pre-recorded video, failed to impress investors, causing a slump in the company’s shares.
Ernie’s introduction follows similar projects by Alibaba and JD.com.
Despite the lacklustre demonstration, Baidu CEO Robin Li said the announcement was a “natural continuation” of the company’s work.
The rise of chatbots has triggered concerns over job loss and cheating in academia.
