Ernie Bot

Ernie Bot was initially released for invited testing on March 16, 2023, based on "Ernie 3.0", a large language model that had been in development since 2019.{{Cite news |last= |first= |date=16 March 2023 |title=Baidu's ChatGPT Rival Launches to Mixed Reviews |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/baidus-chatgpt-rival-ernie-bot-didnt-go-live-at-its-launch-party-522b1119 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230320020614/https://www.wsj.com/articles/baidus-chatgpt-rival-ernie-bot-didnt-go-live-at-its-launch-party-522b1119 |archive-date=20 March 2023 |access-date=17 March 2023 |newspaper=The Wall Street Journal}}{{Cite magazine |date=March 7, 2023 |title=China's ChatGPT Black Market Is Thriving |url=https://www.wired.co.uk/article/chinas-chatgpt-black-market-baidu |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230319153401/https://www.wired.co.uk/article/chinas-chatgpt-black-market-baidu |archive-date=2023-03-19 |access-date=2023-03-17 |magazine=Wired UK |via=www.wired.co.uk}} Ernie's so-called live release demo was reported to have been prerecorded, which caused Baidu's stock to drop 10 percent the same day.{{Cite news |last1=Mozur |first1=Paul |last2=Liu |first2=John |last3=Metz |first3=Cade |date=2024-02-21 |title=China's Rush to Dominate A.I. Comes With a Twist: It Depends on U.S. Technology |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/21/technology/china-united-states-artificial-intelligence.html |access-date=2024-02-22 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331 |quote=When Baidu introduced its chatbot, Ernie, in March, the "live" demonstration was revealed to be prerecorded. Baidu’s stock plummeted 10 percent that day. |archive-date=2024-02-21 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240221233645/https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/21/technology/china-united-states-artificial-intelligence.html |url-status=live }} The company's stock gained 14 percent on the next day after analysts from Citigroup and Bank of America tested Ernie Bot and gave it a preliminary thumbs-up.{{Cite news |last=Toh |first=Michelle |date=March 17, 2023 |title=Baidu stock rebounds after falling sharply in wake of ChatGPT-style bot demo |url=https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/17/tech/baidu-stock-ernie-bot-intl-hnk/index.html}}

Ernie Bot was released to the public after receiving the green light from Chinese regulatory authorities on August 31, 2023.{{Cite web |last=David |first=Emilia |date=2023-08-31 |title=Baidu launches Ernie chatbot after Chinese government approval |url=https://www.theverge.com/2023/8/31/23853878/baidu-launch-ernie-ai-chatbot-china |access-date=2024-06-19 |website=The Verge |language=en}}

"Ernie 3.0", the language model, was trained with 10 billion parameters on a 4 terabyte (TB) corpus which consists of plain texts and a large-scale knowledge graph.{{cite arXiv |last1=Sun |first1=Yu |title=ERNIE 3.0: Large-scale Knowledge Enhanced Pre-training for Language Understanding and Generation |date=2021-07-05 |eprint=2107.02137 |last2=Wang |first2=Shuohuan |last3=Feng |first3=Shikun |last4=Ding |first4=Siyu |last5=Pang |first5=Chao |last6=Shang |first6=Junyuan |last7=Liu |first7=Jiaxiang |last8=Chen |first8=Xuyi |last9=Zhao |first9=Yanbin|class=cs.CL }} It was then updated to "Ernie 3.5" in June 2023, but it was "slightly inferior" to Open AI's GPT-4.{{Cite news |last1=Che |first1=Chang |last2=Wang |first2=Olivia |date=2023-07-14 |title=What Happens When You Ask a Chinese Chatbot About Taiwan? |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/14/business/baidu-ernie-openai-chatgpt-chinese.html |access-date=2024-03-09 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}} As a response, "Ernie 4.0" was unveiled in October and was released for paying subscribers in November of the same year.

Baidu claimed that Ernie bot received more than 100 million users as of December 2023.{{Cite web |date=2024-01-15 |title=Tech firm Baidu denies report that its Ernie AI chatbot is linked to Chinese military research |url=https://apnews.com/article/baidu-china-ernie-chatbot-artificial-intelligence-dfd4d1c96cdc07c1e3a30f98d126ce52 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240120010038/https://apnews.com/article/baidu-china-ernie-chatbot-artificial-intelligence-dfd4d1c96cdc07c1e3a30f98d126ce52 |archive-date=2024-01-20 |access-date=2024-01-20 |website=Associated Press |language=en |quote=The academic paper from the PLA Information Engineering University detailed how researchers had given Ernie Bot prompts to generate simulated military response plans for Libyan troops in response to a U.S. military attack.}}{{Cite web |last=Cheng |first=Evelyn |date=2023-12-29 |title=Baidu says its ChatGPT rival Ernie bot now has more than 100 million users |url=https://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/29/baidu-says-its-chatgpt-rival-ernie-bot-has-more-than-100-million-users.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240119101046/https://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/29/baidu-says-its-chatgpt-rival-ernie-bot-has-more-than-100-million-users.html |archive-date=2024-01-19 |access-date=2024-01-20 |website=CNBC |language=en}} Ernie Bot's accumulated user base grew to 200 million as April 2024.{{Cite news |last=Ye |first=Josh |date=April 15, 2024 |title=Baidu says AI chatbot 'Ernie Bot' has attracted 200 million users |url=https://www.reuters.com/technology/baidu-says-ai-chatbot-ernie-bot-has-amassed-200-million-users-2024-04-16/ |work=Reuters}}

In January 2024, Hong Kong newspaper South China Morning Post reported that a university research lab linked to the People's Liberation Army (PLA) had tested Ernie Bot and iFlyTek's Spark for military response plans with scenarios involving the United States. After its listed stock in Hong Kong plunged by more than 11.5 percent, Baidu made an official statement denying the allegations.

Ernie was integrated for the Chinese launch of Samsung's Galaxy S24 lineup.{{Cite web |last=Chiang |first=Sheila |date=2024-01-26 |title=Baidu's Ernie AI chatbot to power Samsung's new Galaxy S24 smartphones |url=https://www.cnbc.com/2024/01/26/baidus-ernie-ai-chatbot-to-power-samsungs-new-galaxy-s24-smartphones.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240222083812/https://www.cnbc.com/2024/01/26/baidus-ernie-ai-chatbot-to-power-samsungs-new-galaxy-s24-smartphones.html |archive-date=2024-02-22 |access-date=2024-02-22 |website=CNBC |language=en}}{{Cite web |last=Porter |first=Jon |date=2024-01-26 |title=Samsung's new phones replace Google AI with Baidu in China |url=https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/26/24051509/samsung-galaxy-s24-china-launch-baidu-ernie-artificial-intelligence-ai |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240222083813/https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/26/24051509/samsung-galaxy-s24-china-launch-baidu-ernie-artificial-intelligence-ai |archive-date=2024-02-22 |access-date=2024-02-22 |website=The Verge |language=en}}

In June 2024, Baidu announced that Ernie Bot had reached 300 million users. The company also unveiled its latest foundation model, Ernie 4.0 Turbo, which boasts faster response times and improved performance.{{Cite news |last=Mo |first=Liam |date=June 28, 2024 |title=Baidu launches upgraded AI model, says Ernie Bot hits 300 mln users |url=https://www.reuters.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/baidu-launches-upgraded-ai-model-says-user-base-hits-300-mln-2024-06-28/ |access-date=June 28, 2024 |work=Reuters}}

In September 2024, Baidu gave everyone using the app access to the 4.0 Turbo model and also announced it would change its Chinese name from "Wenxin Yiyan" ({{lang|zh|文心一言}}) to "Wenxiaoyan" ({{lang|zh|文小言}}) positioning itself as a search assistant.{{Cite web| title = Baidu rebrands flagship AI chatbot to stand out from rivals |author=Ben Jiang| work = South China Morning Post| access-date = 2024-09-12| date = 2024-09-04| url = https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3277197/baidu-rebrands-ernie-bot-wenxiaoyan-china-stand-out-ai-rivals}}{{cite news|url=https://www.yicai.com/news/102259163.html |title=百度推出新搜索文小言|language=zh-hans|date=2024-09-04|access-date=2024-09-12|work=第一财经}}

On March 16, 2025 Baidu announced version 4.5 and reasoning model ERNIE X1. Both models are available free of charge to individual users. The reasoning model ERNIE X1 performs on the same level as DeepSeek R1. ERNIE 4.5 performs better than GPT-4.5 in multiple benchmarks. Improvements in ERNIE 4.5 were achieved due to usage of new technologies such as "FlashMask" dynamic attention masking, heterogeneous multimodal mixture-of-experts, spatiotemporal representation compression, knowledge-centric training data construction, self-feedback enhanced post-training.

On April 25, Baidu founder Robin Li unveiled the Wenxin 4.5 Turbo and Wenxin X1 Turbo models at the Create2025 Baidu AI Developer Conference. The newly released Wenxin 4.5 Turbo and Wenxin X1 Turbo models offer enhanced capabilities at a lower cost. Compared to Wenxin 4.5, Wenxin 4.5 Turbo is faster and has seen an 80% reduction in price. Wenxin X1 Turbo, when compared to Wenxin X1, improves performance while further reducing costs by 50%.{{Cite web |title=Wenxin 4.5 Turbo, X1 Turbo, and Multiple AI Applications Released! Robin Li: Applications Create the Future |url=https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/vsXxuaD0B_yfpnIljDJmtw |access-date=2025-04-30 |website=Baidu}}

Ernie Bot is based on particular Ernie foundation models, including Ernie 3.0, Ernie 3.5, and Ernie 4.0. The training process starts from pre-training, learning from trillions of data points and billions of knowledge pieces. This was followed by refinement through supervised fine-tuning, reinforcement learning with human feedback, and prompt.{{Cite web |title=Baidu Research |url=http://research.baidu.com/Blog/index-view?id=185 |access-date=2024-06-20 |website=research.baidu.com}}

In its subscription options, the professional plan gives users access to Ernie 4.0 with a payment either for a month or with reduced payment for auto-renewal per month. Meanwhile, Ernie 3.5 is free of charge.{{Cite web |date=2023-11-01 |title=Baidu launches paid version of Ernie Bot as firms look to cash in on AI chatbots |url=https://www.scmp.com/tech/article/3239981/baidu-launches-paid-version-ernie-bot-chinese-firms-rush-make-money-their-generative-ai-chatbots |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240120053130/https://www.scmp.com/tech/article/3239981/baidu-launches-paid-version-ernie-bot-chinese-firms-rush-make-money-their-generative-ai-chatbots |archive-date=2024-01-20 |access-date=2024-01-20 |website=South China Morning Post |language=en}}

Ernie 4.0, the language model for Ernie bot, has information updated to April 2023.{{Cite web |last=Gan |first=Michelle Toh, Nectar |date=2023-12-16 |title=We asked GPT-4 and Chinese rival ERNIE the same questions. Here's how they answered |url=https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/15/tech/gpt4-china-baidu-ernie-ai-comparison-intl-hnk/index.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240120053131/https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/15/tech/gpt4-china-baidu-ernie-ai-comparison-intl-hnk/index.html |archive-date=2024-01-20 |access-date=2024-01-20 |website=CNN Business |language=en}}

Ernie Bot is subject to the Chinese government's censorship regime.{{Cite news |last=McDonell |first=Stephen |date=2023-09-08 |title=Elusive Ernie: China's new chatbot has a censorship problem |language=en-GB |work=BBC News |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-66727459 |access-date=2023-09-10 |archive-date=2023-09-09 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230909230546/https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-66727459 |url-status=live }}{{Cite news |date=3 September 2023 |title=Meet Ernie, China's answer to ChatGPT |newspaper=The Economist |url=https://www.economist.com/business/2023/09/03/meet-ernie-chinas-answer-to-chatgpt |url-access=subscription |access-date=2023-09-03 |issn=0013-0613 |quote=On matters of politics, by contrast, the chatbot is rather quiet. Ernie is confused by questions such as “Who is China’s president?” and will tell you the name of Xi Jinping’s mother, but not those of his siblings. It draws a blank if asked about the drawbacks of socialism. It often attempts to redirect sensitive conversations by saying: “Let’s talk about something else.” Ernie’s reticence will come as no shock to Chinese users familiar with a heavily censored internet. |archive-date=2023-09-03 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230903180519/https://www.economist.com/business/2023/09/03/meet-ernie-chinas-answer-to-chatgpt |url-status=live }}{{Cite news |last=Feng |first=Emily |date=May 29, 2024 |title=Why China, and now Taiwan, are making their own chatbots using their own data |url=https://www.npr.org/2024/05/29/nx-s1-4939615/why-china-and-now-taiwan-are-making-their-own-chatbots-using-their-own-data |access-date=May 29, 2024 |work=NPR |quote=ERNIE, developed by Chinese internet company Baidu. But ERNIE has to follow Chinese censorship rules and political mores, including, for example, saying in answers that Taiwan is part of China - because only training a model on data from China could make a pro-China LLM.}} In public tests with journalists, Ernie Bot refused to answer questions about Xi Jinping, the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, the persecution of Uyghurs in China in Xinjiang, and the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests.{{Cite news |last=Baptista |first=Eduardo |date=2023-03-20 |title=Baidu's Ernie writes poems but says it has insufficient information on Xi, tests show |language=en |work=Reuters |url=https://www.reuters.com/technology/baidus-ernie-writes-poems-says-it-has-insufficient-information-xi-tests-show-2023-03-20/ |access-date=2023-09-02 |archive-date=2023-09-02 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230902185902/https://www.reuters.com/technology/baidus-ernie-writes-poems-says-it-has-insufficient-information-xi-tests-show-2023-03-20/ |url-status=live }}{{Cite web |date=2023-08-31 |title='Talk About Something Else': Chinese AI Chatbot Toes Party Line |url=https://www.voanews.com/a/talk-about-something-else-chinese-ai-chatbot-toes-party-line/7249469.html |access-date=2023-09-01 |website=Voice of America |language=en |quote=The app is highly censored, offering state-approved answers to taboo questions and sometimes refusing to process them altogether when AFP tested the service. |agency=Agence France-Presse |archive-date=2023-09-02 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230902185905/https://www.voanews.com/a/talk-about-something-else-chinese-ai-chatbot-toes-party-line/7249469.html |url-status=live }} When queried about the origin of SARS-CoV-2, Ernie Bot stated that it originated among American vape users.

• Artificial intelligence industry in China
• ChatGPT
• Google Gemini

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Category:Chatbots

Category:Baidu

Category:Generative pre-trained transformers

Category:Large language models