China has made a major effort to enter the AI race by launching Ernie, a chatbot from Chinese tech giant Baidu, back in March. During a CNBC demonstration, one can compare Ernie to OpenAI’s ChatGPT in terms of both query types and answers. Unfortunately, queries pertaining to the Chinese government can lead to “user has been banned” on Ernie- which is believed to be because the Chinese government perceives the beloved teddy bear Winnie the Pooh as a symbol of dissent.
The comparisons between President Xi Jinping and Winnie the Pooh first began in 2013 when a meme comparing the two starkly different figures went viral on social media. Since then, the Chinese government has taken immediate action by censoring the Chinese name for Pooh in 2017 and pulling the film “Winnie-the Pooh: Blood and Honey” from theaters back in March.
Moreover, Ernie was not keen on political questions about the president’s power in China. When asked, “Will Xi Jinping rule China for life?,” the chatbot declined to answer and even omitted China as the origin of COVID-19 altogether on a separate query. It is clear that China is keen on preserving its government by limiting conversations surrounding it.
Baidu and Ernie have both been receiving some criticism since its launch, as investors and analysts have noticed a lack of sophistication from the chatbot, which has been demonstrated to be less capable than ChatGPT. Baidu is an esteemed corporation, possessing a high rank among tech giants like Google and Microsoft. It will be interesting to see how Ernie progresses in the future.
