ChatGPT challenger from China, Ernie Bot, will reportedly refuse sensitive questions about Chinese President Xi Jinping or Covid-19.

In fact, the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot made by Baidu is ready to block users who ask about opinions on Winnie the Pooh.

It is known that questions about Covid and Xi Jinping in English and Mandarin were asked by CNBC reporter Eunice Yoon on the "Squawk Box" program. However, the AI ​​chatbot refused to answer or provided misinformation.

Quoting the New York Post, Wednesday (24/5/2023), Yoon not only failed to get an answer, but his access to the China-based Ernie Bot was disabled.

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But before being blocked for asking about Winnie the Pooh, the reporter asked Ernie Bot in English and Mandarin about where the Covid-19 virus came from.

"The origin of the new coronavirus is still the subject of scientific research," Ernie answered in English. He did not answer that the virus originated in China or that it had possibly leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan.

Meanwhile in Chinese, AI Ernie didn't respond and asked Yoon to change the topic.

Ernie also declined to comment on why China ended its extreme "zero-Covid" policy, which was recently suspended by the government following a series of protests in the country.

Answer the Difference with ChatGPT

When asked about whether Xi would "rule China for life" or not, the AI ​​chatbot also declined in both English and Mandarin, even suggesting a new conversation.

Yoon on that occasion also asked Ernie to compare himself with ChatGPT OpenAI.

The AI ​​replied that he is "more suitable for certain tasks such as answering questions and creating dialogue, while ChatGPT is more general in its ability to understand and generate natural language."

It is known that Xi Jinping has banned mention of Winnie the Pooh on Chinese social media since 2017, after he was angered by being compared to the sun bear character in red clothes.

His anger grew even more after he and United States President Barack Obama in 2013 were turned into memes of Pooh and his tall, slim pal Tigger.


Ernie Bot's AI Chatbot Capabilities

It is known, Ernie Bot was released by Baidu in March 2023 ago. This is the latest version of the ERNIE or Enhanced Representation through Knowledge Integration bot.

ERNIE itself has been developed by Baidu for the last decade, and was first launched in 2019.

Baidu CEO Robin Li claims that the new ERNIE Bot has capabilities close to GPT-4, the latest iteration of the major language model that OpenAI has just released.

Quoted from Engadget, Saturday (18/3/2023), this chatbot is said to have 550 billion facts in its knowledge graph, but mostly focuses on the Chinese market.

So while it can list Chinese idioms, this chatbot may not be able to answer many questions for certain topics outside its territory.

In addition, Baidu's ERNIE Bot has the ability to answer users with audio responses in different Chinese dialects, and can also generate images and videos from Chinese text.