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Baidu files lawsuits against Apple, app developers over fake Ernie bot apps

Baidu files lawsuits against Apple, app developers over fake Ernie bot apps
Last month, Baidu unveiled its chatbot Ernie as a competition to OpenAI’s massively popular AI bot ChatGPT.

Chinese tech major Baidu has filed lawsuits against Apple and “relevant” app developers over a counterfeit version of its artificial intelligence bot Ernie. According to a report by Reuters, the Chinese company has filed lawsuits in the Beijing Haidian People’s Court.

Baidu said in a statement that its AI bot does not have an official app at the moment and until the tech company makes an official announcement of the same, any Ernie apps on the App Store are fake. At least four apps were going with the name Ernie bot on Apple App Store, according to a report by Reuters. Meanwhile, the iPhone maker is yet to make any official comment on the matter.

It is noteworthy that Baidu’s Ernie bot is currently available only to those who apply for and receive codes and the Chinese company, which is popularly regarded at the country’s Google, has further warned against people selling access codes. Last month, Baidu unveiled its chatbot Ernie as a competition to OpenAI’s massively popular AI bot ChatGPT.

On March 16, Baidu chief executive officer Robin Li presented a pre-recorded video wherein Ernie bot presented features like mathematical logic reasoning, generated a conference poster and video based on a prompt, and answered questions related to Chinese fiction, among others. Later that month, Baidu unveiled new capabilities of Ernie in a closed-door meeting.

It was shown in the meeting that Ernie bot summarised financial statements and produced PowerPoint presentations, among others. Furthermore, the Chinese chatbot is capable of producing travel itineraries along with human-like live streamers that can advertise products using scripts tailored to the user’s needs. The regular version of the chatbot is open for testing to users based on invite codes.

Meanwhile, the AI race has intensified after OpenAI’s ChatGPT came into the limelight since its launch in November last year. Short for Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer, ChatGPT is a popular AI text generator and has been a center of attention for many due to its human-like response. Several other tech giants, including Google, have also started investing heavily in the segment.

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