On March 16, the Chinese internet giant Baidu debuted its AI chatbot Ernie Bot, positioning it as a competitor to the Microsoft-supported ChatGPT. Ernie is an abbreviation for “Enhanced Representation of Knowledge Integration.”
The Chinese Xi Jinping government’s censorship, however, is not ignored by the Baidu chatbot. This was made clear during a live CNBC broadcast when a reporter questioned Ernie about several topics, including the Chinese government. Winnie the Pooh, a well-known cartoon character, was mentioned in one of the questions.
Chinese Chatbot
Ernie stated that the “user has been banned” when the reporter queried the chatbot about the connection between Xi Jinping and Winnie the Pooh. It is well known that the Chinese government views teddy bears as symbols of opposition.
The unease dates back to Jinping’s 2013 visit to the United States when a picture of the Chinese president strolling beside Barack Obama was compared to Winnie and Tigger on social media, according to NPR.
- Baidu’s Ernie Bot is a competitor to ChatGPT.
- Baidu chatbot ignores the Chinese government’s censorship, including Winnie the Pooh.
- The Communist regime banned the Chinese term for Pooh and yanked the “Winnie-the-Pooh” movie.
The cartoon was judged a satire of the president and his administration’s policies by the Communist regime. Because of the hatred for the cute bear, the Chinese term for Pooh was prohibited in 2017. The “Winnie-the Pooh: Blood and Honey” movie was also yanked from theatres in Hong Kong and Macau, according to the Guardian.
Over time, Winnie the Pooh has come to represent those who oppose Chinese President Xi Jinping and his policies. Ernie did not, however, merely decline to comment on the cartoon character.
According to Business Insider, it allegedly declined to respond to a question about whether Jinping will rule China indefinitely. When questioned about the origins of the Covid-19 virus, it omitted to mention China. The website requested a reply from the Chinese tech titan, but none was forthcoming.
China has already joined Microsoft and Google in the AI weapons race. The Baidu chatbot asserts that it outperforms ChatGPT at activities like question-answering and conversation-starting.
