China has been attempting to play catch-up to ChatGPT, a language model developed by the Chinese search engine giant Baidu that is capable of generating human-like responses to questions posed in natural language. Despite having access to the vast amount of text data needed in order to train a language model, limited data sets are still proving to be a hurdle for China as it works to match ChatGPT’s capabilities.
In order for language models to effectively learn from text data and repeat it in natural language after being trained, the data that is used must be accurate and comprehensive. This is hard for China to achieve due to the country’s strict censorship laws and its lack of open access to data sources. As a result, the language models being developed by Chinese companies have a much smaller training set and are not as effective as the ones developed by Baidu.
Not only does China have the challenge of finding the necessary data sets to effectively train its language models, but it also has to battle with extreme competition. As the Chinese online ecosystem continues to grow, companies are working endlessly to develop new language models based on their specific needs and interests. This competition means that Chinese companies have to focus on differentiating their language models and solutionsin order to stand out.
One promising development has come in the form of federated learning, which allows different companies to work together on a collective language model while still preserving data privacy. This allows language models to benefit from a large data set, even if it is spread across different companies. This process is still in its infancy and the challenge of consolidating data and privacy protocols presents difficult hurdles, but it is a step in the right direction.
As Chinese companies continue to develop their language models, limited data sets are still proving to be a major obstacle. It is hoped that as technology evolves and better methods of sharing data are developed, these companies will have increased access to the larger data sets they need to match and exceed ChatGPT in the very competitive Chinese online market.
