On April 16th, shares in Chinese technology giant Baidu Inc. plummeted after it unveiled a disappointing demonstration of its Ernie artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot. The demonstration, part of an event celebrating the 30th anniversary of Baidu’s founding in Beijing, showed a conversation between Ernie and its human interviewer where the robot failed to properly answer questions on a wide range of topics.
The demonstration highlighted the difficulties that AI companies are facing as they strive to create AI that can think and act more like humans. Since its launch in 2017, Ernie has been viewed as one of Baidu’s premier efforts in the use of artificial intelligence to create more personalized conversational experiences.
However, the demonstration failed to impress investors, with shares of the company dropping over 4 percent on April 16th, their biggest decline in a month. The fall came at a time when Baidu’s stock had been riding high amidst increasing optimism about its AI capabilities.
The disappointing performance of Ernie during the demonstration has raised questions about Baidu’s AI technology. In the demonstration, Ernie struggled to talk about topics ranging from finance to history, and even got stuck trying to answer simple questions like “What is your name?”
One of the key criticisms of the demonstration was that it failed to show any evidence of Ernie’s conversational capabilities or its ability to understand what the interviewer was asking. This could fuel concerns that Baidu’s AI technology may not be as advanced as had been expected.
In addition, some experts have lamented the lack of resources that Baidu has put towards the development of its AI technology. While the company has invested heavily in image recognition and driverless cars, it has lagged behind in the development of smarter conversational AI capable of understanding and mimicking human interaction.
Given the growing importance of artificial intelligence in the current landscape, the problems that Baidu has faced in developing its own AI capabilities could become a major hurdle in its efforts to remain competitive. It remains to be seen if Baidu will be able to address the issues raised by this demonstration and take its AI capabilities to the next level.
