Tech firm Baidu denies report that its Ernie AI chatbot is linked to Chinese military research

HONG KONG: Technology company Baidu on Monday refuted a newspaper report that said its artificial intelligence chatbot Ernie was linked to Chinese military research.

Hong Kong newspaper South China Morning Post on Friday cited an academic paper from a university affiliated with the People’s Liberation Army cyberwarfare division. The paper stated that the division had tested its artificial intelligence system on Baidu’s Ernie and on artificial intelligence firm iFlyTek’s Spark, both of which are language-based AI chatbots similar to ChatGPT.