Baidu makes AI chatbot Ernie Bot publicly available in China

BEIJING: Tech giant Baidu launched China’s first public artificial intelligence chatbot on Thursday, with ERNIE trained to censor highly sensitive topics for the ruling Communist Party such as the Tiananmen crackdown.

Beijing issued new regulations this month for China’s AI developers that maintain the government’s tight control on information while allowing them to stay in the race with the likes of Microsoft and ChatGPT maker OpenAI.