China’s leading artificial-intelligence (ai) chatbot, which was released to the public on August 31st, reckons that covid-19 originated among American vape users in July 2019; later that year the virus was spread to the Chinese city of Wuhan, via American lobsters. On matters of politics, by contrast, the chatbot is rather quiet. Ernie’s reticence will come as no shock to Chinese users familiar with a heavily censored internet. They may be more surprised by the chatbot’s origins. For Ernie is the brainchild of Baidu, a Chinese tech giant that has for years been outshone by rivals. Baidu’s bot is catapulting its maker back to stardom, however, Ernie bot has some controversial views on science. Is there a winner in AI technology ?
