China's Baidu launches its "ERNIE Bot" AI early in response to GPT

OpenAI's ChatGPT has made the public aware of the insane power, potential and threat of large language models. The ripples from ChatGPT's launch late last year are being felt in every industry – you can't responsibly plan for the future of nearly any business without factoring in how these ludicrously capable and seemingly intelligent bots are going to disrupt nearly every process. When OpenAI released the even more astonishing GPT-4 a couple of days ago, it did so with a measure of trepidation. As outlined in the GPT-4 paper, the language model itself was built and pre-trained some eight months ago, and the company spent that eight months working feverishly to make it safe and sanitized for public consumption. Knowing that many competitors are working on similar AI models, OpenAI recognized that launching this thing would kick off a furious technology race – and that when a "racing dynamic" develops, other companies would be forced by their shareholders and customers to accelerate their own AI programs.