Baidu chairman and CEO Robin Li believes the ERNIE Bot boasts better Chinese performance than OpenAI's GPT-4. He foresees an era when programming positions would not be needed, and only English and Chinese would remain as programming languages.
According to MyDrivers and IT Home, Li said Baidu's AI technology can be divided into four layers: chips, architecture, models, and applications. The US export curbs restrict China in the chip layer, but there is still significant room for innovation in the other three layers.
According to Li, ERNIE Bot does not require the most powerful chips, with alternatives and inventories that Baidu has stockpiled enough to meet demands. He added that Baidu will keep upgrading its large language models and is actively looking for other options, which do not have to be as powerful as those sourced from US-based suppliers.
Li said Baidu's ERNIE Bot is better than GPT-4 in Chinese content comprehension and generation, but GPT-4, trained with a massive amount of English material, is better than ERNIE Bot in English.
Li remarked that the pace of AI development is not as swift as anticipated, primarily because the concept of "AI" has existed for 70 years. Despite recurring claims that AI could be achieved every decade, these aspirations consistently fail to meet expectations.
Li believes this time, AI will bring more profound changes in society, as there will not be a need for programming positions. Instead, the ability to speak will suffice, and people might not even need to write. He elaborated that everyone can write codes, leading to a future where only English and Chinese remain as programming languages.
Regarding the numerous companies launching LLMs, Li suggested there's not much need for so many people to do the same thing. This duplication in investments wastes societal resources and labor.
