Episode 9 - China’s ChatGPT attempt

ChatGPT is already changing whole industries, but how will China's entry into this new AI world change things going forward, and who are the leading players in China? We explore Baidu's recently launched ERNIE bot, a look at some of the key news stories from China's recent two sessions, and what is Temu? We even asked ChatGPT to write part of our podcast for us, listen to see how you think ChatGPT did. 

Transcript

00:00:05 

Hey, I'm Jimmy Robinson and you're listening to inside China, a China Marketing podcast brought to you by ping Pong digital. 

00:00:15 

In each episode of Inside China, we give you our deep dive insights into a different area of the Chinese market, followed by a quick low down on the biggest Chinese news stories that you need to know about. Catch new episodes on all major podcast platforms every month. 

00:00:33 

In today's episode, we're going to be exploring the release of ChatGPT that has changed the game in the world of artificial intelligence. 

00:00:42 

This AI language model developed by open AI has already proven to be an incredibly powerful tool for generating natural language text. 

00:00:51 

With reports of over 100 million users since its launch just a few. 

00:00:56 

Months ago, making it one of the most successful tech launches of all time. Now, before we get into the China side of this, let me briefly explain what the GPT in ChatGPT stands for. 

00:01:12 

Generative pre trained transformer. It is a type of language model that uses deep learning techniques to generate human like text based on the input it receives. This means it is pre trained in that it is initially trained on large amounts of text data. 

00:01:32 

Such as books, articles and web. 

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Stages to learn the structure and patterns of human language. This pretraining helps the model to generate high quality text even when it's given only a small amount of input. 

00:01:47 

The transformer part of the name refers to the architecture of the model, which helps machines understand human language by breaking it down into smaller pieces, analysing the relationships between those pieces. 

00:02:02 

And then generates meaningful output based on that analysis. So when we use GPT in this podcast, we're referring to this human like processing ability rather than just talking about one particular product. 

00:02:17 

In China, the impact of ChatGPT has been particularly significant. It's no secret that Chinese companies have been racing to develop their own versions of ChatGPT, in order to capture the enormous potential of this technology in the Chinese market. 

00:02:34 

One of the most exciting developments in this area is Baidu's recent release of the first main Chinese LLM. LLM stands for large language model. 

00:02:47 

Just the other week, Baidu's Ernie Bot was released amid much anticipation in the Chinese speaking world. 

00:02:54 

This new AI language model is expected to be a major leap forward in its ability to understand and generate Chinese language text. 

00:03:04 

Now the name Ernie Bot is not taken from the famous character in Sesame Street, but of course is a selective abbreviation of enhanced representation. 

00:03:15 

Of Knowledge integration Ernie Bots Chinese name is wansing yen which can be roughly translated as words and thoughts all in one speech, which is very poetic and kinda does define exactly what Ernie does. 

00:03:34 

Based on the launch event and feedback from subsequent beta testing, users, Ernie Bode's overall ability to reason and the accuracy of its answers are indeed behind that of ChatGPT, and the latest GPT 4. But the pros of Ernie. 

00:03:54 

Are also quite obvious. Its ability to understand Chinese, especially in a culturally relevant context, outperforms ChatGPT. 

00:04:06 

A user who was invited for beta testing asked both ChatGPT and Ernie Bot to explain a Chinese idiom. 

00:04:14 

Ernie Bott was able to not only explain what it means but also put it in a historical and even an economic context. While chats GPT could only explain what it is. 

00:04:26 

It's so why are we so excited about the potential of Chinese GPT products if its overall performance is lagging behind its American rivals in the same way we can see how ChatGPT in the West will change whole industries. Ernie could seamlessly integrate. 

00:04:46 

Into a market that is very tech savvy and very willing to adopt new technologies at a pace fewer the countries can match. This has enormous implications for the way this technology might evolve in China. 

00:05:02 

Improving the way that brands could market to Chinese consumers but also provide more sophisticated ways for the government and platforms to have influence over the kind of messaging that's put out there. 

00:05:15 

Overall, the impact of ChatGPT products in China is a topic that will continue to generate a lot of interest. 

00:05:24 

And excitement in the AI and wider community as we continue to explore the potential of this technology, it's clear that the future of AI language models is looking brighter than. 

00:05:37 

Ever. So let's take a deep dive into this topic and understand more about what it means for all of us who work in the China space going forward. 

00:05:52 

Since chat GPTS release, it has caused a huge commotion in China in February 2023, just three months after its release, chat SGPT took Chinese social media by storm with 200 of the top 218 trending topics on Weibo in the first week of February. 

00:06:14 

Being about Chuck GPT. 

00:06:16 

That's over 90% of the trending topics being about this newly released technology. The academic world is also getting involved in the race to create Chinese GPT products. 

00:06:27 

Fudan University released China's first LLM. Product called Moss, which has 110th of the number of parameters. 

00:06:36 

The ChatGPT has. 

00:06:38 

Flag open a Beijing based AI company that developed the first ever GPT product WUDAO, which was named after the moment of Buddhist Enlightenment, has released wudao. 

00:06:50 

2.0. 

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But it's not just academia. Tech companies are joining the race to create Chinese GPT products, including Alibaba, $0.10 AI Labs, Bite Dance, JD's and, of course, Baidu. 

00:07:07 

Each company is leveraging its unique strengths to create its own version of a Chinese GPT product. 

00:07:15 

Unsurprisingly, the Chinese Government has also shown its interest in the development of AI technology, with the Ministry of Technology issuing AI policy guidelines in 2017, AI has featured heavily in the two sessions, China's annual legislative. 

00:07:35 

That's a hard word to say. I can tell you that bit of a tongue twister. So China's annual legislative and political gathering, which ended just a couple of weeks ago. 

00:07:46 

Coastal provinces in China have been trying to capitalise on this new tech trend and have already invested or issued encouraging policies around the AI industry. 

00:07:58 

The biggest event so. 

00:07:59 

Far has been Baidu's release of Ernie Bot just last week. 

00:08:04 

This is the first GPT product released by a Chinese commercial tech giant, and its release has ignited the Chinese Internet. 

00:08:13 

Ernie Bot is positioned to take on ChatGPT and to become the best and only for now GPT product in. 

00:08:22 

China's Baidu Open beta testing immediately following the launch. Although we haven't been able to get our hands on the tools just yet. 

00:08:33 

Given its limited and very strict rollout, we have collected some real insights from Chinese users who have been using Ernie Bot. 

00:08:42 

Over the past weekend. 

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There is a clear gap between where in their product development Ernie Bot and ChatGPT are, but there are also quite a few areas where only bot outperforms ChatGPT. 

00:08:58 

And the gap may not be as big as a lot of people think. First of all, Ernie Botc basic language capabilities such as text generation and summarization of long text is. 

00:09:11 

Pretty much on par with ChatGPT. 

00:09:15 

Ernie Bots generated text, sometimes bears features unique to the Chinese Internet, such as the frequent appearance of call to actions like click here to read more. 

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This is because the material used to train Ernie is sourced predominantly from a mobile first Chinese Internet where such call to actions are more frequent. 

00:09:37 

Than the web-based orientated Western Internet. 

00:09:41 

Second, the training set for Ernie appears to be up to the end of 2022, which is one year newer than that of ChatGPT. 

00:09:51 

But it's not yet connected to a real time search engine like Microsoft's new Bing. However, this shouldn't be a problem for Ernie to find a search engine home, since its creator is the largest search engine in China. 

00:10:07 

This will only allow for greater real time digestion of information upon the completion of its beta testing. 

00:10:15 

Ernie bots mathematics ability is slightly behind ChatGPT 3 and when compared to GPT 4, Ernie still has a long way to go. 

00:10:28 

And although its maths might not be so great yet, it's. 

00:10:33 

Already a pro at the classics? 

00:10:36 

Classical Chinese, to be exact. The literary written form of Chinese used in ancient China, which highlights the ways it is being developed to truly understand Chinese culture in a way that few other tools will ever be able to. 

00:10:53 

Let's take a look at some of the most talked about capabilities of LLM products. Namely coding and AI generated content including image and audio. 

00:11:04 

And as it turns out, Ernie's coding ability is still very basic compared to ChatGPT. 

00:11:11 

Presumably the Chinese Internet lacks the amount of quality code that can be used to train Earnie, and this is an area that Baidu highlight it and said that it will spend more time focusing on. So don't go getting rid of your developers just yet. 

00:11:28 

However, it was full of good surprises when it comes to AI generated content. Although Ernie is not yet referring to itself as multi modal, it is still able to generate images and audio based on text inputted directly into the interface. 

00:11:47 

This is 1 area where Ernie is ahead of ChatGPT. The image quality is said to be on the same level as mid journey four and even five in some areas and is particularly good with Chinese water and ink style image creation. 

00:12:04 

In addition, Ernie can not only generate Mandarin audio based on input text, but also it can generate audio in Chinese dialects. 

00:12:13 

Currently it supports 4 regional dialects such as Cantonese, Sichuanese, northeastern, and Taiwanese dialects, with more on the way. 

00:12:24 

So Ernie is certainly expected to lead the AI charge in a few areas and is on the code tails of chat GP. 

00:12:33 

Overall, its capabilities with Chinese language output outperforms ChatGPT in cultural integration, but with a Click to learn more call to action, often being included in text output, it still has a way to go in real world implementation. 

00:12:51 

Many Chinese companies are looking for ways to integrate Ernie into their own products. Changan, a Chinese car manufacturer, has announced it's building Ernie into its new car model to improve the interactive experience between drivers and the vehicle. 

00:13:09 

And we should expect to hear more companies integrating Ernie soon. 

00:13:14 

Ernie Bot is of course expected to be better at Chinese culture and user habits, since it's being trained on Chinese material. 

00:13:23 

This will make it more culturally relevant than ChatGPT. 

00:13:27 

And this will. 

00:13:27 

Be great news for users in China, since Jat GPT, unfortunately, as many other platforms. 

00:13:35 

Is now blocked by the infamous Great Firewall of China, since it's been trained on materials of Western ideal. 

00:13:43 

In contrast, Baidu's Earnie Bot is expected to have no issues in terms of political compliance, as one would expect. 

00:13:53 

So why should we follow the market developments of Chinese GPT products? 

00:13:58 

China's GPT market could be highly situational, with each company integrating GPT products into their core business areas such as search engines, e-commerce and social media. 

00:14:12 

These developments will change the way consumers interact with technology, unleashing new opportunities in the 1.4 billion people. 

00:14:22 

These developments can in turn influence the GPT industry in the West. 

00:14:28 

It's clear that these changes will have a significant impact on the way brands market themselves. 

00:14:34 

But do we believe that the latest AI tools will revolutionise creativity, communication and various industries beyond our current understanding? 

00:14:44 

Or will they? 

00:14:45 

Merely become tools for gatekeeping and increasing surveillance. 

00:14:50 

One example of a real world implementation is chat GPTS rollout in Bing, which Microsoft had to retract really quickly, limiting its use case. 

00:15:02 

Google also has yet to roll out its barred AI, probably as a result of seeing what happened with the rollout of Bing. 

00:15:11 

And realising that more guardrails are needed to avoid. 

00:15:14 

Misuse of this technique. 

00:15:17 

Without the kind of extensive testing and scrutiny that ChatGPT underwent, China may need to be even more cautious about how it adopts this technology. 

00:15:28 

It's unlikely, therefore, that AI tours will replace the need for PR teams. Copywriters and social media content creators anytime soon. 

00:15:37 

These technologies will be subject to government oversight and policies, and governments are not known for being very creative, and the guard rails that they place may limit the access to certain information. 

00:15:52 

The creative spirit and drive of individuals are still going to be essential in guiding us towards future trends as AI tools can only really tell us where we've been. 

00:16:08 

Let's talk about some of the China news stories that you need to know about this week. 

00:16:15 

In the recently ended two sessions, which is the annual meeting of China's Congress, tourism was given emphasis as the main drive for economic recovery. This year. The COVID-19 pandemic has heavily impacted the tourism industry globally. 

00:16:31 

But outbound tourism is quickly bouncing back in China with the rollout of vaccines and the easing of travel restrictions. Chinese tourists are once again eager. 

00:16:42 

To explore the world. 

00:16:44 

Chinese e-commerce giant pin door door has taken advantage of this trend by launching its international version, Timo TEMU. 

00:16:54 

Teemo has been aggressively expanding in North America and is causing disruption to many local players including fellow Chinese brand Sheen. Sheen, shine. I never know how to say the name of that brand SHEI. 

00:17:11 

The company has invested in Super Bowl ads, which are considered some of the most expensive advertisements in the world. 

00:17:18 

The move has helped raise the company's profile in North America and contributed to its rapid growth. So if you haven't heard about. 

00:17:26 

It yet you will do soon. 

00:17:29 

Team's success in North America has encouraged the company to expand even further. It's now eyeing Australia and New Zealand as potential. 

00:17:38 

Markets for its. 

00:17:41 

This expansion will further increase the competition in the e-commerce industry in these countries, with Teymur likely to disrupt the market in the same way that it has in North America. 

00:17:54 

In summary, the emphasis on tourism during the two sessions reflects the Chinese government's belief that the industry is crucial for economic recovery this year. 

00:18:05 

At the same time, team whose rapid expansion in North America and its plans for further growth in Australia and New Zealand highlight the competitive nature of the e-commerce industry, both locally and globally. 

00:18:24 

Now for some quick company updates. We just launched a TikTok. Why have we decided to do this? We see a lot of news and stories about China and Chinese marketing topics on TikTok and are so tired of seeing misinformation. 

00:18:40 

And sensationalised topics. 

00:18:42 

We want to get away from the fear mongering and talk about things that people should know about when it comes to the world's largest Internet market and second biggest eco. 

00:18:54 

Of course, we'll have some fun along the way as well, and different members of our team will pop up in our tick tock from time to time, so go cheque it out. You can find us using our handle ping pong digital all one word. 

00:19:09 

Secondly, we've had such amazing feedback from our recent UNISERIAL score release. This is a new way to rank the performance of universities on Chinese social media, giving a whole new way to benchmark how your brand is doing in the market. 

00:19:26 

At the same time, we have also launched Uni social report, the most detailed analysis to date on the education market in China. 

00:19:35 

Have you ever wondered what a Chinese student profile looks like or wondered what a Chinese student profile looks like at one of your competitors? Well, this report can tell you about it. 

00:19:46 

If you're interested in learning more, head over to pingpongdigital.com and use the contact form to get in touch with one. 

00:19:52 

Of our team. 

00:19:55 

Now I decided to ask ChatGPT to write our podcast summary today and this. 

00:20:03 

Is what it's created. 

00:20:05 

Thank you for listening to today's podcast on China's ChatGPT products and their impact on the tech industry and beyond. 

00:20:13 

We've explored the incredible buzz and excitement generated by chat GPTS release in China and how it's fuelling a race among major tech companies to create their own Chinese GPT products. 

00:20:26 

We've also discussed the upcoming release of Baidu's Ernie Bot and how it could change the game in terms of language quality, cultural relevancy, and political compliance. 

00:20:38 

We've also touched on the recent two sessions meeting of China's Congress, where tourism was given emphasis as the main drive for economic recovery this year. 

00:20:48 

Outbound tourism is quickly bouncing back in China, and this trend is likely to have a significant impact on the global tourism industry. 

00:20:57 

Finally, we discussed the aggressive expansion of Timu pinned door Doors International version in North America and its plans to target Australia and New Zealand. The company's success highlights the competitive nature of the e-commerce industry, both locally and globally. 

00:21:17 

How do you think ChatGPT did for that? Outro not too bad, right? 

00:21:22 

Maybe this will make my job of creating podcast scripts a lot easier in the future. 

00:21:28 

I'll be back. 

00:21:28 

Next month to talk about social listening in China versus outside China and how these tools open up new ways to approach the Chinese market. 

00:21:39 

Thanks for listening, 谢谢大家. 

00:21:46 

He's special. Thanks to Frank Ye. And to Zhun for his fantastic music. And of course, myself. Jimmy Robinson, your host.