China's Baidu sues Apple over fake copies of its ChatGPT-rival Ernie

Chinese search engine giant Baidu has filed lawsuits against Apple and 'relevant' app developers over fake copies of its Ernie bot app, which is available on Apple's App Store.

Baidu's artificial intelligence-powered Ernie bot was launched last month. It is being labeled as China's answer to the U.S.-developed chatbot ChatGPT built by OpenAI. Baidu claims that the counterfeit applications of its Ernie bot violate its intellectual property rights.

According to a report by Reuters, in a statement posted on its official "Baidu AI" WeChat account, the company warned users that until it makes an official announcement, any Ernie app on the App Store or other stores is fake.

Baidu also urged users not to purchase access codes to the app, which is only available to those who apply and receive access codes. Around four fake Ernie bot apps were spotted on Apple's App Store.

What is Ernie chatbot? 

Baidu's Ernie chatbot is a direct competitor to ChatGPT. It is an AI product of Baidu, which the company claimed was under development since 2019. However, it was released just a few months after ChatGPT was rolled out to the world. The Ernie chatbot was rolled out selectively in the month of March. The chatbot is based on a large language model named “Ernie 3.0-Titan”. The new chatbot works in a way similar to ChatGPT and Google Bard. The company claims Ernie has all-natural language processing capabilities, such as conversational chat, online live answering questions, writing articles, writing codes, etc.

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