Chinese firm Alibaba to launch its own take on ChatGPT

Chinese firm Alibaba to launch its own take on ChatGPT

E-commerce giant Alibaba has confirmed that it is working on a rival to ChatGPT, the AI-powered conversational chatbot that became wildly popular last year. According to a report by Reuters, this announcement came after the 21st Century Business Herald newspaper reported that the e-commerce giant is developing a ChatGPT-like robot that is available for employees to test.

The news report even claimed that Alibaba will integrate the technology into the company's enterprise communication and collaboration platform app DingTalk. When Reuters asked the company to confirm if this is accurate, the e-commerce firm declined to comment.

The company said that it has been focused on generative AI and large language models for many years now. For those not in the know, large language models (LLMs) are computer programs trained on large volumes of text. Aside from being able to comprehend and answer questions, LLMs can also generate text. This is the technology behind ChatGPT and other similar tools today.

Alibaba is just one of many Chinese corporations looking to introduce a ChatGPT competitor. Just recently, technology company Baidu announced that it is working on its own AI technology called "Ernie Bot," which is set to launch sometime in March. Chinese tech group JD.com also expressed interest in integrating ChatGPT-like technology into its products. Finally, a source familiar with gaming company NetEase confirmed that the company plans to deploy LLMs to serve its education business.

Outside of the country, tech giants have also introduced their own AI initiatives. Just recently, Microsoft released a ChatGPT-powered Bing, while Google took the wraps off Bard.

Source: Reuters