Baidu shares drop to 8-week lows after company reveals ChatGPT rival

Microsoft-backed OpenAI this week announced GPT-4, the latest version of the artificial intelligence tech behind its highly popular ChatGPT chatbot. The bot was initially released to the public for free in November, and individuals wanting to access GPT-4 capabilities need to pay $20 a month.

ChatGPT is able to converse in a human-like way and generate everything from content summaries to business proposals.

While ChatGPT is free to anyone who can set up an account, people had to join a waitlist to try Microsoft’s Bing AI chatbot — which uses OpenAI tech — that launched last month. Some users reported a creepy experience.

Baidu’s Li said Ernie bot had similar issues if used enough, and that it wasn’t perfect. But he noted the model is trained on a set of 550 billion facts.

The AI isn’t meant to highlight rivalry between the U.S. and China, but the result of Baidu’s efforts to “change the world with technology,” Li said in Mandarin, translated by CNBC.

Baidu’s Hong Kong-traded shares are still up 12% for the year so far.

Microsoft shares are up by about 11% for the year so far, while Google parent Alphabet’s Class A shares are up nearly 9%.