Chinese search engine giant Baidu has filed lawsuits against “relevant” app developers and Apple over fake copies of its Ernie bot app available on Apple’s App Store.
The company’s artificial intelligence-powered Ernie bot, which launched last month, is being touted as China’s best answer to the US-developed chatbot ChatGPT.
Baidu said it had filed lawsuits in the Beijing Haidian People’s Court against the developers behind the bogus applications of its Ernie bot and Apple company.
“At the moment, Ernie doesn’t have an official app,” Baidu said in a statement late Friday on its official “Baidu AI” WeChat account.
It also posted a photo of his court case.
“Until the official announcement from our company, any Ernie app you see on the App Store or other stores is fake,” it read.
Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A Reuters search on Saturday found that there were still at least four apps with the Chinese-language name of the Ernie bot in Apple’s App Store, all bogus.
The Ernie bot is only available to users who request and receive access codes. In its statement, Baidu also warned against people selling access codes.
Baidu unveiled its artificial intelligence-powered chatbot known as Ernie Bot in March this year. Ernie stands for “Enhanced Representation through Knowledge Integration”. The popularity of ChatGPT, backed by Microsoft, has sparked a frenzied rush among Chinese tech giants and startups alike to develop a rival.
Ernie Bot was initially only accessible to a group of users with invite codes, and companies can apply to integrate the bot into their products through Baidu’s cloud platform.
© Thomson Reuters 2023