Why is Chinese chatbot Ernie banning customers on being requested about Winnie the Pooh?

Chinese tech big Baidu on March 16 had unveiled its synthetic intelligence chatbot Ernie Bot, projecting it as a rival to Microsoft-backed ChatGPT. The title Ernie stands for “Enhanced Representation of Knowledge Integration.”

However, the Baidu chatbot shouldn’t be aloof to censorship by the Xi Jinping regime in China. This was evident throughout a CNBC dwell broadcast when a reporter requested Ernie a few sequence of questions together with these pertaining to the Chinese authorities. One of the questions was associated to the favored cartoon character Winnie the Pooh.

When the reporter requested the chatbot as to what’s the relationship between Xi Jinping and Winnie the Pooh, Ernie responded by saying that the ‘person has been banned’.

Xi Jinping vs Winnie the Pooh

It is not any secret that the Chinese authorities perceives the teddy bear as a logo of dissent. The discomfort traces again to Jinping’s go to to the United States in 2013 when social media was painted with a photograph of the Chinese president strolling with Barack Obama was equated with Winnie and Tigger, NPR reported.

The Communist regime has deemed the cartoon a mockery of the president and its insurance policies. Such is the animosity in direction of the cuddly bear that it censored the Chinese title for Pooh in 2017. It additionally pulled the “Winnie-the Pooh: Blood and Honey” movie from theatres in Hong Kong and Macau, Guardian reported.

Over the years, Winnie The Pooh has develop into a logo for the critics to denounce Xi Jingping and his insurance policies in China.

But the cartoon character shouldn’t be the one topic which Ernie refused to reply about. It additionally reportedly refused to reply a query on whether or not Jinping will rule China for all times, Business Insider reported. It didn’t point out China when requested in regards to the origins of Covid-19 virus. The Chinese tech big has not responded to the web site for a remark.

China has already entered the AI arms race with Microsoft and Google. The Baidu chatbot claims it’s higher at performing duties like answering questions and producing a dialogue than ChatGPT.