Baidu has refuted suggestions it has ties to scientists who say they are training a Chinese military system based on the tech giant's generative artificial intelligence chatbot, Ernie Bot.
Media reports emerged on Friday that a university linked to the People's Liberation Army of China was training the military's AI system with Baidu's large language model.
Researchers from the Information Engineering University fed the LLM with data on weapons and forces deployed in past conflicts to predict combat strategy, the South China Morning Post first reported.
Also: China and US part of multilateral pact to collaborate on AI risks.
Citing an academic paper published last month in the Chinese journal Command Control & Simulation, the SCMP report said other LLMs also were used, including GPT3.5 and GPT4. The LLM then was prompted to generate combat strategies and outcomes based on the training data.
In the paper, the researchers referenced the US military invasion of Libya in 2011 and said they used combat tactics employed by both sides of the conflict, and input the desired targets for Ernie Bot to predict the US army's strategy.
The research team said the simulated results could aid decision-making and be used to further train and enhance the LLM's knowledge and cognitive understanding.
The goal was to improve AI-powered military systems and enable them to better understand human intentions, which was critical as human adversaries can be unpredictable.
The researchers added that their work was in its early stage and carried out only for research.
Baidu's shares took a dive after reports on the research surfaced.
The Chinese tech vendor since has refuted having any links to the authors of the paper or the university.
In a statement referring to the academic paper, Baidu said Ernie Bot is available to and can be used by the general public.
The Chinese search engine and autonomous vehicle maker last August released Ernie Bot to the general public in hopes of gathering user feedback to improve the platform.
Also: Most people support the need for trustworthy and regulated AI. Ernie Bot, among other touted capabilities, can generate text, images, audio, and video given a text prompt, and can deliver voice in several local Chinese dialects, including Sichuan.
Since its introduction with limited access in March, the AI model has gained proficiency in more than 200 genres of writing, clocking a 1.6-fold increase in content quality, according to Baidu.
Five plugins were also added to Ernie Bot this month, including Baidu Search, data analytics and visualization, and text-to-video.
It noted that the Chinese government paid close attention to security risks posed by AI in military applications.
In other news this week, China's third-generation quantum computer Origin Wukong has processed 33,871 tasks for users worldwide since it became operational on January 6, reported state-run media agency Xinhua.
Users from more than 60 countries remotely accessed the quantum computer at least 350,000 times, with those from the US leading the pack in terms of frequency, according to the Anhui Quantum Computing Engineering Research Center.
The quantum computer runs on a 72-qubit local-made chip.
This Cyber News was published on www.zdnet.com. Publication date: Tue, 16 Jan 2024 18:28:20 +0000