BAIDU-IA/DEMAND – REUTERS Agency
SHANGHAI, April 8 (Reuters) – Chinese search engine giant Baidu has filed lawsuits against “relevant” app developers and Apple Inc. over fake copies of its Ernie bot app available on the Apple store.
The artificially intelligent Ernie bot launched last month has been billed as China’s closest answer to the American chatbot ChatGPT.
Baidu filed lawsuits in the Haidian People’s Court in Beijing against the developers of the fake Ernie bot apps and Apple.
“Currently, Ernie does not have any official app,” Baidu said in a statement posted late on Friday on its official “Baidu AI” WeChat account.
He also posted a photograph of his court filing.
“Until our company’s official announcement, any Ernie app you see on the App Store or other stores is fake,” he said.
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 name of the bot Ernie, all fake, still on Apple’s App Store.
The Ernie bot is only available to users who request and receive access codes. In his statement, Baidu also warned against selling access codes.
(Reporting by Jason Xue and Brenda Goh; Editing in Spanish by Ricardo Figueroa)
Source: Ambito
