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ChatGPT is a ‘moon landing’ moment for AI, Chinese experts say, as tech firms try to dampen enthusiasm
- While OpenAI’s chatbot is a watershed moment in language modelling, inaccurate answers and high costs could hinder adoption, experts say
- As hype for ChatGPT spreads in China, Tencent has been removing related apps from WeChat while Alibaba removed accounts for sale on Taobao
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Ben Jiangin Beijing
A group of Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) experts and investors say ChatGPT is a watershed moment for the technology, possibly akin to the 1969 moon landing, as the hype swirling around the viral chatbot developed by San Francisco-based start-up OpenAI continues to gather pace.
During a live-streamed panel discussion hosted by internet portal Sina.com, Yuan Jinghui, a computer scientist who founded the Beijing-based start-up OneFlow, and Duan Yitao, the chief scientist at NetEase-backed edtech start-up Youdao, mused on whether the moon landing comparison was apt. Given the leap in language capabilities, it does reach that level of importance, Yuan said.
“Generally speaking, only humans developed language capabilities … [that represent] the jewel atop the crown of human intelligence. And the natural language processing capability [demonstrated by ChatGPT] is the jewel atop the crown of artificial intelligence,” said Yuan.
Duan agreed that ChatGPT marked a huge step forward for AI development.
“I think there wasn’t much real artificial intelligence in any similar technologies [that preceded ChatGPT],” Duan said in the webinar. “Only [ChatGPT] coming to the fore nudged us one step closer to real AI”.
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