Alibaba Group Holding Ltd has launched its own large language model, Tongyi Qianwen, which it plans to integrate into all of its applicable businesses. The model will compete with other AI chatbots in the market, such as ChatGPT from OpenAI.
Tongyi Qianwen will be available through Alibaba Cloud, which will offer more enterprises access to it, so that they can build their own customized large language models. This move is part of Alibaba’s push into the AI space, which it began in 2019. The company has since developed its ChatGPT-style product for use on DingTalk, its workplace messaging app, as well as on Tmall Genie, Alibaba’s voice assistant.
Zhang Yong, Chairman and CEO of Alibaba Group, highlighted that the use of large language models in a wide range of sectors will lead to a big boost in productivity and will profoundly change people’s lifestyles. This announcement came a day after SenseTime launched its latest set of large AI models, and Baidu rolled out its large language model and ChatGPT-like product dubbed Ernie Bot.
While there is great interest in generative AI, the use of the technology raises concerns about ethics, copyright protections, and leaks infringing on personal privacy. China’s cyberspace regulator recently unveiled draft measures for managing generative AI services, including the responsibility of providers to ensure the legitimacy of data used to train generative AI products and measures to prevent discrimination in algorithm design and training data.
Read More: