Baidu Confirms Launch of ChatGPT-like ‘ERNIE Bot’ in March 2023

The rumors are true: Baidu, a search engine that some consider the Chinese answer to Google, will launch its own open-source chatbot to compete against ChatGPT by American artificial intelligence company OpenAI. ERNIE Bot (文心一言) will officially be accessible to the public in March 2023.


ChatGPT’s release last November was a huge success and has stirred up discussions in the tech world and beyond. Countless industries have tried to integrate the novel technology into their daily workflow.


With ChatGPT blocked in the Chinese mainland, the release of ERNIE Bot could fill a gap in the Chinese internet, which caters to more than 1 billion internet users.


According to the Chinese online tech media outlet 36Kr, Baidu will soon finish its internal tests and release the chatbot to the public next month.


baidu AI technology offers answer to ChatGPT -- ERNIE Bot

Baidu displaying its AI technology at the 2022 World AI Conference in Shanghai. Image via VCG


Baidu launched its AI platform ERNIE 1.0 in 2019 and has since invested billions of dollars in AI development. The company’s AI art generation platform ERNIE 2.0 also made waves in the creative field last year, stirring up heated discussions about the value of human creativity.


Cover image via VCG

Goodbye Food Trucks, Hello Mobile Banquet Halls

Chinese banquets are generally held to celebrate everything from weddings and holidays to business deals. What to do, then, if your village lacks a venue for these events? The enterprising Old Horse Restaurant (老马酒店) has an answer: a mobile banquet hall.


A short video about the mobile restaurant has gone viral on the Chinese internet. According to the online footage, on January 31, an unassuming semi-trailer arrived in a village outside the Inner Mongolian city of Chifeng.


Within half an hour, restaurant employees had unfolded it into a full-size banquet hall. They were there to host the reception for a local wedding.


lao ma jiu dian, or old horse restaurant, truck

The semi-trailer that houses Old Horse Restaurant


The one-of-a-kind mobile banquet hall isn’t just a venue, however. As shown in the aforementioned video, in an upgrade on typical rural banquet fare, Old Horse Restaurant offers delicacies like soft-shelled turtle and turbot, a type of prized European flatfish.


banquet hall food

An example of a banquet meal served by Old Horse Restaurant


The full banquet hall can host more than 20 tables and has floor heating and air conditioning.


Although no more information was revealed in the video, we searched online and found another mobile banquet hall operating in Anhui province, more than 1,000 kilometers away from Inner Mongolia. Interestingly enough, this banquet truck was made in and transported from Inner Mongolia.


mobile banquet hall, chinese banquets, rural China

The interior of the mobile banquet hall that was constructed in Inner Mongolia and is operated in Anhui province. Screengrab via Bilibili


A vlogger visited the mobile restaurant in Anhui, interviewed the owner, and released a video in November 2022. According to the owner, his mobile banquet hall measures 160 square meters and hosts an average of 8,000 tables of customers a month. At its busiest, it serves more than 280 tables a day.


He further disclosed that one table of food would set you back anywhere from 1,000 to 3,800 RMB (about 150 to 563 USD). There is no additional cost for banquet-goers who’ve already paid for the restaurant’s fare, although the venue is also available for rent without meal service at 6,000 RMB (889 USD) a pop.


interior of old horse restaurant mobile banquet hall

The colorfully decorated interior of Old Horse Restaurant


Many netizens were in awe of the slick, speedy way these mobile banquet halls turn from a truck into a veritable ballroom. A Weibo hashtag for the subject is literally called ‘This mobile restaurant is so advanced’ (#这个移动酒店太高级了#).


This fancy traveling dining room satisfies an important need in rural areas. A writer for China.com who hails from rural Shandong province commented, “Rural consumption levels have gone up a lot… When [I was] a child, tables [for banquets] were set up outside or in neighbors’ empty houses.”


mobile banquet hall, chinese banquets, rural China

One of the first stages in transforming the truck into a banquet hall


The popularity of the mobile banquet hall is evidence of the ongoing modernization of China’s vast countryside, an effort that has led to other fascinating trends like a burgeoning rural cafe culture.


All images via Weibo, unless otherwise stated

Porsche Dealership Lists Panamera for $18k, Causing Chaos

A constant feature in many rap music videos and teenage boys’ fantasies, a Porsche sports car is often seen as the ultimate symbol of wealth and status. Given the brand’s high price point, however, a shiny new Porsche remains out of reach for most, especially in China, where buyers must be prepared to pay 120% of the original car price to cover import taxes.


Therefore, it is only understandable that things got a little out of hand when Chinese consumers thought that the Porsche Panamera was suddenly selling for much less in the country.


On the evening of January 29, several sports car lovers noticed that a Porsche dealership in Yinchuan, a city in North China, had listed the Porsche Panamera for only 124,000 RMB (about 18,000 USD) on WeChat, one of China’s most-used super-apps.


The unbelievable offer stated that customers were only required to put down a deposit of 911 RMB (about 135 USD) and to pay a down payment of 30,000 RMB (around 4,500 USD) to take home the car.


Porsche Panamera

The Porsche Panamera typically sells for $92,400 in the U.S. Screengrab via Porsche USA


It didn’t take long for word about the ‘bargain’ to spread. The store received around 600 orders on January 29 before taking the listing down the next day.


When a reporter from the Chinese newspaper Jinan Daily phoned the dealership, a staff member confirmed the news but clarified that they only had a single Porsche Panamera in stock.


According to the employee, the first customer who snagged the deal would receive the vehicle, while everyone else would have their deposits refunded within 48 hours. The staff member also said that the store had reached an agreement with the first buyer but couldn’t reveal any further details.


Many buyers whose orders were canceled are understandably upset about how the situation has played out. Some have taken to Weibo, China’s top microblogging platform, to rant about getting excited over nothing.


Some netizens have expressed their envy over the fact that the first buyer got the car for such a low price, as Porsche staffers hinted that the deal went through.


However, things took a surprising turn when the ‘lucky’ customer came forward on February 1, saying that he had canceled his order. Apparently, a Porsche salesperson had explained that there had been a mistake with the listing and that the car was, in fact, selling for 1.24 million RMB (approximately 184,000 USD).


The buyer shared his experience on the Chinese social media forum Zhihu under the name Heishan.


Porsche, China, Zhihu

Although the first buyer’s purchase went through, as the receipt above proves, the Porsche dealership eventually admitted that they had made an error. Image via Zhihu


“I have been paying attention to the Panamera model recently. When I saw the 124k RMB price point, I paid the deposit without giving it a second thought,” he wrote. “When I told my wife about this, she told me to f**k off.”


When a salesperson phoned him the next day to explain that there had been an error on their part, Heishan canceled his order on the spot. Another sales representative rang him up the next day to confirm his cancellation and promised to send him a small gift on behalf of Porsche.


The disappointed car enthusiast hadn’t originally planned on sharing his experience with the public, as he didn’t want to make a big deal out of an honest mistake. However, when he read Porsche’s response in the news the next day, he felt that the car company turned his experience into a marketing opportunity by being intentionally vague with their answers.


“I don’t intend to force them to deliver on the deal, and I took the initiative to cancel the order. But by saying that the first order is valid and they have reached an agreement with me, they’re just trying to make themselves look good with this publicity stunt,” he wrote.


Panamera, porsche, luxury cars in China

Heishan sharing his experience with the whole Porsche fiasco on Zhihu. Screengrab via Zhihu


Many netizens echoed Heishan’s feelings and have called out Porsche for manipulating their customers. Some have even said that the authorities should further investigate the situation.


However, Lu Lirong, a lawyer from the Shanghai-based law firm Zhuye, told online finance media hub Yicai that Porsche has legal standing for not delivering the car at the inaccurately-listed price.


“When the distributor lists a price much lower than the market price, the distributor has the right to request the court or arbitration institution to revoke the deal with proper compensation to the buyer by citing a major misunderstanding under the Chinese Civil Code,” explained Lu.


Cover image via VCG

This Chinese Province Is Making It Easier to Have Kids Out of Wedlock

Beginning February 15, Sichuan, a province of more than 80 million people in Southwest China, will lift certain restrictions on birth registrations for a five-year period.


According to an announcement by the Provincial Health Commission, one of the recently absolved restrictions is a longstanding marriage requirement that has made it extremely difficult for unwed women to obtain prenatal healthcare, paid maternity leave, and maternity insurance.


The change of rules in Sichuan means that it is now possible for the children of single mothers to get a hukou, the household registration tied to a child’s future education and ability to access social services.


In most parts of the country, it is hard for illegitimate children to obtain hukous.

Such policy changes are born of China’s growing effort to mitigate its population decline. Earlier this month, the Chinese government released data showing that the country’s population had decreased for the first time in six decades in 2022.


On January 30, a day after Sichuan’s sudden announcement, a staff member from the province’s health commission clarified that “the [new measures] are not intended to encourage having children out of wedlock, but [serve] to protect the rights and interests of unmarried pregnant people.”


Despite this clarification, the lifting of restrictions has stirred up heated debate.


Many netizens are worried about what message the changes will send with regard to having premarital and extramarital sex. A Weibo tag related to the subject currently has 320 million views.

One Weibo user wrote, “Isn’t this a tacit approval of extramarital affairs and illegitimate children? The country’s monogamous society may be seriously challenged […] isn’t this method of lowering moral standards inappropriate?”


Some fear-mongering posts even suggest that “the system of polygamy and multiple concubines is coming back” and that “the quality of child-rearing will go down.”


However, it’s worth noting that under the Chinese Civil Code, a child born out of wedlock should always have equal rights — including the right to an inheritance — as a child born to married parents. Biological parents who fail to provide for their kids will also need to pay child support until their offspring are of legal age.


Single motherhood has long been a contentious topic in China. Mothers bearing a child out of wedlock are often unable to receive their salary during maternity leave, and unmarried women often cannot get prenatal care at public hospitals or maternity benefits, even in cosmopolitan cities like Shanghai.

Additionally, longstanding regulations put in place by the Chinese National Health Commission in the 2000s still prevent unmarried women in China from benefiting from reproductive assistance technologies like in vitro fertilization (IVF) and egg freezing.


In relation to the above, in July 2022, a Chinese court ruled against an unmarried woman who had sued a hospital for refusing to freeze her eggs. These strict family planning rules directly conflict with the country’s effort to encourage births.

Some netizens — in tentative support of Sichuan’s new policy — believe that the relaxed birth registration requirements will serve as a step towards allowing single women access to IVF and egg freezing.


However, a smaller group of netizens have questioned the policy’s effectiveness.


“The most important factor affecting the fertility of young people is not whether single births can be registered and recognized, but the cost of childbearing and raising and educating the child […] Even if there is no limit on the number of children, young people’s willingness to have children will not be significantly improved, because the fundamental problem has not been solved,” expressed a popular blogger by the name of Geng Xiangshun.


Cover image via Depositphotos

China’s Single-use Plastic Problem Will Become Yours Too

This article is part of our Sustainable Future series done in association with East West Bank.


If you ask anyone what’s the best part of living in China, chances are they will bring up how convenient and cheap it is to order food here. For many, cooking has become an occasional treat (or chore) rather than a daily routine.


And while food delivery platforms became mainstream in many countries worldwide during the Covid-19 pandemic, the industry in China took off several years earlier and is, by far, the most developed globally.

But convenience doesn’t come without consequences: the food delivery boom has exacerbated the single-use plastic problem. And as the food delivery markets in Europe, Southeast Asia, and North America are expanding fast, the world can look to China to better understand the challenges ahead.

China’s Recipe for Food Delivery Success

A decade ago, having a meal delivered to your door likely required calling a major pizza chain or dialing your favorite local spot and inquiring if they’d deliver to you. At the same time, in the early 2010s, American fast-food chains like Pizza Hut and KFC were becoming the first to introduce food delivery platforms in China.


Since then, the market in China has grown exponentially, reaching close to 1.4 billion USD in 2022, almost 10 times the size of the current market in the U.S. The unparalleled ubiquity of food delivery in China can be attributed to a mix of unique socio-economic and technological factors.


For one, the country’s demanding working culture, known as ‘996,’ deprives many of the time to cook. Ordering takeout is the only viable option for them outside of eating the same lonely sandwich from 7-Eleven day in and day out.


delivery food china

Delivery drivers in Shanghai enjoy a break in between orders


Furthermore, such colossal demand can only be met by an army of (cheap) workers — easily found amongst the migrant communities in most major metropolises in China. Despite long working hours, harsh and high-pressure working conditions, and rude customers, delivering food can pay up to 10,000 RMB (about 1,481 USD) monthly, which is considered a good salary in most Chinese cities.


The last and most important element is the digital infrastructure that makes all of this possible. China boasts the world’s most developed online payment systems, with services like Alipay and WeChat Pay allowing for an almost entirely cashless society.


Thanks to a sophisticated, sometimes overwhelmingly complicated system of discounts provided by delivery apps or restaurants for the same dish, ordering online is often cheaper than going to the restaurant.


Dine-in vs Delivery Price Comparison in China, Ele.me


The Plastic Waste Problem

As China is still perfecting its single-use plastic legislation, the abundance of delivery orders also means more plastic use and waste. Notoriously hard to dispose of, plastic waste is already swamping many cities in China.


Aware of their impact on the environment, China’s delivery platforms Eleme and Meituan, which account for more than 95% of the market, have introduced a function that forces users to choose whether or not they need disposable cutlery. In 2017, Meituan even committed to a green plan to reduce the impact of single-use plastic waste.


However, further efforts are needed to curb the impact of the overwhelming amount of plastic containers used every day in urban centers.


Food packaging is very lightweight and must be washed before recycling, making for a longer and less cost-effective recycling process. As a direct result, most of it ends up in landfills or goes into the ocean, making China responsible for 28% of plastic waste polluting the oceans.


To deal with the problem of floating garbage, Hong Kong launched diesel-fueled barges to patrol its harbor, picking up bottles, containers, and anything thrown into the water.


clearbot hong kong

Fossil fuel-powered barges (left) vs. the ClearBot electric boat (right)


However, these barges are far from being sustainable: they burn fossil fuels, effectively polluting the bay while they clean up.


Sidhant Gupta thought automation and artificial intelligence could be the key to improving the process. In 2019, he co-founded ClearBot, a startup that manufactures self-driving, AI-powered boats for pollution recovery.


“In Hong Kong, there are about 80 boats constantly trying to fish trash out of the water,” Gupta tells RADII, adding, “ClearBot is much more cost-effective because it runs on electricity and requires no manpower. We are actually cutting the cost while decreasing the environmental impact.”


The bots developed by Gupta and his team are an outstanding example of innovative technology serving purposes in support of environmental stewardship. “With artificial intelligence, we are able to identify different objects in the water, then our boat zigzags across the area and collects all the waste,” he explains.


Clearbot AI scans ocean waste and plastic bottles

ClearBot uses AI to gather data on the waste collected


Gupta hopes the data collected through AI can benefit governments and companies dealing with plastic pollution in the ocean and that ClearBot will scale up and be implemented by institutions worldwide.


At the same time, he has grown increasingly aware that the plastic problem needs to be solved at its root: “The more we do cleanup work, the more data we gather from our machines. What we learned is that to solve the ecological problem, we have to control the materials at the source.”


A Matter of Convenience

Despite offering a more cost-effective and sustainable way of cleaning up the ocean, ClearBots’ boats are of little use when it comes to microplastics.


Microplastics damage the ecosystem from the bottom of the food chain: Due to their tiny size, they can be ingested even by the smallest organisms, such as zooplankton, and eventually work their way up the food chain to our table.


ecoinno packaging

EcoInno sustainable GCM packaging. Images courtesy of EcoInno


For this reason, replacing single-use plastic with sustainable materials could be a more long-term solution.


Also based in Hong Kong, EcoInno is a tech company that has developed a green fiber-based material. They seek to replace single-use plastic, especially within the food delivery industry, which represents over 45% of the global plastic waste problem.


EcoInno’s CEO, George Chen, is very pragmatic regarding our addiction to plastic containers, pointing out that we could never scrap convenience altogether for the sake of the environment.


“I don’t hate plastic. Plastic created a lifestyle that we really enjoy,” Chen tells RADII. “Its cost and convenience affected human behavior. But we need to ask ourselves what’s the balancing point, and I think single-use plastic needs to be stopped.”


EcoInno’s green composite material (GCM) shares many advantages with plastic: it’s lightweight, water-resistant, and can tolerate heat. What’s different is that GCM, made with a recipe of natural fibers, is entirely biodegradable and does not rely on fossil fuels for its production.


ecoinno

George Chen demonstrates how GCM decomposes and turns into water and cellulose


“GCM only takes 75 days to fully decompose,” Chen explains. “It is made with renewable natural resources, so it’s intrinsically more sustainable.”


And while it will likely take more than one man or one company to ultimately solve the issue of plastic waste, tech innovators like ClearBot and EcoInno are demonstrating that innovative approaches can be impactful at different stages of the plastic waste issue, from production to disposal.


This article was made as part of our Sustainable Future series in association with East West Bank to highlight the innovative tech that’s making the world more green and regenerative. East West Bank offers unparalleled services for individuals and companies who wish to build connections and foster collaborations between the US and Asia. Together, we will reach further. For more information, visit eastwestbank.com.


Cover image designed by Haedi Yue. Unless otherwise stated, all images are screengrabs from ‘The Hidden Price Behind Your Food Delivery Choices’

China’s Version of TikTok Now Offering Grocery Deliveries

On January 28, the first work day after the Chinese New Year holiday in the Chinese mainland, Douyin, China’s version of TikTok, discreetly launched an online supermarket. The platform’s debut was barely accompanied by any advertising or marketing campaigns.


The online market is very similar to other Chinese product-delivery companies like Meituan and Eleme. It offers items that one would typically expect from any walk-in supermarket, such as fresh produce, drinks, snacks, cleaning supplies, and other household products. It also offers same-day delivery for orders received before 4 PM, which is quite common in China.


Douyin’s move is unsurprising. The short-video platform has 800 million users in the Chinese mainland and has served as a space for livestreamers to sell their products since 2018.


Digital entrepreneurs, including farmers from rural China, have long been using Douyin as a channel to sell their products. (For more on how the short-video platform connects rural farms with urban residents, stay tuned for RADII’s mini-documentary series A Sustainable Future Is Here, sponsored by East West Bank.)


douyin, tiktok, livestream, ecommerce

Young farmers sell fresh produce directly from their fields via livestream sessions on Douyin. Image via VCG


In 2021, Douyin launched official in-app ecommerce channels. According to The Paper, a Chinese online media outlet, the platform’s gross merchandise value, meaning its total sales value, totaled 1.5 trillion RMB (around 222 billion USD) in 2022.


Interestingly, Douyin’s business model doesn’t necessarily translate well overseas. While it’s common for people in China to buy directly from livestreamers, this remains a rare occurrence in the Western world — specifically on TikTok.


Despite having 755 million users, which is almost as much as Douyin, TikTok announced that it would be abandoning its live ecommerce initiative in the U.S. and Europe last July; this comes after the platform failed to meet its targets.


Even though livestreaming is seen by some as the future of online shopping, its effectiveness in Western countries has yet to be proven.


Cover image via Depositphotos