Baidu CEO Criticizes Industry's Focus on Foundational AI Models

Robin Li calls for a shift towards developing AI applications, despite Baidu's recent release of its own AI model.

Baidu CEO Robin Li criticizes the tech industry's focus on developing foundational AI models, calling it an 'enormous waste of social resources'.
Li suggests that the industry should instead concentrate on developing AI-powered applications built on top of the models.
Li's comments come a month after Baidu released its latest AI model, Ernie 4.0, which it said could compete with OpenAI’s latest release, GPT-4.
As of October, 238 large language models have been released in China, up from just 79 in June, according to Li, citing a third-party report.
Li's stance contrasts with that of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who speculated that smaller models tailored to specific use cases might replace larger ones.