"In the AI native era, we need 1 million AI native applications, but not 100 big models." On November 15, Robin Lee, Baidu's founder, chairman and CEO, brought some of his latest views on the big models and AI native applications at the opening ceremony of the 2023 Xilihu Forum.
Robin Lee believes that the symbol of human entering the AI era is not to produce many large models, but to produce many AI native applications.
Robin Lee uses the operating system as an analogy. In the PC era, there is basically only one operating system, Windows, but there are many software developed based on Windows; In the era of mobile internet, the mainstream operating systems are only Android and iOS, and there are as many as 8 million mobile applications.
The large model itself is a fundamental foundation, similar to an operating system, and ultimately developers rely on a few large models to develop various native applications. Therefore, constantly repeating the development of basic large models is a great waste of social resources
The technology stack in the AI era is divided into four layers: chip layer, framework layer, model layer, and application layer. Since the release of ChatGPT at the end of November 2022, the big model has received unprecedented attention. Simply understood, a large model is like a "super brain" that can understand and answer various questions by learning and memorizing a large amount of information.
Data shows that as of October, China has released 238 large models, a three fold increase from 79 in June. However, there are many large models in China, but there are very few native AI applications developed based on these models. However, there are only dozens of basic large models abroad, but there are thousands of AI native applications.
Robin Lee believes that AI industry is also demand driven, so it should make efforts on the demand side and application layer, just like subsidizing users of new energy vehicles, encouraging enterprises to use big models to develop native applications of AI, and promoting industrial development by market means.
On March 16, Baidu released ERNIE Bot product based on Wenxin Big Model 3.0, which has been iterated to version 4.0. Robin Lee revealed that Baidu is incubating new AI native applications, such as the smart code assistant Comate. Every 100 lines of code added by Baidu now, 20 of them are generated by AI, and the proportion is still growing.
"Until today, whether in China or the United States, I think the best AI native applications have not yet appeared." Robin Lee said that he is optimistic about Shenzhen, because Shenzhen has a rich scene and deep industrial foundation, and in the AI native era, Shenzhen will once again become a fertile land for innovation and entrepreneurship.
It is reported that Baidu currently has a headquarters in Nanshan District, Shenzhen, and its "Radish Run" autonomous driving travel service has also been officially launched in the area, providing citizens with autonomous driving demonstration application travel services.