Chinese tech giant Baidu sued Apple and a number of app developers to stop a flood of fake Ernie Bot apps from appearing on the App Store.
Baidu, which was filed in the Beijing Haidian People’s Court on Friday, is suing Apple and the developer of the fake Ernie bot app. They’re trying to get Apple to remove the offending fake apps and stop the app creators from providing them.
Ernie (Enhanced Representation through Knowledge Integration) bot is an AI chatbot similar to ChatGPT and Google Bard. The user can ask a question or request a statement, and the bot creates an answer based on information in the knowledge graph.
Ernie opened in March, but Baidu has yet to create an app for the service, leaving a hole that other developers are trying to fill. “Currently, Arnie does not have an official app,” Baidu said in a statement. Reuters.
“Until we officially announce it, all Ernie apps you see on the App Store and other stores are fake,” said a statement via the official “Baidu AI” WeChat account.
Rather than providing open access, the Ernie bot can only be accessed by users who apply for an access code. Baidu used that statement to warn users not to sell their code.
Apple has yet to publicly comment on the lawsuit against itself or App Store developers. Search in the App Store Reuters On Saturday, we discovered that at least four fake Ernie bot apps are still available.
