Let’s revisit the virality of ChatGPT so you can get an idea of what it means to be an alternative to OpenAI’s chatbot. Alibaba’s Tongyi Qianwen is not the only alternative to give the giant tech a shot at the market competition but it brings a new alternative to a population that has been long shielded from the chatbot. Other alternatives that ChatGPT will need to contend with include Bard, Claude AI, Poe, YouChat, and Chatsonic amongst others. However, something remained unique, five days after its launch, ChatGPT had 1 million new accounts which reached 100 million active users within one month.
With the updates to China’s AI regulations, Apple likely hit the last nail on ChatGPT’s presence in the populous region “Based on our review, your app is associated with ChatGPT, which does not have requisite permits to operate in China.” Apple’s statement.
Many things have happened since the launch of ChatGPT and alternative competitors are just one of them. Hackers dumped 100,000 ChatGPT plus accounts on the dark web for sale in March, on July 13, 2023, ChatGPT was placed on the radar of FTC over possibly misleading and or harmful responses, and Italy became the first country to order chatGPT to close operations and meet in court.
Alternative to ChatGPT in China
Alibaba launched its Tongyi Qianwen on Wednesday 13, September having successfully navigated the regulatory hurdles that threw ChatGPT out of the market. As Eddie Wu takes leadership as the CEO, the company seeks to make AI available for commercial purposes to the whole society besides being an integral strategic approach in Alibaba. In his address, Wu made it clear that “Over the next decade, the most significant change agent will be the disruptions brought about by AI across all sectors.”
What’s Unique about Alibaba’s Chatbot Tongyi Qianwen
Well, if you read the name and thought that it’s a unique feature, you’re wrong. The company launched two new models that are Qwen – VL and Qwen – VL – Chat. The latter will be an open source for businesses to create their own AI apps at no cost. Nonetheless, Qwen – VL have the capability to generate picture captions and answer related questions. Unlike ChatGPT, the new chatbot is capable of interpreting pictures. Additionally, the new chatbot does not come with a price tag like the advanced ChatGPT – 4. Alibaba will use the language model to trigger growth by getting more users into the pipeline.
Google’s Bard – An Alternative
After attempts to use LaMDA failed to give the desired outcomes, Google resorted to the Pathway Language Model (PaLM 2) to beef up the bot’s reasoning and common sense. Bard moved to other untouched territories such as personal assistant roles.
User can get their hotel reservations, meal planning, and the diet tormenting reminders, “Get the burger outa your damn mouth, you’re on diet, sir!”
Asked about what makes it unique, Bard will offer page summaries, research current information, and is generally good at research work.
While there are several other alternatives to ChatGPT, its legacy will remain difficult to break. The language model is trained on 175 billion parameters and remains second to none in the market. It’s virality put in the balance with popular platforms such as TikTok, ChatGPT achieved 100 million active users in one month something that took TikTok nine months to realize. Alternatives will continue to emerge in this era of AI hype. However, there is no guarantee that they will soon take up the position of the giant large language model. The only threat to fear is if and only if the New York Times Wins the copyright case against OpenAI and its data is completely scrapped!
