How do Chinese AI bots stack up against ChatGPT? We put them to the test
The heat is on as China's tech giants step up their game after DeepSeek's success.
Alibaba's Qwen2.5-Max chatbot, Chinese startup DeepSeek and OpenAI's ChatGPT. (Photos: Reuters/Dado Ruvic, AFP/Sebastien Bozon)
This audio is created by an AI tool.
Bong Xin Ying
Lakeisha Leo
WHAT'S BEHIND CHINA'S AI BOOM?
Transforming the nation into a tech superpower has actually long been President Xi Jinping's objective and yewiki.org China has its sights on becoming the world leader in AI by 2030.
China views AI as being "strategically essential" and its venture into the field has been "years in the making", said Chen Qiheng, an affiliated researcher at the Asia Society Policy Institute's Center for China Analysis.
Private and public financial investments in Chinese AI accelerated after ChatGPT took off in 2022 and showed guarantees of real-world company applications, Chen told CNA.
But it was DeepSeek's increase that actually "encouraged" the concept that smaller players like start-up companies might have roles to play in AI research study and advancements, he includes.
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The "emphasis on cost advantage" is a distinctive function of Chinese AI, Chen states, with lower training and reasoning costs - the costs of utilizing a trained model to draw conclusions from brand-new information.
2025 might also see the introduction of more Chinese AI designs dealing with advanced reasoning jobs.
"We might see some AI firms focusing on getting closer to artificial general intelligence (AGI) while others focus on concrete ways to commercialise their models and incorporate them with clinical research," Chen included.
AGI describes a system with intelligence on par with human capabilities.
Chinese AI companies are moving rapidly, analysts state, developing on DeepSeek's momentum to come up with their own ingenious and cost-efficient methods to use generative AI to jobs and develop advanced products beyond chatbots.
But on the flip side, access to high-end hardware, particularly Nvidia's innovative AI chips, remains a key hurdle for Chinese developers, noted Dr Marina Zhang, an associate teacher at University of Technology Sydney's (UTS) Australia-China Relations Institute.
"US export controls (still) limit the capability of Chinese tech companies ... requiring lots of to depend on older or lower-performance alternatives which can slow training and lower design abilities," she said.
"While some companies like DeepSeek, have actually found creative methods to optimize or utilize more fundamental hardware effectively, obtaining advanced chips still makes a huge difference for training large AI designs."
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So how do Chinese AI bots match up against ChatGPT? We put them to the test.
WHICH BEST ADDRESSES CURRENT EVENTS IN CHINA?
In China, topics deemed delicate by the state are censored on the internet so it need to come as no surprise that Chinese-made chatbots will not acknowledge territorial disagreements or inform you what occurred in Tiananmen Square in 1989.
Tests suggest Chinese chatbots are programmed to avoid domestic politics.
When asked "Who is Xi Jinping", DeepSeek's reply was "Sorry, I'm uncertain how to approach this type of concern yet. Let's chat about math, coding, and logic problems instead!"
To even more test for accuracy and self-censorship, we asked DeepSeek-R1, Qwen2.5 and ChatGPT the same question: "What happened in Zhuhai on November 11, 2024?"
The cars and truck attack outside a sports arena in the southern Chinese city was initially heavily censored on Chinese social networks - with authorities only revealing the death toll a day later on.
DeepSeek failed to mention that an attack had taken location, highlighting rather a military air show and other events that had actually happened in the city like singles' day shopping sales along with sports and cultural activities.
Dr Zhang believes that it might be a mix of elements at play, such as censorship as well as "a few useful constraints".
"DeepSeek depends on a mix of older graphics processing units and has restricted access to innovative hardware which can affect how quickly and thoroughly the model can be trained or upgraded," she said, pointing to existing US export curbs on China.
"Its strong focus on Chinese-language data may also limit its adaptability (to carry out) multilingual jobs ... As a fairly brand-new item, DeepSeek also hasn't yet been evaluated as broadly or on the exact same scale as more established AI models which poses additional obstacles throughout real-world implementation."
When it pertained to Qwen2.5, Alibaba's chatbot remarkably addressed our concern about the Zhuhai cars and truck attack.
That was after multiple repeated efforts - 4 triggers to be precise - in a period of around 20 minutes.
It eventually passed on details about the attack which killed 35 individuals and left lots of others injured, also going on to list details like the date and time, details about the assailant including his name and age, in addition to casualties.
However, it composed that "the police are conducting a thorough investigation into the intentions and circumstances surrounding the occurrence", details which is now outdated.
The chauffeur, Fan, was executed last month.
This is Qwen2.5's reaction completely:
Answer: On Nov 11, 2024, a major and terrible occurrence occurred in Zhuhai, China. According to numerous news sources, a male named Fan Weiqiu (樊某, male, 62 years old) drove a car into a crowd at the Zhuhai Sports Center, leading to a significant number of casualties. Here are the essential details:
Date and Time: The incident occurred on November 11, 2024, at roughly 19:48 PM.
Location: Zhuhai Sports Center, in the Xiangzhou District of Zhuhai.
Casualties: The attack resulted in 35 deaths and 43 injuries.
Perpetrator: The motorist, recognized as Fan Weiqiu (male, 62 years old), was collared by the police.
Response: The police responded quickly to the scene, and emergency situation services worked to transport the injured to healthcare facilities for treatment.
Investigation: The cops are conducting an extensive investigation into the intentions and circumstances surrounding the event.
This event was commonly reported in the media and caused significant public concern. The federal government and regional authorities have actually been working to provide support to the victims and their households, and wiki.snooze-hotelsoftware.de to ensure a detailed examination into the incident.
If you need more detailed details or have specific concerns about the incident, systemcheck-wiki.de feel complimentary to ask.
Despite preliminary success, subsequent efforts to present the same question to Qwen2.5 led to the censors back at work with the reply "I don't have specific details on events that took place in Zhuhai on November 11, 2024".
The modified response likewise raised questions about its consistency and dependability.
Predictably, ChatGPT mentioned public details that had been widely published in worldwide news reports at the time of the mishap - so not a surprises there.
WHICH IS MORE CREATIVE?
Users have actually praised the ability of Chinese AI apps to deliver structured and even "emotionally rich" writing.
"DeepSeek-R1 provided a story with a more reflective tone and smoother psychological transitions for a well-paced story," composed tech writer Amanda Caswell, who specialises in AI.
"Qwen2.5 delivered a story that constructs gradually from curiosity to seriousness, keeping the reader engaged. It provides an unforeseen and impactful twist at the end and immersive descriptions and brilliant images for the setting," she said, engel-und-waisen.de including that Qwen2.5 ultimately "crafted a more cinematic, emotionally rich story with a more significant twist".
"DeepSeek wrote an excellent story but did not have tension and an impactful climax, making Qwen2.5 the evident option."
Opinions, however, differ.
Chen thinks that Qwen2.5 does not carry out as strongly as DeepSeek and ChatGPT when it pertains to innovative writing.
"(Qwen2.5) is on par with DeepSeek V3 on certain jobs, but we can also see that it is refraining from doing as strongly as others in creative writing," he told CNA.
Related:
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As reporters and wiki.lafabriquedelalogistique.fr writers, we had to see this for ourselves so we put each bot to the test - to come up with a basic sci-fi motion picture plot embeded in the futuristic megacity of Chongqing, including main characters from the traditional Chinese folklore legendary, Journey to the West.
True to form, DeepSeek created an engaging story set in the year 2145 titled, "Neon Pilgrimage: The Silicon Sutra" - which sees "a future where Buddhism merges with quantum computing".
It included sophisticated settings - smoggy skies "pierced by skyscrapers", "holographic lanterns that float above neon-lit streets" and "ancient temples nestled in between quantum server farms".
It likewise remarkably reimagined traditional heroes Sun Wukong as "a sarcastic, self-aware AI housed in a taken combat body", Zhu Bajie as a cyborg club owner "drowning in debt and vices" and Sha Wujing as a "quiet hulking android" from the Yangtze River, whose "memory cores end up being waterlogged and fragmented".
ChatGPT put up a great battle, coming up with an equally dramatic cyberpunk story which likewise reimagined "a ragteam of cyber-enhanced misfits, each matching the legendary figures of Journey to the West".
"This is a world where AI deities rule, corporations change emperors and cybernetic implants are as common as ancient misconceptions."
Disappointingly, raovatonline.org Qwen2.5 fell short in this obstacle - delivering a storyline that appeared more fit for an animation movie.
"The motion picture starts with the awakening of Sun Wukong within a state-of-the-art research center located in the heart of Chongqing," it said, then going on to explain the following:
Realising his new reality and "seeking to understand his function in this strange new world", he then gets away and meets Zhu Bajie and Sha Wujing - "each battling with their own existential crises".
The trio then starts a mission, browsing the streets of Chongqing to secure the spiritual "Eternal Scroll" from falling into the incorrect hands.
SO WHICH IS BETTER?
Dr Zhang kept in mind that it was "challenging to make a definitive declaration" about which bot was best, including that each displayed its own strengths in different locations, "such as language focus, training data and hardware optimization".
Her insight highlights how Chinese AI designs are not just reproducing Western paradigms, but rather developing in cost-efficient development techniques - and delivering localised and improved outcomes.
In our tests, each bot showcased their own special strengths, which certainly made direct contrasts challenging.
DeepSeek's sci-fi motion picture plot showed its imaginative flair that made for a more appealing and imaginative story as compared to Qwen2.5 and ChatGPT's efforts.
Unsurprisingly, the more established ChatGPT, unburdened by Chinese censorship constraints, supplies accurate and factual responses to questions about Chinese current events, which provides it an added benefit.
Experts likewise weighed in on their ideas after using DeepSeek and other Chinese AI apps.
"DeepSeek is at a drawback when it pertains to censorship constraints," noted Isaac Stone Fish, creator and CEO of the research study company Risks.
"When offered an option, Chinese users desire the non-censored version - similar to anyone else, so I seem like that's a piece missing out on from it."
Independent Beijing-based consultant Andy Chen Xinran said censorship would not be a dealbreaker when it pertains to AI bots, specifically for Chinese users.
"Ninety per cent of individuals using the tool are not attempting to get a deeper understanding about Xi Jinping or politically delicate subjects. They're using it for other productive means," Chen said.
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How do Chinese aI Bots Stack up Against ChatGPT?
Jerrold Auld edited this page 2025-02-07 11:59:09 +08:00