Baidu’s founder has said demand for the type of text-based models developed by generative AI sensation DeepSeek is “shrinking”, as his search group seeks to reestablish itself as an artificial intelligence leader in China. In a striking criticism of the limitations of China’s AI darling, Robin Li told Baidu’s developer conference on Friday that there were constraints to models like DeepSeek’s that only generate text-based content.
“The market for text models is shrinking,” Li said, as he released two new multimodal models — Ernie 4.5 Turbo and X1 Turbo — with not just text but also audio, image and video capabilities. He added that DeepSeek’s model had a higher propensity for misleading “hallucinations” and was slower and more expensive than other domestic offerings. Li said the competitive landscape for new models was constantly changing, with a stream of “powerful new models that provide more choice”. His comments come as Baidu tries to reposition itself as an AI leader after being forced to pivot by dropping its subscription service to its chatbot and making its models freely available as “open source”. Baidu faces stiff domestic competition from its peer Alibaba, which has released competitive open-source multimodal models.

Full critique : Baidu CEO Robin Li says demand for text-based models like DeepSeek’s is “shrinking” and claims its model had a higher propensity for “hallucinations”.