If you need help with your communist essay, this AI bot will gladly assist

By now, you’re pretty much aware of what Galaxy AI, Apple Intelligence, and Gemini can do: but what about Chinese AI bots? What do they do? How do these platforms behave? Are they cool and down to earth, or are they formal and distant? Can Chinese AI bots help with writing essays?

Certainly, even more so if you’re writing an essay that praises communism.

It’s Friday, so we can all use some laughs, but the latest report from The South China Morning Post is absolutely not comedic, I can tell you that.

The story is about Beijing-based search and artificial intelligence (AI) giant Baidu (Google’s alternative in China), which was the first to launch a ChatGPT-like platform in China. Baidu has now rolled out a new tool in partnership with the country’s most popular political study app.

The AI assistant, launched Wednesday on Baidu’s Ernie Bot platform, is a partnership with Xuexi Qiangguo, the official app for communist party members to learn ideology and doctrine. The app is run by the country’s propaganda authority.The tool, named the “Xuexi Qiangguo official document assistant” (it doesn’t roll off the tongue quite naturally in English, but in its home it’s probably better-sounding), can search for content from President Xi Jinping’s articles and quotes, and ensure that the “information is strictly checked and verified”.

When accessed on Thursday, the new Baidu tool, accessible by searching its name on Ernie Bot, offered Xi’s latest theories on rural development and “moderate prosperity” – which recognized the party’s achievements in eliminating absolute poverty. It also included Xi’s “people-centric philosophy” that says development should benefit the people.

Besides Xi’s speeches, the tool also generates results from government documents, policies, and state media reports, while providing links to the original sources.

Baidu’s Ernie Bot is the most frequently used generative AI (GenAI) product in China, with an 11.5% share of users as of June, according to a recent report by the state-run China Internet Network Information Centre (CNNIC). It was followed by OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini, with a 7% and 3.8% share respectively, although the two US services are not officially available in mainland China.

The number of GenAI users in China reached 230 million at the end of June, which means around one in every six people in the world’s biggest internet market are using a GenAI product, according to CNNIC.

In China, writing essays based on Communist Party ideology has become a significant part of the duties performed by civil servants and state-owned enterprise employees.

Separately, Baidu is reportedly working with US tech giants to expand the user base of its GenAI applications. The Information reported on Wednesday that Baidu is teaming up with Apple to roll out its Apple Intelligence on the mainland.

Quite frankly, I’m looking forward to the day when people will be able to use Apple Intelligence in China for writing pro-communist essays. I mean, the epitome of capitalism meets communism. That’s what diversity is all about, right?