"What is the biggest change that has occurred in the AI industry in the past 24 months? It is that large models have basically eliminated illusions." Baidu founder Robin Li said at the Baidu World 2024 Conference on November 12. He also proposed that Baidu is not going to launch a "super application", but to continue to help more people and more companies create millions of "super useful" applications.
Illusion is seen as a gap that must be crossed for large-scale model implementation. The so-called "illusion" problem is reflected in the fact that large models will fabricate facts and use seemingly smooth and natural expressions to give content that is inconsistent with the facts or even wrong. For example, giving a court defense case that does not exist at all, making up an allusion that is inconsistent with the facts. Actual historical interpretation etc.
"If you want to develop applications based on large models, it is necessary to eliminate illusions. If the model always talks nonsense seriously, no one will believe you and there will be no applications." Robin Li said that after about 2 years of development, The large model basically eliminates illusions, and its accuracy in answering questions is greatly improved, which makes AI usable and trustworthy.
The latest data shows that as of early November, the average daily calls of Wenxin's large models have exceeded 1.5 billion, an increase of about 30 times compared with the 50 million first disclosed a year ago. Robin Li said, “This steep growth curve represents the explosion of large-scale model applications in China in the past two years.” He once again proposed that agents are the most mainstream form of AI applications and are about to reach a breaking point.
He believes that building an intelligent agent is very similar to building a website in the PC era, or building a self-media account in the mobile era. The difference is that the agent is more human-like and intelligent, "more like your sales, your customer service, and your assistant. The agent may become a new carrier of content, information and services in the AI-native era." He said, On Baidu’s Wenxin intelligent agent platform, even 11-year-old primary school students are creating intelligent agents and then distributing them through search and other channels.
On the same day, Robin Li released two major application-enabling AI technologies: retrieval-enhanced Vincent Graph technology (iRAG) and the code-free tool "Miaida". Wenxin iRAG is used to solve the illusion problem of large models in image generation, greatly improving practicality; the code-free tool "Miaida" allows everyone to have the ability of a programmer and will create millions of "super useful" applications .