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NSTC announces plans for Taiwan ChatGPT
National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) minister Wu Zheng-zhong has announced plans by the government to develop a domestic version of ChatGPT.
Wu says the move comes amid concerns that current chat generative artificial intelligence systems under development could result in biased information from China from dominating the industry.
China's search engine Baidu has announced that it plans to launch an app similar to that of the San Francisco-based OpenAI Laboratory in the coming months.
Wu says his office plans to budget NT$35-billion to establish eight major tech platforms that include artificial intelligence, semiconductor and quantum technology, space and satellite communications, cybersecurity, and precision healthcare technology.
The minister says a majority of the funding would be used to develop net zero emissions technology.
In related news, Microsoft Taiwan says AI-integrated Office tools could be announced as early as March, although any official announcements will be made by the US headquarters.
This follows media reports the company is looking to expand its AI integration into Microsoft Office, allowing users similar functions as ChatGPT to Word, Powerpoint, Outlook, and other applications.
Microsoft last week announced new AI features in its Bing search engine and Edge browser, touting an improved search experience and attracting more advertisers.
By using the technology developed by the ChatGPT team, Microsoft hopes to form an unprecedented challenge to Google, which has dominated the search engine market for more than 20 years.
ChatGPT was launched at the end of November last year, allowing more than 100 million users to enter prompts related to writing essays or speeches, or looking up legal terms, while responding in a human-like manner.
