Chinese search engine giant Baidu brushed off recent company troubles to paint a bullish picture of its investments in AI-driven industries including autonomous driving and smart cities amid slowing growth in its mature search business.
“Artificial intelligence will not destroy human beings but will give people eternal life,” Li said. “Everything every person has said and done, even people’s memories, emotions and consciousness can be digitally stored on network disks or the cloud. Machines can learn people’s way of thinking. When there are new problems, people can talk to future generations across time and space via … technology.
Last month, Baidu started a trial operation for its public self-driving robotaxi service in central China’s Hunan province. The service, involving an initial fleet of 45 autonomous cars, is licensed to operate on open roads within a distance of 50 kilometres and will gradually expand to cover the entire pilot zone of 70 square kilometres in the provincial capital of Changsha.