The Download: China’s AI chatbots go public, and how climate change is affecting hurricanes

The news: Baidu, one of China’s leading artificial-intelligence companies, has announced it’s opening up access to its ChatGPT-like large language model, Ernie Bot, to the general public.

The context:  Launched in mid-March, Ernie Bot was the first Chinese ChatGPT rival. Since then, many Chinese tech companies, including Alibaba and ByteDance, have followed suit and released their own models. Yet all of them force users to sit on waitlists or go through approval systems, making the products mostly inaccessible for ordinary users

What’s next: On August 30, Baidu posted on social media that it will also release a batch of new AI applications within the Ernie Bot as the company rolls out open registration today. But even with the new access, it’s unclear how many people will use the products. Read the full story.

—Zeyi Yang

Here’s what we know about hurricanes and climate change

It’s now possible to link climate change to all kinds of extreme weather, from droughts to flooding to wildfires.

Hurricanes are no exception—scientists have found that warming temperatures are causing stronger and less predictable storms. That’s a concern, because hurricanes are already among the most deadly and destructive extreme weather events around the world. In the US alone, three hurricanes each caused over $1 billion in damages in 2022. In a warming world, we can expect the totals to rise.