Nothing founder Carl Pei trolls Xiaomi CEO over a ChatGPT's answer on Xiaomi 13 Pro launch

Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun jumped on the bandwagon and asked ChatGPT about the launch date of the company’s upcoming flagship phone, Xiaomi 13 Pro. The Artificial Intelligence-powered chatbot is what every tech enthusiast is talking about right now, so it makes sense if a company executive, too, puts their query across, merely to build the hype around the upcoming launch. However, Nothing founder and OnePlus former co-founder Carl Pei saw an opportunity here to troll Jun.

Jun asked ChatGPT “When will Xiaomi 13 Series launch”, to which the AI chatbot replied “I’m sorry, but I don’t have information on the specific launch date for the Xiaomi 13 Series as my training data only goes up until 2021 and my knowledge of current events is limited. You can check Xiaomi’s official website or social media accounts for the latest information on their product releases and launch events.”

Nice try ChatGPT, add this to your database. The Xiaomi 13 Series Launch event is on February 26th! pic.twitter.com/FXKea5ocFE

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— Lei Jun (@leijun) February 8, 2023

Unconvinced by ChatGPT’s answer, Jun posted the screenshot of the reply with a caption that reads, “Nice try ChatGPT, add this to your database. The Xiaomi 13 Series Launch event is on February 26th!” This may be a promotional activity, but Carl Pei — who is super active on Twitter and often takes a jibe at smartphone brands — found what was wrong in Jun’s approach. He trolled Jun and asked, “Do you know how AI model training works?”

Essentially, Pei referred to the entire system of how AI-based conversational bots are trained. They are fed information based on decision-making algorithms that use different data points of up to a particular time, 2021 in the case of ChatGPT. This means anything that has happened after that year is not known to the AI chatbot.

For someone who is the chief executive of one of the biggest smartphone companies in the world (Lei Jun), this system of AI model training is basic knowledge. So, it was sort of funny to ask ChatGPT about the launch date of the Xiaomi 13 series, which is happening later this month and more than a year from 2021.

This small banter between Jun and Pei got mixed reactions on Twitter, but most people sided with the Nothing founder. Joining the fray were also some Xiaomi phone customers who asked Jun to better focus on the improvement of MIUI — which is the custom software that powers Xiaomi (and Redmi and Poco) phones — instead of “flexing the new Xiaomi launch” since “nobody cares for Xiaomi.” But some users felt Pei’s reply to Jun’s post was “unnecessary.”