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Baidu released ERNIE 5.5 Flash Base

25 points pretext 1 hour ago 18 comments

weijiejason119 1 hour ago | parent

anyone tried this? is it good?

spwa4 51 minutes ago | parent

It's not instruction finetuned, so no, it's not good to use for anything like coding agents.

A_D_E_P_T 57 minutes ago | parent

This is awesome. ERNIE seems more powerful than Qwen3.8-27B and Deepseek-v4-Flash, which AFAIK are currently the best base models... it'll be very interesting to experiment with when it hits OpenCode. Base models are also excellent for businesses who run models locally, as they can be trained in various house rules and house styles.

input_sh 19 minutes ago | parent

They're comparing it to Deepseek-v4-Flash, not 4.1 and not the 4.1 1017 update, so essentially two versions behind the latest version of Deepseek Flash.

irthomasthomas 18 minutes ago | parent

Qwen3.8-27B has no base model version in the wild that I can see?

spwa4 53 minutes ago | parent

TLDR: Ernie 5.5 Flash base 280B params 14B active

A chunk better than Deepseek 1017, at half the parameter count, BUT it's only a base model, not finetuned to follow instructions.

Strange to release a model in this state. OpenAI is also "probably" releasing new models (sources within OpenAI talking about Sol 6.2 and the like). We must be getting really close to the Qwen4 releases.

v9v 42 minutes ago | parent

I believe they compare to DSv4, not DSv4.1 1017.

wolttam 21 minutes ago | parent

Specifically V4-Flash-Base from April.

speedping 40 minutes ago | parent

ERNIE feels old, like BERT. They either need a rebrand or fully embrace retro-dawn-of-ML vibes

NSUserDefaults 38 minutes ago | parent

I'd try DONALD for sure, if I wanted to kill a project.

ahoka 20 minutes ago | parent

But they didn't give a DONALD.

yehoshuapw 14 minutes ago | parent

Make AI Great Again?

selectodude 12 minutes ago | parent

SI*

lofties 2 minutes ago | parent

BERT models are still amazing for what they do. Even the latest JEV/KEV/SEV/BEV/REV/TREV models can't beat a well-trained BERT.

roryirvine 32 minutes ago | parent

Am I the only one to feel sad that the name means "Enhanced Representation through kNowledge IntEgration", rather than being a homage to a very famous 1950s random number generator?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premium_Bonds#ERNIE

jojogeo 7 minutes ago | parent

For me I see ERNIE as BERT's long time friend and room mate.

How do I look Ernie? ... with your eyes, Bert.

haunter 14 minutes ago | parent

OT

dropped is the worst word in this context because it can both mean ‘released’ or ‘terminated/ended’

Baidu dropped ERNIE 5.5 Flash Base = Baidu released a new version of their software

Baidu dropped ERNIE 5.5 Flash Base = Baidu ended the support of their software

swiftcoder 9 minutes ago | parent

I think in contemporary parlance this sufficiently clear. Nobody thought massdrop was where you went to buy end-of-life products.