Y Combinator - Will OpenAI Kill All Startups?
发布时间:2023-07-24 18:38:26
原节目
以下是内容的中文翻译:
迈克尔·西巴和道尔顿·考德威尔讨论了OpenAI和人工智能(AI)对初创企业的潜在影响,尤其针对了一种普遍的说法,即OpenAI将“扼杀”所有初创企业。他们驳斥了OpenAI将消灭初创企业的观点,并认为历史表明,重大的技术变革会为新企业创造重大机遇,特别是那些能够快速有效地适应的初创企业。
讨论的重点是OpenAI的主要目标是实现通用人工智能(AGI),而不是通过创建像客户关系管理系统(CRM)或搜索引擎等AI驱动的解决方案来与初创企业竞争或消灭它们。他们强调,初创企业应该专注于如何战略性地利用AI来构建更好的功能、提高用户留存率、提升产品质量,并为客户创造真正的价值,而不是仅仅将AI作为营销噱头或对其产品进行肤浅的添加。
他们将当前的AI格局与过去的技术革命相提并论,例如互联网、开源软件、云计算和移动应用革命。每一次变革都创造了无数新的商机,并为那些能够快速创新和利用新技术的初创企业带来了独特的优势。与老牌企业相比,初创企业相对更具优势。技术变革越剧烈,时间跨度越短,初创企业就越有优势。
对话强调了“膜拜式AI”(Cargo culting AI,即没有真正益处的表面采用AI)与真正整合AI以提高产品质量和用户体验之间的区别。“膜拜式AI”意味着“我们拥有AI”,但这与你正在做的事情关系不大。
他们观察到,许多才华横溢、薪资丰厚的专业人士正在放弃稳定的工作,转而创办专注于AI的初创企业,这表明人们对AI的变革力量和当前的机会窗口抱有强烈的信念。他们将这些创业者分为两类:一类是因AI作为工具的潜力而兴奋的有经验的计算机科学专业人士,另一类是看到自己对未来的愿景变为现实的资深机器学习从业者。
虽然他们承认对OpenAI可能主导市场的担忧,但他们强调,OpenAI专注于实现AGI意味着他们不太可能将目标对准那些初创企业可以擅长的小型、特定的应用。他们担心OpenAI能够做得足够好的那些唾手可得的想法。此外,他们告诫不要只关注AI的一阶应用(OpenAI的直接竞争对手),并鼓励初创企业探索二阶效应和不太明显的应用(就像优步之于iPhone一样),这可能会带来突破性的创新。
他们还谈到了这样一种观点,即某些AI应用仅仅是现有OpenAI技术的“薄包装”,他们认为这不应被视为负面的,因为许多成功的产品最初都是简单的工具,随着时间的推移不断改进和扩展。Dropbox最初是一个基于AWS和S3的简单文件共享服务,就是一个例子。重要的因素是该应用是否解决了客户的实际问题并提供了显著的价值。
最终,西巴和考德威尔对AI时代的初创企业的未来持乐观态度,他们鼓励创始人要有创造力、有雄心壮志,并以客户为中心。他们认为,与之前的技术革命一样,AI将为那些能够有效利用其力量的人创造大量的新的机会,只要他们避免简单地赶时髦。他们断言,在OpenAI实现AGI(这是他们的主要目标)之前,初创企业将有充足的空间利用现有的AI工具来改善人们的生活和业务。他们的结论是,AI可能会引发新颖而令人兴奋的初创企业爆发式增长,类似于移动革命,但这只有在它不仅仅是对趋势的肤浅采用的情况下才会发生。
Michael Sibah and Dalton Caldwell discuss the potential impact of OpenAI and AI in general on startups, particularly addressing the common narrative that OpenAI will "kill" all startups. They dismiss the notion that OpenAI will eradicate startups, arguing instead that history suggests major technological shifts create significant opportunities for new businesses, especially startups that can adapt quickly and effectively.
The discussion centers on the idea that OpenAI's primary goal is to achieve Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), not to compete with or eliminate startups by creating AI-powered solutions like CRM systems or search engines. They emphasize that startups should focus on how AI can be strategically used to build better features, increase user retention, enhance product quality, and create real value for customers, rather than merely using AI as a marketing buzzword or a superficial addition to their products.
They draw parallels between the current AI landscape and past technological revolutions, such as the internet, open source software, cloud computing, and the mobile app revolution. Each of these shifts created countless new business opportunities and gave a distinct advantage to startups that could rapidly innovate and leverage the new technology. Startups were relatively advantaged versus the incumbents. The greater the technology change in the shorter the period of time, the more startups are advantaged.
The conversation highlights the difference between "cargo culting AI" (superficially adopting AI without real benefit) and genuinely integrating AI to improve product quality and user experience. Cargo culting AI is to say, we have AI and it's like tangential to what you're doing.
They observed that many talented, well-paid professionals are leaving stable jobs to launch startups focused on AI, indicating a strong belief in the transformative power of AI and the current window of opportunity. They classify these entrepreneurs into two groups: experienced CS professionals excited by the potential of AI as a tool and seasoned ML practitioners who see their visions of the future becoming reality.
While they acknowledge concerns about OpenAI potentially dominating the market, they emphasize that OpenAI's focus on achieving AGI means that they're unlikely to target the smaller, specific applications that startups can excel at. They worry the low-hanging fruit ideas OpenAI will just be able to do well enough. Also, they caution against focusing solely on first-order applications of AI (direct competitors to OpenAI) and encourage startups to explore second-order effects and less obvious applications, like Uber was to the iPhone, which can lead to groundbreaking innovations.
They also address the sentiment that certain AI applications are merely "thin wrappers" around existing OpenAI technologies, arguing that this shouldn't be viewed negatively, as many successful products started as simple tools that were refined and expanded over time. Dropbox, initially a simple file-sharing service built on top of AWS and S3, serves as an example. The important factor is whether the application solves real customer problems and provides significant value.
Ultimately, Sibah and Caldwell are optimistic about the future of startups in the age of AI, encouraging founders to be creative, ambitious, and customer-focused. They believe that AI, like previous technological revolutions, will create a wealth of new opportunities for those who can harness its power effectively, as long as they avoid simply jumping on the bandwagon. They assert that until OpenAI achieves AGI, which is their primary objective, there will be ample space for startups to leverage existing AI tools to improve people's lives and businesses. They conclude that AI could lead to an explosion of new and exciting startups, akin to the mobile revolution, but that's only if it's not simply a superficial adoption of trends.