Altman：ChatGPT、Sora、AI Pin 都不太行

A number of moments from my brief sit-down with Sam Altman brought the OpenAI CEO’s worldview into clearer focus. The first was when he pointed to my iPhone SE (the one with the home button that’s mostly hated) and said, “That’s the best iPhone.” More revealing, though, was the vision he sketched for how AI tools will become even more enmeshed in our daily lives than the smartphone.

我和 Sam Altman 聊了一会儿，有几件小事儿刷新了我对 Altman 的认知。首先是他称赞我的 iPhone SE，说：“这是最好的 iPhone”。更令人深省的是，他表示各类 AI 工具，将以远甚于手机的方式，影响我们的生活。

“What you really want,” he told MIT Technology Review, “is just this thing that is off helping you.” Altman, who was visiting Cambridge for a series of events hosted by Harvard and the venture capital firm Xfund, described the killer app for AI as a “super-competent colleague that knows absolutely everything about my whole life, every email, every conversation I’ve ever had, but doesn’t feel like an extension.” It could tackle some tasks instantly, he said, and for more complex ones it could go off and make an attempt, but come back with questions for you if it needs to. 

在哈弗和 Xfund 联合主办的这场活动中，Altman 接受了《麻省理工科技评论》采访，并表示：“人真正想要的，是一个解决万事的帮手”。

在 Altman 的视角里，一个 AI 杀手级应用应该是“一个能干的伙伴，对你的生活了如指掌，记住你的所有消息，而非一个简单工具。”

进一步的：对于简单任务，这个应用能够立即处理；而对于复杂任务，则能够尝试解决，必要时还会回来向你确认细节。

It’s a leap from OpenAI’s current offerings. Its leading applications, like DALL-E, Sora, and ChatGPT (which Altman referred to as “incredibly dumb” compared with what’s coming next), have wowed us with their ability to generate convincing text and surreal videos and images. But they mostly remain tools we use for isolated tasks, and they have limited capacity to learn about us from our conversations with them. 

OpenAI 将会推出这个跨时代的产品，Altman 指出：OpenAI 当前的这些产品，如 DALL-E、ChatGPT 和 Sora，虽然被广泛认可，但还是只能处理孤立的任务；相比于新产品来说，确实太蠢了。

In the new paradigm, as Altman sees it, the AI will be capable of helping us outside the chat interface and taking real-world tasks off our plates. 

从这个角度，AI 并不只会以 ChatXXX 的形式提供服务，而是伸出屏幕之外，实实在在的参与到现实世界的工作。

I asked Altman if we’ll need a new piece of hardware to get to this future. Though smartphones are extraordinarily capable, and their designers are already incorporating more AI-driven features, some entrepreneurs are betting that the AI of the future will require a device that’s more purpose built. Some of these devices are already beginning to appear in his orbit. There is the (widely panned) wearable AI Pin from Humane, for example (Altman is an investor in the company but has not exactly been a booster of the device). He is also rumored to be working with former Apple designer Jony Ive on some new type of hardware.

我向 Sam Altman 询问，要实现这个未来，是否需要引入新的硬件设备？尽管现有智能手机功能强大，也会有更多的 AI 特性被加入，但也有很多人坚信未来的 AI 需要更专用的设备。

例如，Humane 公司推出的、受到广泛批评的可穿戴 AI Pin 就是这类设备之一，还有传言称，他正与前苹果设计师 Jony Ive 合作开发新型硬件。

* 插播：Altman 投了 Humane，但并不看好 AI Pin

But Altman says there’s a chance we won’t necessarily need a device at all. “I don’t think it will require a new piece of hardware,” he told me, adding that the type of app envisioned could exist in the cloud. But he quickly added that even if this AI paradigm shift won’t require consumers buy a new hardware, “I think you’ll be happy to have [a new device].”

对此，Altman 表示，未来我们可能根本不需要特定的设备。他解释说，他设想的应用可以直接在云端运行。

但他也补充“虽然不强制，但很多人也会借此来更新设备”

Though Altman says he thinks AI hardware devices are exciting, he also implied he might not be best suited to take on the challenge himself: “I’m very interested in consumer hardware for new technology. I’m an amateur who loves it, but this is so far from my expertise.”

尽管 Sam Altman 认为 AI 硬件设备很令人兴奋，他也觉得自己可能并不适合亲自下场：“我对科技消费品很感兴趣，但充其量只是个爱好者，离专业玩家还很远”

Upon hearing his vision for powerful AI-driven agents, I wondered how it would square with the industry’s current scarcity of training data. To build GPT-4 and other models, OpenAI has scoured internet archives, newspapers, and blogs for training data, since scaling laws have long shown that making models bigger also makes them better. But finding more data to train on is a growing problem. Much of the internet has already been slurped up, and access to private or copyrighted data is now mired in legal battles.

Altman 提到了他对 AI Agent 的设想，这让我想到一个问题：我们训练数据还够吗？

为了构建 GPT-4 和其他模型，OpenAI 已经深度挖掘互联网档案、报纸和博客以获取训练数据。长期以来的规模法则显示，增大模型规模同样能提升其性能。然而，寻找更多训练数据正变得日益困难，互联网上大部分内容已经被开采殆尽，而访问私有或受版权保护的数据现在也常常陷入法律争议。

Altman is optimistic this won’t be a problem for much longer, though he didn’t articulate the specifics.

对于这个问题，Altman 认为：可以相信后人的智慧。

“I believe, but I’m not certain, that we’re going to figure out a way out of this thing of you always just need more and more training data,” he says. “Humans are existence proof that there is some other way to [train intelligence]. And I hope we find it.”

“我相信，但还不能确定，我们能找到一种解决方式，摆脱总是需要更多训练数据的困境，”他说。“人类的存在本身就证明了还有其他方式可以培养智能。我希望我们能找到这种方式。”

OpenAI’s central vision has long revolved around the pursuit of artificial general intelligence (AGI), or an AI that can reason as well as or better than humans. Its stated mission is to ensure such a technology “benefits all of humanity.” It is far from the only company pursuing AGI, however. So in the race for AGI, what are the most important tools? I asked Altman if he thought the entity that marshals the largest amount of chips and computing power will ultimately be the winner.

OpenAI 的核心愿景长期围绕着人工通用智能（AGI）的追求，这种 AI 能像人类一样甚至更好地进行推理。它的使命是确保这项技术能“造福全人类”。不过，OpenAI 并非唯一追求 AGI 的公司。在 AGI 竞赛中，竞争的关键是什么，算力、芯片还是其他？

对于这个问题，我问了 Altman。

Altman suspects there will be “several different versions [of AGI] that are better and worse at different things,” he says. “You’ll have to be over some compute threshold, I would guess. But even then I wouldn’t say I’m certain.”

Altman 回答道：可能会出现“几种不同版本的 AGI，它们在不同方面的表现好坏各异。”

同时他也补充说：“一定的算力也是必要的，但具体我也说不准。”

You thought he’d answer that? When another reporter in the room asked Altman if he knew when the next version of GPT is slated to be released, he gave a calm response. “Yes,” he replied, smiling, and said nothing more.

你以为他会回答这个问题吗？ahhhhhh

另一位记者问 Altman： “你知道 GPT-5 啥时候发布吗？”

Altman 回答道：“当然知道”

然后就没有然后了，ahhhhhhhh