Y Combinator’s Garry Tan wants US open-weight AI labs to ‘distill’ frontier models, too
Y Combinator’s Garry Tan wants US open-weight AI labs to ‘distill’ frontier models, too
Y Combinator 的 Garry Tan 希望美国开源权重 AI 实验室也能“蒸馏”前沿模型
When it comes to Chinese AI labs using distillation techniques to extract knowledge from frontier model makers, Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan is hoping regulators stay out of it. In fact, he thinks U.S. AI labs should perhaps play the same game. “I would do nothing,” he told CNBC in an interview earlier this week. “We could argue that there should be an American distillation regime.”
当谈到中国 AI 实验室利用蒸馏技术从前沿模型厂商那里提取知识时，Y Combinator 首席执行官 Garry Tan 希望监管机构不要插手。事实上，他认为美国 AI 实验室或许也应该采取同样的策略。“我什么都不会做，”他在本周早些时候接受 CNBC 采访时表示，“我们完全可以主张建立一套美国的蒸馏机制。”
He elaborated to TechCrunch that this means he wants smaller, American open-weight AI labs to use the same kind of training techniques on American frontier AI labs, giving the U.S. a more robust set of open-weight options that aren’t Chinese. Distillation is when a model maker extensively prompts another model in order to learn how it works and reasons. It is commonly, and legitimately, used by AI labs to help train new models.
他在向 TechCrunch 进一步阐述时表示，这意味着他希望美国规模较小的开源权重 AI 实验室能够对美国的前沿 AI 实验室使用同样的训练技术，从而为美国提供一套更强大、非中国背景的开源权重选择。蒸馏是指模型开发者通过大量提示（prompt）另一个模型，以学习其工作原理和推理方式。这在 AI 实验室中是一种常见且合法的训练新模型的方法。
Anthropic this week released its second report alleging that Chinese labs are engaged in “illicit distillation attacks,” hiding their identities to distill without permission and relying on fraud and stolen credentials to do so. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei had previously publicly called on U.S. regulators to crack down on distillation. It’s notable that the commander of Silicon Valley’s prestigious and prolific startup accelerator doesn’t agree.
本周，Anthropic 发布了第二份报告，指控中国实验室正在进行“非法蒸馏攻击”，通过隐藏身份在未经许可的情况下进行蒸馏，并依赖欺诈和窃取的凭证来实现这一目的。Anthropic 首席执行官 Dario Amodei 此前曾公开呼吁美国监管机构打击蒸馏行为。值得注意的是，硅谷这家久负盛名且成果丰硕的创业加速器的掌门人对此并不认同。
To be clear, Tan isn’t advocating for American AI labs to use stolen credentials to distill. He wants them to be free to come in the front door. In fact, his argument is twofold. He feels it’s an overreach for AI labs to dictate what their customers can do with the information their models share with them. He also notes that the proprietary AI labs didn’t ask permission when they vacuumed up as much human knowledge as they could to train their models. They famously ingested plenty of copyrighted material without the permission of those intellectual property holders.
需要明确的是，Tan 并不是主张美国 AI 实验室通过窃取凭证来进行蒸馏。他希望他们能够光明正大地通过正规渠道进行。事实上，他的论点有两个方面。他认为，AI 实验室限制客户如何使用模型所共享的信息属于越权行为。他还指出，那些闭源 AI 实验室在尽可能多地搜集人类知识来训练模型时，并没有征求许可。众所周知，他们在未经知识产权持有者许可的情况下，摄取了大量受版权保护的材料。
“Controlling what users and customers do with API calls to closed weight models feels constraining, and there’s a role government can play here to normalize the fact that access to intelligence that was trained on broad public access data should itself also be more a form of a public good than something locked away behind restrictive terms of service,” he told TechCrunch when asked why American labs should be free to distill, too.
“控制用户和客户如何使用闭源模型的 API 调用让人感到受限。政府可以在此发挥作用，将这一事实常态化：即对于那些基于广泛公开数据训练出的智能，其访问权限本身应该更像是一种公共产品，而不是被锁在限制性服务条款背后的东西，”当被问及为什么美国实验室也应该被允许自由蒸馏时，他这样告诉 TechCrunch。
Tan, who is himself such an avid AI user that he once described himself as having cyber psychosis, wants to see a balance between open-weight AI labs and frontier labs. “They are at the frontier and driving it forward. We want that to be fundable, and be a great business model ongoing,” he told CNBC. “You want open weight models to give people freedom and access.”
Tan 本人是一位狂热的 AI 用户，他曾形容自己患有“网络精神病”（cyber psychosis）。他希望看到开源权重 AI 实验室与前沿实验室之间保持平衡。“他们处于前沿并推动着技术进步。我们希望这种模式能够获得融资，并成为一种可持续的伟大商业模式，”他告诉 CNBC，“你需要开源权重模型来赋予人们自由和访问权。”
To him, the true AI doomer scenario is for all the immense power of frontier AI to wind up in the hands of a single powerful, proprietary provider. “The nightmare scenario, the doomer scenario for AI is that there’s just one company,” he said. “It has the best access to capital. It has the best AI researchers. It runs away with it and suddenly there’s one company that’s monolithic. And that would be bad.”
对他而言，真正的 AI “末日场景”是前沿 AI 的巨大力量最终落入一家强大的闭源供应商手中。“AI 的噩梦场景、末日场景就是只剩下一家公司，”他说，“它拥有最好的资本渠道，拥有最好的 AI 研究人员。它遥遥领先，最终形成了一家垄断性的公司。那将是非常糟糕的。”