AI can make tech CEOs’ lives easier. What about everyone else?

本文为原文前 6,000 字符的节选翻译，完整内容请查看原文。

Dazzle AI CEO Marissa Mayer recently became the latest tech CEO to face criticism over seemingly out-of-touch comments extolling the usefulness of AI. In Mayer’s case, that involved asking an AI tool for help with a school-assigned description of her daughter. For OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, that’s included suggesting that parents create personalized podcasts for their kids’ drive to school and also declaring that he could not imagine parenting without ChatGPT. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has even suggested that it will become increasingly acceptable to meet your social and romantic needs through AI.

Dazzle AI 首席执行官玛丽莎·梅耶尔（Marissa Mayer）最近成为最新一位因发表看似脱离现实、吹捧人工智能实用性的言论而受到批评的科技公司首席执行官。就梅耶尔而言，这涉及向人工智能工具寻求帮助，以完成学校布置的关于她女儿的描述。对于 OpenAI 首席执行官萨姆·奥特曼（Sam Altman）来说，这包括建议家长为孩子上学途中制作个性化播客，并宣称他无法想象没有 ChatGPT 的育儿生活。Meta 首席执行官马克·扎克伯格（Mark Zuckerberg）甚至暗示，通过人工智能满足社交和浪漫需求将变得越来越被接受。

This all led TechCrunch’s Amanda Silberling to wonder if AI executives are simply too out-of-touch to build products for normal people — a crucial question with Anthropic set to go public just as Wall Street begins losing its appetite for heavy AI spending. On the latest episode of the Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec, Sean O’Kane, and I chatted with Amanda about why industry leaders can sometimes seem so tone deaf. Kirsten wondered if this is more of a marketing problem or a product problem. Amanda’s answer: “A little bit of both.”

这一切让 TechCrunch 的阿曼达·西尔伯林（Amanda Silberling）不禁怀疑，人工智能高管是否因为太脱离现实而无法为普通人打造产品——这是一个关键问题，因为 Anthropic 即将上市，而华尔街对人工智能巨额支出的兴趣正开始减退。在最新一期的《Equity》播客中，克里斯汀·科罗塞克（Kirsten Korosec）、肖恩·奥凯恩（Sean O’Kane）和我与阿曼达聊了聊为什么行业领袖有时看起来如此不接地气。克里斯汀想知道这更多是一个营销问题还是产品问题。阿曼达的回答是：“两者皆有。”

She also argued that the tech industry is increasingly pushing a future “where basic human interaction gets more and more optimized out of actually occurring,” adding, “And call me old school, but I think that humans being able to talk to each other is probably a net positive for society.” Keep reading for a preview of our conversation, edited for length and clarity.

她还指出，科技行业正日益推动一个“基本的人际互动越来越被优化掉，以至于不再发生”的未来，并补充道：“你可以说我老派，但我认为人类能够彼此交谈对社会来说可能是一个净收益。”请继续阅读我们对话的预览，内容经过删减和润色。

Anthony Ha: There’s a lot of societal skepticism about AI, this feeling that the people running these companies don’t have our best interests at heart, that they’re out of touch. And so, you would just think, “Maybe don’t make statements like that,” because of course, people are going to see them very skeptically. I think [CEOs] are trying to walk this delicate balance. On the one hand, there’s a tremendous financial incentive for them to make the case that you should use this technology in every aspect of your lives. But when you make that case, it actually [doesn’t paint] a very appealing picture. In some cases, it’s downright dystopian.

安东尼·哈（Anthony Ha）：社会对人工智能存在很多怀疑，人们觉得运营这些公司的人并没有把我们的最大利益放在心上，他们脱离了现实。所以，你会想，“也许不要发表那样的言论”，因为人们当然会非常怀疑地看待这些言论。我认为（首席执行官们）正试图走一条微妙的平衡线。一方面，他们有巨大的经济动机去证明你应该在生活的方方面面使用这项技术。但当你提出这种主张时，它实际上（并没有描绘出）一幅非常吸引人的图景。在某些情况下，这简直是反乌托邦式的。

Kirsten Korosec: Anthony, if they took your advice, we would have nothing to talk about on this show. But I will say this: There’s this whole idea of ChatGPT and other AI tools making your life easier when it comes to personal relationships. And in many of these cases, it just seems to overcomplicate what would be, like, observing your child. That might be hard for some people, the people who are building these products, and it doesn’t necessarily relate to everyone else out there in the world. It can just seem so incredibly disconnected when you see these quotes. To me, it always comes back to — who are they speaking to? Are there people out there who can relate? Maybe there are.

克里斯汀·科罗塞克（Kirsten Korosec）：安东尼，如果他们听了你的建议，我们在这个节目里就没什么可聊的了。但我得说：关于 ChatGPT 和其他人工智能工具在个人关系方面让生活变得更轻松，这整个想法确实存在。在许多情况下，这似乎只是把原本简单的事情（比如观察你的孩子）过度复杂化了。对于某些人，也就是那些正在构建这些产品的人来说，这可能很难，而且这并不一定与世界上其他人相关。当你看到这些引语时，它看起来可能非常脱节。对我来说，问题总是回到——他们是在对谁说话？外面有人能产生共鸣吗？也许有吧。

Amanda Silberling: Other use cases we’ve seen people mention are, like, the Bumble CEO Whitney Wolf Heard has made comments about, “Well, what if we had AI concierges, your AI dates the other person’s AI. And then if the AIs have a good date together, then they introduce the people.” Or in the New York Times article, Marissa Mayer mentioned, “Well, what if my AI could coordinate with my husband’s AI” and stuff like that. And I think that it feels like people are trying to over-optimize out of just having conversations with people.

阿曼达·西尔伯林（Amanda Silberling）：我们看到人们提到的其他用例，比如 Bumble 首席执行官惠特尼·沃尔夫·赫德（Whitney Wolf Heard）曾评论说：“如果我们有 AI 礼宾员，你的 AI 和对方的 AI 约会，如果 AI 们约会得很好，然后它们再介绍双方认识，会怎样？”或者在《纽约时报》的文章中，玛丽莎·梅耶尔提到：“如果我的 AI 能和我丈夫的 AI 协调会怎样”之类的。我觉得人们似乎正试图通过过度优化来避免与人进行直接交流。

I’ve already seen that happen in my generation, where I do notice in myself that if I’m ordering takeout, it feels weird to call a place. I’m just so used to, “Well, obviously you can do it online and you don’t have to talk to anyone. And I feel like there’s just going to be more of these things, where basic human interaction gets more and more optimized out of actually occurring. And call me old school, but I think that humans being able to talk to each other is probably a net positive for society.

我已经在我们这一代人身上看到了这种情况，我注意到如果我要点外卖，打电话给餐馆会让我觉得很奇怪。我太习惯于“显然可以在网上完成，不需要和任何人说话”。我觉得未来会有更多这样的事情，基本的人际互动越来越被优化掉，以至于不再发生。你可以说我老派，但我认为人类能够彼此交谈对社会来说可能是一个净收益。

Sean O’Kane: Yeah, but what’s the ROI, Amanda? How much revenue can you generate off of a conversation that somebody’s having in meatspace?

肖恩·奥凯恩（Sean O’Kane）：是的，但投资回报率（ROI）是多少呢，阿曼达？一个人在现实世界中进行的对话能产生多少收入？

Amanda: That is the thing, though. Dating is really inefficient. It sucks that you have to go on a bunch of dates with different people. You might waste an evening and be like, “Well, that was a bust.” And so you can see why people are [wondering,] “What if you didn’t have to go on dates? What if your AI could go on dates for you?” But there’s just something not human there. And then also, you are outsourcing the decision of who you are going to date to a computer that you are trusting knows you better than yourself, which I don’t think is true.

阿曼达：这就是问题的关键。约会效率真的很低。你必须和不同的人进行多次约会，这很糟糕。你可能会浪费一个晚上，然后觉得“好吧，那次约会搞砸了”。所以你可以理解为什么人们会（怀疑）：“如果不需要去约会会怎样？如果你的 AI 能替你去约会会怎样？”但那里缺少了一些人性化的东西。而且，你把决定和谁约会的权力外包给了一台你认为比你更了解你自己的计算机，我认为事实并非如此。

Kirsten: One thing that I think is worth going back to, and I sort of hinted about this earlier: Who are they talking to? Who is their audience for all these optimizations, in your view? Is it a product problem, or is it a messaging problem? Are they just talking about it in the wrong way, and actually, there’s this really great value in here and it just seems out of touch with reality and humanity, but if they just talked about it differently, it would be better? Or is it actually a product problem, and to your point, that we’re focusing on optimizing sort of the wrong things with AI tools?

克里斯汀：有一点我认为值得回顾，我之前也暗示过：他们是在对谁说话？在你看来，他们所有这些优化的受众是谁？这是一个产品问题，还是一个信息传达问题？他们只是以错误的方式谈论它，实际上这里面有巨大的价值，只是看起来脱离了现实和人性，如果他们换种方式谈论它会更好吗？还是说这实际上是一个产品问题，正如你所说，我们正专注于用人工智能工具优化错误的东西？

Amanda: I think it’s a little bit of both, but I think that the marketing problem comes from when you have these high-up people at these massively valuable companies in a room together, talking about the pain points in their lives, and [they focus on] making dinner reservations, booking flights. Everybody does those things, but I’m not booking flights once a week. I’m not making dinner reservations all the time. And when I do, those aren’t really things that I find to be a particular challenge in my life. I mean, obviously people find value from things like ChatGPT and Claude, but I think the value that the average person is finding isn’t necessarily like booking a flight for me.

阿曼达：我认为两者都有，但我认为营销问题源于当这些价值巨大的公司的高层聚在一起，谈论他们生活中的痛点时，（他们关注的是）预订晚餐、预订航班。每个人都会做这些事，但我并不是每周都预订航班。我并没有一直在预订晚餐。即使我做了，这些也不是我生活中认为特别具有挑战性的事情。我的意思是，显然人们从 ChatGPT 和 Claude 之类的工具中发现了价值，但我认为普通人发现的价值并不一定像帮我预订航班那样。

Anthony: One of the things I’ve also been thinking about is, there are companies like Uber that, when it first launched, it was targ

安东尼：我一直在思考的另一件事是，像 Uber 这样的公司，在它刚推出时，它的目标是……