Burning Dimension (ID: chaintruth) original
Author | Lv Jingzhi
Edit | Cao Yang
What has been the hottest in tech in the past 200 days? If ChatGPT ranks second, it is estimated that no one dares to rank first.
In February this year, CCTV Finance reported that ChatGPT had reached 100 million monthly active users in just two months. The out-of-the-loop ChatGPT has also made AI-related technologies and products such as large models and AIGC popular again.
It seems that "overnight", everyone suffered from "AI anxiety".
A programmer from a major Internet factory told Ran Dimension, "After GPT4 became popular, many people without computer language backgrounds could write programs and even develop software, which instantly made me very worried about my 'rice bowl'." Another partner who works as a designer in a large Internet factory said bluntly, "The sense of crisis made me directly spend thousands of yuan to learn various plug-ins of AIGC." ”
Mr. Zhang, who works as a voice actor, revealed, "As far as I know, after 'AI Sun Yanzi' became popular, people in the circle have been invited to collect voices and then generate AI sounds. This trend of AI voice change also makes me have to think, is there any irreplaceability of myself as a voice actor? ”
On one side are "migrant workers" who are worried about being replaced, and on the other side are entrepreneurs who smell business opportunities.
"After GPT caught fire, everyone was doing AI-related entrepreneurial projects for a while." A serial entrepreneur in the tech industry quipped.
As the above-mentioned entrepreneurs said, Ran Dimension found in Xiaohongshu, Douyin and other platforms that "AI teaching" videos are full of tricks. Some accounts are sharing "spells" for training AIGC; Some are explaining how GPT instructions can be entered more accurately; There are also all kinds of "AI money" skills...
What's more interesting is that entrepreneurs who were not originally involved in the field of AI are also trying to get involved with AI. For example, a social café that was originally called the "offline entrance to Web 3.0" that Ran Dimension was concerned about is now holding an AI painting event. At the same time, investors in the primary and secondary markets have also begun to pay more attention to software and hardware companies and entrepreneurial projects in the direction of AI.
Photo: Meta Space "AI painting" related activities
Source/Meta Space WeChat group Screenshot of Burning Dimension
Of course, many "ordinary people" who had nothing to do with AI have also begun to explore in this wave of craze and try to become "pigs" who step on the vent. It's just that from the current point of view, it seems to have little effect.
A programmer who took advantage of the ChatGPT boom to "start a business" told Ran Weiyuan that in February this year, he accessed a small program with his open source entrance, and wanted to try to monetize with paid membership, "As a result, less than a week after access, homogenized products were 'flying all over the sky', and finally gave up the idea of monetization and only made a sharing platform." ”
On Xiaohongshu, posts looking for "AI entrepreneurship partners" are endless. A medical doctor told Ran Dimension that he wanted to get involved with AI, but he didn't understand the technology and had no resources, so he could only post confused to ask, "But the seemingly lively AI topic, after I posted, there was actually no one to post." ”
Internet practitioner A Xia sighed, "AI models need to 'burn' money for research and development, 'burn' technological innovation, and then 'burn' data training, which are all resources that are difficult for 'ordinary people' to have." It's really hard to 'take off' at this vent. ”
A certain level of market investors also said that don't look at AI is very hot, but investors are very calm, "Most investors should look at the academic background of the team, as well as past successful experience, especially whether the founder of the team has a background in computers, natural language processing and other directions, and investors are not interested in following the trend of 'plan-style' entrepreneurs." ”
It is not difficult to see that it is not easy for "ordinary people" to "make money" in the field of AI, which has a high threshold of technology and funding. But are "ordinary people" really out of chance? How should "ordinary people" meet this AI revolution that has just begun?
01
The whole people "touch porcelain" AI
In the more than 100 days since GPT3 came out of the circle, everyone wants to be related to AI.
The first is the Internet giants with a lot of gold, which have entered the big model with high profile. Among them, JD.com announced the launch of the industrial version of ChatGPT "ChatJD" on February 10, and expects that "the parameters of the ChatJD intelligent human-machine dialogue platform will reach hundreds of billions in the future."
A month later, Baidu's large-model product "Wen Xin Yiyan" opened internal testing on March 16; Zhou Hongyi, founder of 360 Group, demonstrated 360GPT at the 2023 Digital Security Development and Summit Forum; Alibaba Cloud announced on April 7 that the large model opened enterprise invitation testing. In addition, iFLYTEK, Huawei and other enterprises have also "researched" large models.
At the same time, investors in the primary and secondary markets are also beginning to wonder how to get involved with AI.
Lin Yu, a senior investor in the secondary market, told Ran Dimension, "As long as I am a person who studies scientific and technological hardware, almost all of them have bought NVIDIA, and some of them are companies that are waiting for AI applications." As long as it is a secondary investor who is slightly related to the technology field, they are learning and studying the new opportunities brought by the big model. Of course, I myself am reading reports, watching big V sharing, and looking for popular science videos every day. ”
Lin Yu said that because the chip industry is not the industry he originally focused on, and the entire industry is too knowledge-intensive, he dare not start easily, and more enterprises that are learning and paying attention to the application side, "such as some plug-ins and APP for AI." There are many fund managers like me who try to dabble in AI investment across borders. ”
The primary market is also enthusiastic about AI startup projects. A primary market investor shared with Ran Dimension, "A friend of mine in the industry just went to Chengdu to invest in a GPT project to revise students' essays. The project training GPT corrects students' essays verbatim, then feeds back and evaluates, and can inform students how to improve their grades in the future. As far as I know, the current fee standard of the project is 99 yuan / person, and the number of paid users has exceeded 5,000 in less than a month after going online. ”
Echoing the enthusiasm of investors is the enthusiasm of entrepreneurs.
"Now I don't dare to come up with a 'GPT+' business plan." Web 3.0 serial entrepreneur Metaverse Princess quipped.
"After a wave of Web 3.0 last year, the enthusiasm of the entire circle has gradually dissipated. The main reason is that Web 3.0 realizes a newer production relationship, but due to the lack of infrastructure and productivity, it is very difficult to only build a relationship, and the emergence of AIGC, GPT and other products is the emergence of productivity products. So, the entire Web 3.0 community is also starting to want to combine with AI. ”
The metaverse princess also upgraded her IP, trained her AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) robot, and carried out the fission of private domain traffic in the form of WeChat group interaction, "In the past, my fan base needed manual maintenance, but now it only needs to be handed over to GPT4. People interested in AI come in and have conversations, reducing operational costs and increasing efficiency. And the fan growth rate is very fast, and it can increase by 200,000 fans a month. ”
Photo: Screenshot of the AI fan community conversation of the metaverse princess
Source/WeChat Community Screenshot of Burning Dimension
Hong Hui, an entrepreneur in the enterprise services track and a design partner of the low-code platform HYPERPaaS, is also trying to combine the business owner business with AIGC capabilities.
"Most of the corporate customers who purchased the company's PaaS system before were manufacturing companies, including many customers in the clothing industry, who would need a large number of pictures of models and product designs, so I opened up additional services of AI face changing and AI drawing on the basis of my original business this year. This is completely consistent with HYPERPaaS's original intention of helping enterprise customers complete digital upgrades," Hong said.
People who are already on the road of entrepreneurship are looking for ways to integrate more closely with AIGC and GPT, and migrant workers who have not yet tried to start a business also see opportunities.
Xiaohongshu's AI painting platform "Midjourney Tutorial Sharing Community" with the ID "Midjourney Community" is a sharing account set up by several Internet designers in their spare time.
Lin Yun, one of the platform managers, told Ran Dimension that after GPT became popular, various plug-ins and software related to AIGC began to explode, and Midjourney was just one of them, "Because I am a designer, I contacted this platform earlier and made an account to share how to use Midjourney." Later, as the number of fans increased, and everyone did not like fragmented learning, I compiled another tutorial and hung it in the Little Red Book store to sell. ”
02
Make hay? Hard
There are many people who explore, but few people who make money.
Lin Yun told Ran Dimension, "Many people think that selling courses is the easiest thing to make money in this wave of AI popularity, but in fact, it is very difficult. ”
She said that the AI painting courses on her platform are all sorted out during off-hours, and because the original intention of creating the account is to share some learning experiences, the price of the course package is not high, "The current price is 99 yuan a piece." ”
In order to have a further understanding of AI painting, Ran Jiyuan paid 99 yuan to purchase the above course. Subsequently, Ran Dimension found that the course content included an introduction to the MidJounery platform, basic usage, and teaching of various instructions, and the course could be updated in real time. As of press time, the course has sold about 250 copies in Xiaohongshu.
Photo: Midjourney Community Little Red Book Shop's course
Source/Midjourney Community Little Red Book Screenshot of the Burning Dimension
The princess of the metaverse also once considered selling classes for monetization, "but after investigation, I found that the time window for selling money with poor information is very short." Moreover, I asked GPT to publish my own tutorial, and it turned out that GPT did much better than manual work. The metaverse princess said that considering the short monetization cycle and high substitutionability, she finally gave up this idea.
So how exactly can you make money in this wave of AI craze? By observing the Burning Dimension, it is found that the entrepreneurial teams that have raised capital and made money almost all have a "luxurious" background.
Taking OpenAI as an example, according to the ChatGPT Team Background Research Report, most of the team members have academic degrees from prestigious universities and work experience in world-renowned enterprises. Among them, the universities with the most graduates include Stanford, University of California, Berkeley, Cambridge University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Tsinghua University and other world-class universities.
In addition, the overall "breadth content" of the team is very high. The above report shows that there are 27 people with bachelor's degree, 25 with master's degree and 28 with doctoral degree in the team, accounting for 33%, 30% and 37% respectively.
Not only OpenAI, but also several entrepreneurs who have achieved more achievements in the field of AI have also had relatively "gorgeous" academic and working backgrounds.
Fu Xiaoyang, a doctoral student studying NLP (natural language processing) in Singapore, said that after the GPT fire, many people want to try to start a business in the field of AI, and they have also investigated some entrepreneurial projects like "mushrooming", but soon found that many projects are only on the surface, do some model training and integration, "these projects have low technical barriers, are easy to be copied, and are not easy to finance." ”
Fu Xiaoyang analyzed that the elements for successful financing of the project should at least include that the team has a high educational background and is not simply following the trend to start a business. "At least I tried computer entrepreneurship in the early days, and I have successful project experience."
Hong Hui, who has also achieved stable commercialization, is also a designer of an Internet giant, and the core members of the team are all from Internet giants. Hong Hui said that the investors and investment institutions in the AI industry that he has come into contact with actually have an understanding of technology.
"Some entrepreneurs who use foreign open source technology to make shell applications do not have much innovation in nature. Investors can clearly see that they will not invest in these projects. What investors really look at is whether technology and projects can be combined, whether there are technical barriers, and whether there is underlying innovation. ”
A primary market investor in the AI industry agreed, "AI is not a completely new industry, but with the launch of GPT has new vitality and possibilities." Therefore, investors will not be as 'enthusiastic' as they are for a brand new industry, but will be more cautious about it as they are for mature industries. There are already experienced investors in this industry who know the technology very well, and not just shell projects can be 'fooled' into financing. ”
As for the current hot track in the primary market, the above-mentioned investors said, "60% of the people around me are investing in large models, and 40% of people are investing in innovative scenarios." At present, the hot track lies in education and medical care, such as 24-hour AI escort, AI grading homework and other projects, which are highly sought after. ”
03
Where are the opportunities for "ordinary people"?
The threshold is high and the cost is large, is the matter of AI entrepreneurship not playing with "ordinary people" at all?
In this regard, Fu Xiaoyang said, "From personal experience, I do not recommend that people without relevant technical backgrounds blindly come in to invest or start a business, and the threshold for making money is very high." ”
Fu Xiaoyang added that some people do not have enough in-depth understanding of the industry background, simply think that taking time to learn GPT can make money with the information gap, but in fact, with the fire of GPT, this information gap will soon become smaller and smaller, and there are more and more homogenized products, it will be difficult to make money. "If you dabble in investment, the cost of AI-related hardware and technology development is very 'burning money', and the failure rate of blind investment is also very high."
Hong Hui said that laymen who do not understand technology to intervene in this industry will not only face a time difference but also a technical difference.
"The information of AI circles is very dense, and laymen who want to monetize in this industry must first contact industry information and learn industry knowledge, but the threshold for AI learning is not low." By the time these people finish learning, potentially homogenized products are already 'flying all over the sky'. Taking myself as an example, AI painting was just emerging at the beginning of the year, but only three months later, the products of AI face changing services were clearly flooded with various platforms. AGI products are changing with each passing day, and practitioners must constantly keep up with the information iteration of the industry in order to continue to relay on this track.
"Of course, through learning, if the layman can master the core technology and core network resources, he may be able to overtake on a curve by using these resources." Hong added.
The metaverse princess said that the emergence of GPT allows people without computer language backgrounds to interact with machines, and it may be difficult for "ordinary people" to use new technologies of AI to monetize, but they can use their spare time to contact and train AI to help them improve work efficiency or explore new possibilities.
Source/Visual China
"I recommend that people who want to enter the industry have more exposure to GPT-like products under the open platform. Because when a person trains AI, his thinking and resources are limited, but in a social space, he can see the ideas of more people, maybe it will be enlightening. The metaverse princess added.
Lin Yu also said, "The emergence of GPT is not so much an opportunity for 'ordinary people' to monetize, but an inevitable trend." More contact and more learning can catch up with this change. ”
Even if it is difficult, there are not many "ordinary people" who learn on their own under this wave of enthusiasm.
Xiaomu, a former designer of the Internet factory, is learning various AIGC products, "On the one hand, curiosity, on the other hand, anxiety, when AIGC first appeared, I thought that if my position was not in line with the latest technology, it was likely to be eliminated, so I spent money on a lot of courses at the first time." Now it seems that some courses have indeed been 'cut leeks', but I think that learning the most cutting-edge technology of AIGC is my homework. ”
Fei Fei, a self-media person, is keen to explore various plug-ins derived from GPT, such as disassembling PDF files, drawings, and video editing. "I bought some courses, and when I have free time, I will search for 'AI plug-ins' to see if there are any new products appearing, and I will also see how others train AI on video and graphic platforms."
Fifi said that the plug-in for interpreting PDF is already improving his work efficiency, "Because the learning cost of drawing, editing software and so on is too high, I have not learned it systematically, but now with various AI plug-ins, I can enrich my skills more efficiently and cheaply." ”
Whether they have a technical background or not, entrepreneurs and investors are all concerned about another question at the same time: whether AI will be "fleeting" like the metaverse.
In this regard, many investors and entrepreneurs contacted by Ran Dimension gave almost a unified answer, "The boom in the AI industry will not fade easily." ”
Lin Yu analyzed that from the supply side, the current chip has brought a significant increase in computing power, which greatly solves the time-consuming and laborious machine learning process in the AI field; From the demand side, various technology companies are accelerating the deployment of TO B AND TO C applications, technology bosses and industry practitioners are continuing to speak and demonstrate, and users who use AI products have indeed improved productivity. "Having both demand and the ability to supply will keep the industry moving."
Fu Xiaoyang said that at present, AI technology is most superficially displayed in games, animation, drawing and other fields, and AI has deeper malleability and explorable space in many scenarios, such as medical treatment and office.
As the above-mentioned industry insiders said, the revolution in AI has just begun, and more opportunities are waiting to be discovered.
*The title image and some of the accompanying pictures are from Visual China.
*In the text, Lin Yu, Feifei, Xiaomu, Fu Xiaoyang, A Xia, and Lin Yun are pseudonyms.
*Disclaimer: Under no circumstances does the information in this article or the opinions expressed constitute investment advice to anyone.