The war against PDFs is heating upWhen Adobe introduced the portable document format (PDF) in 1993, a consultant from Gartner called it “the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard in my life”. Users would have to twiddle their thumbs waiting for the megabyte-sized files to download over their dial-up internet, then wait again for their PCs to render them. The software-maker’s board wanted to kill the project. But as sharing digital files became essential, the PDF triumphed—particularly after the Internal Revenue Service, America’s tax authority, started using it for its forms. Today more than 2.5trn PDFs float in the ether. But will the format survive the ai revolution?1993 年，Adobe 推出便携式文档格式（PDF）时，一位来自 Gartner 的顾问称这是“我这辈子听过的最愚蠢的主意”。用户必须在拨号上网时，一边无聊地等待兆字节大小的文件下载完成，然后再等上一会儿，让电脑将其渲染出来。这家软件制造商的董事会曾一度想放弃这个项目。但随着共享数字文件变得至关重要，PDF 最终大获成功——尤其是在美国国税局（IRS）开始使用它来制作表格之后。如今，已有超过 2.5 万亿份 PDF 文件在互联网上流转。但是，这种格式能否在 AI 革命中生存下来呢？PDFs still have drawbacks. They are a pain to view on a smartphone. Copying data from them is fiddly. Software tools that read screens for blind people struggle with PDFs. The file type, which Adobe relinquished control over in 2008, is also a vehicle for malware: a fifth of email-based cyber-attacks utilise PDF attachments, according to Check Point, a cyber-security firm.PDF 依然存在一些缺点。在智能手机上查看它们非常麻烦。从中复制数据也很繁琐。为视障人士提供屏幕阅读功能的软件工具在处理 PDF 时也会遇到困难。这种文件类型在 2008 年被 Adobe 放弃控制权后，也成为了恶意软件的载体：网络安全公司 Check Point 表示，五分之一的基于电子邮件的网络攻击利用了 PDF 附件。Lately another source of criticism has emerged. The large language models underpinning generative AI are often bamboozled by PDFs, reading a page set in columns from left to right rather than top to bottom, say, or getting confused by headers and footers. Trouble parsing PDFs is one of the reasons AI chatbots occasionally “hallucinate”, generating nonsense.最近，又出现了一种新的批评声音。支撑生成式 AI 的大语言模型经常会因为 PDF 而不知所措，例如，它们会将分栏页面从左到右而不是从上到下阅读，或者被页眉和页脚弄糊涂。难以解析 PDF 是 AI 聊天机器人偶尔会“产生幻觉”并生成胡言乱语的原因之一。Enter the disrupters. Startups such as Factify are on a mission to build a new file type that is better suited to the technology. Matan Gavish, its boss, talks of his “megalomaniac” vision of displacing the PDF.这时，颠覆者们登场了。像 Factify 这样的初创公司致力于创建一种更适合当前技术的新文件类型。该公司负责人 Matan Gavish 谈到了他“野心勃勃”的愿景——取代 PDF。Yet Duff Johnson, head of the PDF Association, protector of the format, argues that the fault lies not in the file type but in ourselves. He contends that there is no reason developers cannot build bots that are able to use PDFs. The AI assistant embedded in Acrobat, Adobe’s PDF reader, is designed to do precisely that, notes Leonard Rosenthol, the software firm’s PDF guru. Google, a leader in AI, has rolled out a tool for developers using its Gemini models that makes it easier to ingest PDFs. The format’s reign is not over yet.然而，PDF 协会（致力于保护该格式的组织）的负责人 Duff Johnson 认为，问题不在于文件类型，而在于我们自己。他争辩说，开发者完全有能力构建能够使用 PDF 的机器人。Adobe 的 PDF 阅读器 Acrobat 内置的 AI 助手正是为了实现这一目标而设计的，该软件公司的 PDF 专家 Leonard Rosenthol 指出。AI 领域的领导者 Google 也为其开发者推出了一个工具，利用其 Gemini 模型，让处理 PDF 变得更加容易。这种格式的统治地位尚未结束。English from TheEconomistChinese translated by Qwen封面图片截取自Adobe本文仅作分享交流之用，不代表本公众号和作者的任何观点和投资建议。文章内容基于公开信息整理，仅供参考，不构成任何投资、法律或其他专业建议。This article is intended for sharing and communication purposes only and does not represent any views or investment suggestions of this official account or the author. The content is compiled based on publicly available information and is for reference only, not constituting any investment, legal, or professional advice. 本公众号对文中出现的所有第三方广告，以及发布的所有广告不负有任何责任。This official account is not responsible for all third-party advertisements appearing in the article, as well as all advertisements published.
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