经济学人丨个人AI助手:数字经济新引擎,但安全与信任是关键

Personal AI assistants could soon reshape the digital economy

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But they will first have to prove they are safe for users and helpful for businesses

然而，这些产品首先必须证明它们对用户是安全的，对企业是有益的。

Silicon Valley has long dreamed of building a digital assistant capable enough to rid users of many of the tedious personal tasks that gobble up time and attention. Fictional representations, such as J.A.R.V.I.S. (Just a Rather Very Intelligent System) in the “Iron Man” films, set expectations high. In 2010 Apple, the iPhone-maker, acquired Siri, one such aide. It turned out to be disappointingly moronic.

硅谷长期以来一直梦想着打造一款数字助手，能够帮助用户摆脱耗时费力的个人琐事。像《钢铁侠》系列电影中“贾维斯”（J.A.R.V.I.S.，意为“一个相当非常智能的系统”）这样的虚构形象，更是让人们对这类助手寄予厚望。2010年，iPhone制造商苹果公司收购了Siri，一款类似的智能助手。然而，其表现却令人大失所望，甚至可以说有些愚蠢。

Now, amid the current wave of investment in artificial intelligence, the era of personal AI agents may at last have arrived. In the past two months Meta, a social-media giant, and Instinct, a startup, have released two such bots to great fanfare. Instinct’s assistants, which users contact through Apple’s iMessage service or Meta’s WhatsApp, are already checking users into flights, sourcing sold-out concert tickets and arranging dinners with friends, among much else. Muse, Meta’s offering, has similar powers, but can be reached via WhatsApp, a web browser, a mobile app—or, from later this year, Meta’s smart glasses.

如今，在人工智能投资热潮的推动下，个人人工智能助手的时代或许终于来临。过去两个月里，社交媒体巨头Meta和初创公司Instinct相继发布了两款此类机器人，引起了广泛关注。Instinct的助手可以通过苹果的iMessage或Meta的WhatsApp与用户联系，目前已能为用户办理登机手续、购买售罄的演唱会门票、安排与朋友的聚餐等。Meta推出的Muse也拥有类似功能，用户可以通过WhatsApp、网页浏览器、移动应用，或者从今年晚些时候开始，通过Meta的智能眼镜来使用。

The big shift from earlier generations of digital assistants, explains M.G. Siegler, an investor and blogger, is that these new bots can work proactively, rather than reacting only to what users explicitly ask for. Instinct “really just works in the way I believe we all want AI to act”, says Noah Shinn, the startup’s 24-year-old founder.

投资人兼博主M.G. Siegler解释说，与前几代数字助理相比，这些新型机器人最大的变化在于它们能够主动工作，而不仅仅是对用户明确提出的要求做出反应。Instinct的创始人，24岁的Noah Shinn表示，Instinct“真正以我们所有人都希望人工智能运行的方式运作”。

Uptake is soaring, so much so that Mr Shinn reckons “in a few years every user in the world that has an internet connection is going to have access to a product like Instinct.” Before then, however, the companies developing personal agents will have to overcome a variety of hurdles to more widespread adoption, including concerns over security and reliability and the reluctance of some big businesses to allow the tools to interact with their systems.

这些助手的普及率正在迅速飙升，以至于辛恩先生估计“几年之内，世界上每个能上网的用户都将可以使用像Instinct这样的产品”。然而，在此之前，开发个人智能助手的公司必须克服各种障碍才能实现更广泛的应用，包括对安全性和可靠性的担忧，以及一些大型企业不愿允许这些工具与其系统交互。

Instinct and Meta have pursued very different approaches to attracting users, but both have been wildly successful. In Instinct’s case, users must be invited by a friend or hand-picked from a waitlist. Even so, the number of users has been growing by about 10% daily. Simplicity keeps them coming back: around half of people who have signed up to Instinct continue using it at least once a week after the first month, according to the startup. Giving Instinct’s agents an instruction is as simple as writing a short text; they will then reply with updates on their progress.

Instinct和Meta采取了截然不同的用户吸引策略，但都取得了巨大成功。Instinct的用户必须由朋友邀请或从候补名单中挑选。即便如此，其用户数量仍以每天约10%的速度增长。简单易用是吸引用户持续使用的关键：据这家初创公司称，注册Instinct的用户中约有一半在第一个月后仍每周至少使用一次。向Instinct的客服人员下达指令非常简单，只需发送一条简短的文本即可；客服人员随后会回复您任务的进展情况。

If Instinct is the private party taking place behind a velvet rope, Muse is the open-invite rave anyone can partake in (so long as they live in America or Canada). By all accounts, the party is heaving—and people are lingering, too. More than 10m people have downloaded the Muse app since its debut a little over a month ago, according to Sensor Tower, a data provider. ChatGPT, the hit chatbot from OpenAI that precipitated the AI boom, had only 3.7m downloads of its mobile app in the same timeframe after its release, around six months after the web version was first unveiled. Muse is retaining users at about the same rates as ChatGPT, too.

如果说Instinct是一场在天鹅绒绳后举行的私人派对，那么Muse就是一场任何人都可以参加的公开派对（只要你居住在美国或加拿大）。据各方报道，这场派对人潮涌动，而且人们还久久不愿离去。数据提供商Sensor Tower的数据显示，自一个多月前发布以来，Muse应用的下载量已超过1000万次。相比之下，OpenAI的热门聊天机器人ChatGPT（它引发了人工智能热潮）在发布后的同一时期内，其移动应用的下载量仅为370万次，而ChatGPT的网页版早在六个月前就已推出。Muse的用户留存率也与ChatGPT大致相同。

Persuading partygoers to expose their data, however, is not always easy. Personal agents need private information to reach their potential: without access to a calendar or a credit card they are little more than a glorified chatbot. Some in techland fear that the bots will leave users vulnerable to new threats such as prompt injections, where an attacker sneaks text to an AI through a website’s computer code and deceives it into misbehaving.

然而，说服用户公开个人数据并非易事。个人智能体需要私人信息才能发挥其全部潜力：如果无法访问日历或信用卡信息，它们只不过是一个功能强大的聊天机器人。一些科技界人士担心，这些机器人会让用户更容易受到诸如提示注入之类的新型威胁。在这种攻击中，攻击者可以通过网站的计算机代码向人工智能发送文本，并诱使其做出错误行为。

The companies seem to be taking these concerns seriously. Meta assigns a private server for each Muse user to hold their data and operate their assistant. It has also taught Muse various ways to resist prompt injections, though some security researchers reckon it remains susceptible to malicious instructions. Instinct has revealed less to the public about its cyber-security measures, but Mr Shinn says the service is designed around the principle that users “should always be in control of their data”.

这些公司似乎非常重视这些问题。Meta为每位Muse用户分配一个私有服务器来存储数据并运行其助手。它还教会了Muse多种抵御提示注入攻击的方法，尽管一些安全研究人员认为它仍然容易受到恶意指令的攻击。Instinct对其网络安全措施的公开信息较少，但Shinn先生表示，该服务的设计理念是用户“应该始终掌控自己的数据”。

On top of that are concerns that personal agents could wreak havoc out of sheer stupidity. Meta has admitted that Muse will make mistakes, and has put a number of guardrails in place to minimise the potential damage when it does. Even so, some users may balk at handing over their credit-card details until they are confident their agent will handle them wisely.

除此之外，人们还担心个人代理可能会因为愚蠢而造成严重后果。Meta承认Muse会犯错，并已设置多项安全措施来尽量减少出错时可能造成的损失。即便如此，一些用户可能仍然会犹豫是否要交出自己的信用卡信息，直到他们确信自己的代理会妥善处理这些信息为止。

Prolonged exposure appears to build that trust. About 40% of Instinct users link a credit card within three weeks. Instinct and Meta also work with Stripe, a payments company, to offer a digital wallet that allows users to make purchases without handing over their banking details directly, which may reassure some.

长期使用似乎有助于建立信任。约40%的Instinct用户会在三周内绑定信用卡。Instinct和Meta还与支付公司Stripe合作，提供数字钱包服务，用户无需直接提供银行信息即可进行购物，这或许能让一些用户感到安心。

The other big challenge for bot-builders is to persuade other businesses to welcome their agents. Some appear happy to do so. Shopify, a software platform for e-commerce businesses, is working to make it easier for Instinct and Muse to buy from its network of vendors. Meta is also working with Walmart, America’s biggest retailer; Instacart, a grocery-delivery service; and Expedia, a travel-booking site.

机器人开发者面临的另一大挑战是说服其他企业接纳他们的机器人。一些企业似乎乐于这样做。例如，面向电商企业的软件平台Shopify正在努力让Instinct和Muse更容易地从其供应商网络中采购商品。Meta也在与美国最大的零售商沃尔玛、生鲜配送服务公司Instacart以及旅游预订网站Expedia合作。

But other companies are unconvinced. Amazon, for instance, is currently off limits to both Instinct and Muse. The e-emporium generates a good chunk of its profit from showing users ads, and currently has little need for the extra traffic that might come its way via personal agents. Amazon has also complained that Meta failed to give it a heads-up about Muse’s release.

但其他公司对此并不认同。例如，亚马逊目前禁止Instinct和Muse与其合作。这家电商巨头的大部分利润来自向用户展示广告，目前并不需要通过个人代理带来的额外流量。亚马逊还抱怨Meta没有提前告知其Muse的发布计划。

Some Silicon Valley bosses say that they are waiting to see how the technology develops before opening their systems to personal agents. In the meantime, the bot-builders are busily courting them. Mr Shinn gives the example of restaurant-booking platforms, some of which Instinct has won over by agreeing to prevent its agents from booking vast numbers of reservations, only to cancel all but one. Even Andy Jassy, Amazon’s boss, appears to be keeping an open mind about the future, saying previously that he is “very hopeful” a fair deal will eventually be reached that allows agents to use its marketplace.

一些硅谷高管表示，他们正在观望这项技术的发展情况，然后再决定是否向个人代理开放系统。与此同时，机器人开发商正积极争取他们的合作。辛恩先生举例说，一些餐厅预订平台就曾与Instinct达成协议，允许其代理大量预订，然后只保留一个，以此赢得了这些平台的青睐。就连亚马逊首席执行官安迪·杰西似乎也对未来持开放态度，他此前曾表示，他“非常希望”最终能够达成一项公平的协议，允许代理使用亚马逊的平台。

Such agreements will be necessary if personal agents are to become a viable business. Mr Zuckerberg has said that he envisages Muse will earn its keep from a combination of subscriptions and a cut of the transactions it facilitates. Mr Shinn reckons that most online spending will eventually flow through personal agents.

如果个人代理要成为一种可行的商业模式，此类协议必不可少。扎克伯格先生曾表示，他设想Muse将通过订阅费和促成交易的佣金分成来维持运营。辛恩先生则认为，最终大部分在线消费都将通过个人代理进行。

Which bot-builder wins the biggest share of that business is still up for grabs. Instinct has raised $1.4bn to date. That is a tidy sum for a one-year-old startup, but a pittance compared to what Meta has at its disposal. OpenAI and Google, maker of the Gemini models, both offer their own personal agents. Although these are currently pitched more for business than consumer use, they could expand their focus. Airbnb, a short-term rental platform that wants to make itself into a one-stop-shop for all manner of experiences, has also said that it plans to launch a personal agent next year.

哪家机器人开发商能赢得最大的市场份额，目前还不得而知。Instinct迄今已融资14亿美元。对于一家成立仅一年的初创公司来说，这笔资金相当可观，但与Meta的雄厚实力相比，却只是九牛一毛。OpenAI和Gemini模型的开发商谷歌都提供各自的智能助手。虽然这些产品目前主要面向企业用户而非消费者，但它们未来可能会拓展业务范围。Airbnb是一家短租平台，致力于打造一站式体验平台，该公司也表示计划明年推出智能助手。

Then there is Apple, which in June gave Siri a big makeover. The new bot is less of a clod, but it lacks most of the autonomous capabilities of the agents now winning over consumers. Perhaps the iPhone-maker should consider messaging Instinct. ■

还有苹果公司，该公司在六月份对Siri进行了重大改版。新版Siri不再那么笨拙，但它仍然缺乏目前正赢得消费者青睐的智能助手们所具备的大部分自主功能。或许这家iPhone制造商应该考虑推出类似Instinct的语音助手。■