As soon as the iPhone was unveiled in 2007, its transformative potential was clear. But it took the launch a year later of the App Store, a marketplace for applications built by third-party developers, to unleash the smartphone’s full power to change how people work, interact, shop and amuse themselves. Evangelists of AI are hoping something similar can happen with generative AI, the technology behind the ChatGPT chatbot. Its creator OpenAI this week announced plans for a “GPT Store”, enabling users to develop and market customised bots tailored for specific functions. Some rivals are doing similar things — marking a new stage in the march of Big Tech: the emergence of AI-powered “agents” that can carry out tasks on behalf of consumers.OpenAI is releasing a platform for subscribers to its ChatGPT Plus service for developing bots powered by GPT-4, its underlying AI model. Developers will be able to create “GPTs” for external use, as the company is calling these AI apps, for purposes that might range from maths tutoring to interior design to creating presentations. They can be branded and marketed via the coming GPT Store, with OpenAI eventually splitting revenues with the most popular creators.
iPhone在2007年推出后，其变革潜力显而易见。但直到一年后推出App Store（面向第三方开发者打造的应用程序的市场）后，智能手机改变人们工作、互动、购物和娱乐方式的威力才得到充分释放。人工智能(AI)的鼓吹者希望类似的事情能够发生在生成式人工智能（generative AI，聊天机器人ChatGPT背后的技术）上。ChatGPT的创建者OpenAI公司上周宣布“GPT Store”计划，让用户能够开发和营销针对特定功能量身定制的定制机器人。一些竞争对手也在做类似的事情，这一切标志着科技巨头们的征程进入一个新阶段：AI驱动的“代理”应运而生，它们可以代表消费者执行各种任务。