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巴托比专栏

The uses and abuses of hype

炒作的使用和滥用

How excitement can help and hinder entrepreneurs.

兴奋之情如何帮助和阻碍创业者。

Hype and absurdity go together.

炒作和荒谬是相伴而生的。

As excitement about the next big thing builds, people fall over themselves to get on board.

随着人们对下一个大事件的兴奋之情与日俱增，人们争先恐后地想加入其中。

A year and a half ago, the metaverse was the future.

一年半以前，元宇宙就是未来。

Companies appointed chief metaverse officers, and futurologists burbled about web 3.0.

各大公司任命了首席元宇宙总监，未来学家则对Web 3.0议论纷纷。

The idea has not gone away.

元宇宙的想法并没有消失。

Colombia held its first court case in the metaverse last month (imagine a video game called Wii Justice and you get the picture).

上个月，哥伦比亚共和国在元宇宙举行了第一场法庭诉讼(想象一下一款名为Wii Justice的视频游戏，你就明白大概是怎么回事了)。

But the excitement has evaporated, at least for now.

但对于元宇宙的兴奋感已经烟消云散了，至少目前是这样。

Microsoft disbanded its industrial metaverse team last month;

上个月，微软解散了工业元宇宙团队；

the career prospects of chief metaverse officers are more virtual than even they would like.

首席元宇宙总监的职业前景甚至比他们所希望的还要更加虚拟。

Other technologies have suffered the same reversal.

其他技术也遭遇了同样的逆转。

There was a point when it was deeply fashionable to rave about the blockchain, crypto and non-fungible tokens.

曾几何时，对区块链、加密货币和非同质化代币的热烈讨论是非常时尚的。

Now the attention of users, investors and managers is firmly fixed on artificial intelligence (AI).

现在，用户、投资者和管理者的注意力都牢牢锁定在人工智能上。

Since ChatGPT, an AI chatbot, was made available to the public at the end of November, it has generated another wave of hype.

自从人工智能聊天机器人ChatGPT于11月底向公众开放以来，它又引发了一波炒作。

Over 100m people have asked it to rewrite IKEA furniture instructions in iambic pentameter or something equally vital;

超过1亿人让ChatGPT用五步抑扬格或其他同样庄重的语体重写宜家的家具说明书；

venture-capital funds are pouring money into AI startups;

风险投资基金向人工智能初创公司投入大量资金；

established firms are rushing to explain how they will use the technology to do everything from customer service to coding.

各大老牌公司也争先恐后地说明他们将如何使用这项技术来做从客户服务到编写代码的各种事情。

Hype need not end in disappointment.

炒作不一定要以失望告终。

Some technologies are less speculative than others; the metaverse is still largely notional, for example, whereas AI is an established field.

一些技术的投机性比其他技术要小，例如，元宇宙在很大程度上仍然是概念性的，而人工智能则是一个成熟的领域。

Even when bubbles burst, they can leave world-changing companies behind.

即使泡沫破裂，这些技术也能把改变世界的公司抛在身后。

The hype cycle, popularised by Gartner, a consultancy, is real.

但炒作周期（技术成熟度曲线）是真实存在的，这一概念因咨询公司高德纳而为人所熟知。

In essence, it describes a period of uncontrolled enthusiasm for a new idea followed by a backlash.

从本质上讲，它描述人们在一段时期内对新想法有不受控制的热情，然后会出现强烈反对。

That makes hype bittersweet for entrepreneurs.

这使得炒作对创业者来说是苦乐参半的。

Excitement can help unlock funding and attract users.

兴奋之情可以帮助释放资金，吸引用户。

Some think of hype as a public good, vital in enabling new technologies to get going.

一些人认为炒作对公众有益，对于推动新技术的发展至关重要。

But it can also lead to problems.

但炒作也可能导致问题。

The question is how to manage hype for the best.

问题是如何让炒作发挥最佳作用。

An obvious temptation for entrepreneurs is to take advantage of the hype by making wild—even deceitful—promises.

对创业者来说，一个明显的诱惑是利用炒作，做出不切实际的，甚至是欺骗性的承诺。

A paper from 2021 by Paul Momtaz of UCLA Anderson School of Management looked at the once-faddish field of initial coin offerings (ICOs), in which new cryptocurrencies are issued directly to the public.

加州大学洛杉矶分校安德森管理学院的保罗·蒙塔兹在2021年的一篇论文中研究了风靡一时的首次代币发售，即新的加密货币直接向公众发行。

Mr Momtaz found that not only did issuers systematically overplay their tokens’ prospects but that investors fell for it.

蒙塔兹发现，不仅发行者系统性地夸大了代币的前景，而且投资者也上当了。

Exaggerated claims raised more money in less time than accurate ones.

与准确的说法相比，夸张的说法在更短的时间内筹集了更多的资金。

ICOs are far less hyped these days, but the opportunity to trick investors apparently remains:

如今，首次代币发售的炒作要少得多，但欺骗投资者的机会显然仍然存在：

over 100 new cryptocurrencies have been created that have ChatGPT in their name.

超过100种新的加密货币被创造出来，这些货币的名字中都有ChatGPT。

Wilful exaggeration might be a perfectly logical strategy if entrepreneurs are raising money once.

如果创业者只筹集一次资金，刻意夸大可能是一种完全合乎逻辑的策略。

But if they want to build a business, tap capital in repeated funding rounds or maintain a close relationship with investors and users, hype might become a liability.

但如果他们想要建立一家企业、在多轮融资中筹集资金，或者与投资者和用户保持密切关系，那么炒作可能会带来麻烦。

Some dangers are obvious: disappointment and damaged credibility if things do not turn out as well as promised.

一些危险是显而易见的：如果事情没有像承诺的那样发展，就会带来失望，让信誉受损。

Other dangers are more subtle: being too associated with a specific technology can reduce the room that startups have to pivot to a new product or business model.

其他危险则更为隐蔽：与某项特定技术的联系过于紧密，可能会压缩初创企业转向新产品或新商业模式的空间。

So hype calls for care.

因此，炒作需要谨慎。

A recent paper by Danielle Logue of UNSW Sydney and Matthew Grimes of Judge Business School looked at the different paths taken by a number of social-investment stockmarkets that were set up in 2013 as the buzz over impact investing grew.

新南威尔士大学悉尼分校的丹妮尔·洛格和贾奇商学院的马修·格里姆斯最近发表了一篇论文，研究了随着影响力投资热潮的增长，2013年成立的一些社会投资股票市场走上的不同道路。

The authors contrast the glitzier approach of an exchange in London, which attracted high-profile endorsements, promised a financial revolution and subsequently collapsed, with its more successful Canadian peer, which has relied more on expert advice and incrementalism.

论文作者将伦敦一家交易所更为耀眼的做法与另一家更为成功的加拿大交易所进行了对比，前者吸引了高调的背书，承诺要进行一场金融革命，然后倒闭了，而后者则更依赖专家建议和渐进主义。

The pros and cons of hype have also been apparent in the short public life of ChatGPT.

在ChatGPT短暂的公共生命中，炒作的利弊也很明显。

Hype helped make it the fastest-growing consumer technology in history.

炒作帮助它成为史上增长最快的消费技术。

But the flaws in the technology now attract as much attention.

但这项技术中的缺陷现在也引起了同样多的关注。

Microsoft, which has integrated a souped-up version of the chatbot into its Bing search engine, has restricted access to the new version and set limits on how many questions users can ask it in a row (an idea well worth adopting in all meetings).

微软将增强版聊天机器人集成到必应搜索引擎中，并对新版必应的访问进行了限制，限定用户向聊天机器人连续提问的问题数量(这一想法非常值得在所有会议上采纳)。

As Mr Grimes points out, entrepreneurs who are pushing entirely new products are expected to distort reality without overinflating expectations.

正如格里姆斯所指出的，推介全新产品的创业者可以扭曲现实，但前提是不过度夸大预期。

How they handle hype can help determine whether they can pull off this difficult balancing act.

他们如何处理炒作，有助于决定他们能否完成这一艰难的平衡动作。

来源：英语点津