Artificial intelligence companies embrace 'distillation' technology to build cheaper models

On March 2nd, according to the Financial Times, leading artificial intelligence companies such as OpenAI, Microsoft (MSFT.O), and Meta Platforms (META.O) are turning to a process called ‘distillation’ in the global competition to build artificial intelligence models that are cheaper for consumers and businesses. Despite the widespread application of ‘distillation’ technology for many years, recent advances have led industry experts to believe that this technology will increasingly become a godsend for startups seeking to build applications based on this technology in an economically efficient manner. ‘Distillation is very magical,’ said Olivier Godman, product director of the OpenAI platform. ‘The process essentially involves using a very large intelligent front-end model to teach a smaller model… It is very capable in specific tasks, very inexpensive, and very fast in execution.’