This is a good point, though we will probably need to discern between several varieties of “AI companies”. “Lab” (currently) means research is happening there (which is correct for the companies you mentioned). ”AI company” right now mostly says someone is doing something that involves AI. If you’re building a ChatGPT wrapper you’re an “AI company”.
So while I do agree with your point that these companies are no longer just labs (as you mentioned), we need to denote that they are companies where major research is happening, in comparison to most companies who are just building products with AI. Yes, they’re all tech companies. But OpenAI, Anthropic and DeepMind are obviously the core of a cluster of points in objectspace, and it seems reasonable to look for some name for that cluster (with a different discussion being what exactly the cluster that denotes “labs” includes, and whether these points are a part of it).
I agree that they’re worth calling out somehow, I just think “lab” is a misleading way to doing so given their current activities. I’ve made some admittedly-clunky suggestions in other threads here.
This is a good point, though we will probably need to discern between several varieties of “AI companies”.
“Lab” (currently) means research is happening there (which is correct for the companies you mentioned).
”AI company” right now mostly says someone is doing something that involves AI. If you’re building a ChatGPT wrapper you’re an “AI company”.
So while I do agree with your point that these companies are no longer just labs (as you mentioned), we need to denote that they are companies where major research is happening, in comparison to most companies who are just building products with AI.
Yes, they’re all tech companies. But OpenAI, Anthropic and DeepMind are obviously the core of a cluster of points in objectspace, and it seems reasonable to look for some name for that cluster (with a different discussion being what exactly the cluster that denotes “labs” includes, and whether these points are a part of it).
I agree that they’re worth calling out somehow, I just think “lab” is a misleading way to doing so given their current activities. I’ve made some admittedly-clunky suggestions in other threads here.