Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo talks about AI, chatbot platform Poe and why OpenAI is not a competitor | TechCrunch

🌈 Abstract

The article discusses the challenges and opportunities facing Quora, the crowdsourced Q&A platform, as it navigates the rise of AI-powered tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity. It focuses on Quora's CEO Adam D'Angelo's perspective on the role of human knowledge versus AI, Quora's efforts to support developers on its AI platform Poe, and the company's relationship with OpenAI.

🙋 Q&A

[01] Quora's Position Amidst the AI Landscape

1. What are the key challenges Quora is facing as search engines and AI tools like ChatGPT become more prevalent?

• Quora is facing competition from search engines like Google and Bing that are using AI to produce more fluid results and answer questions.
• With the widespread availability of tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity, Quora needs to figure out how to secure its position as a top website for people to get their questions answered.
• There is a question of whether crowdsourced Q&A is still needed or wanted by users.

2. How does D'Angelo view the role of human knowledge versus AI in Quora's offering?

• D'Angelo believes that humans still have a lot of knowledge in their heads that is not available on the internet, and that AI will not have access to this knowledge.
• He acknowledges that AI still has a "hallucination problem" that makes it hard to rely on AI-generated answers, even as newer models make progress.
• D'Angelo sees Quora as being about human knowledge, with AI enhancing and complementing it, rather than Quora being an "answer engine" relying solely on AI.

[02] Quora's AI Platform - Poe

1. What are the key features and goals of Quora's AI platform, Poe?

• Poe allows users to ask questions of and chat with a variety of chatbots, and also lets developers build and monetize their own bots.
• Quora's goal is to provide consumers access to different large language models, and to help developers earn sustainable income by improving bot discovery and distribution on the platform.

2. What are some of the challenges Poe faces in supporting developers?

• With over a million bots already on the platform, it is hard for developers to stand out and have their bots discovered by users.
• Poe, like OpenAI's GPT Store, suffers from issues like spam, similarly named bots, and bots that push the boundaries of copyright.
• Quora is working on improving its recommendation system to help users find the right bots for their needs.

[03] Quora's Relationship with OpenAI

1. How does D'Angelo view Quora's relationship with OpenAI?

• D'Angelo declined to discuss the recent leadership drama at OpenAI, stating he is there to represent Quora, not OpenAI.
• He does not see OpenAI as a direct competitor to Quora, as OpenAI has much bigger ambitions around building artificial general intelligence (AGI).
• Quora continues to be a "big customer" of OpenAI and expects more collaboration than competition, as OpenAI's models are a major source for Poe.

2. What is Quora's approach to data licensing and building its own AI models?

• Quora currently does not have any data licensing deals with major tech companies.
• The company is not rushing to license its data, as there is still a lot of uncertainty around how the AI landscape will play out.
• Quora is also not focused on building its own AI models at this time, and is instead focused on improving its existing products and revenue growth.