‘Distillation’ Is AI’s New Buzzword—and a Scary One for AI Companies

WSJ Tech News Briefing

The Wall Street Journal

Tech News, News

4.3 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 6 February 2025

⏱️ 11 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

By drawing on the results of other models, distillation can shape AI that’s almost as good, quickly and more cheaply. WSJ tech reporter Miles Kruppa says that has investors worried about the risks of pouring money into the field’s cutting edge. And retail reporter Kate King says that while Amazon may be the champion of online retail, its recent store closures show it hasn’t replicated that success in the bricks-and-mortar space. Pierre Bienaimé hosts. Sign up for the WSJ's free Technology newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:33.9	Welcome to Tech News Briefing. It's Thursday, February 6th. I'm Pierre Bienname for the Wall Street Journal.
0:40.5	Amazon may be number one in online retail, but its bricks and mortar stores aren't doing quite as well.
0:46.7	We'll talk to real estate reporter Kate King about the company's decision to shut some of its
0:50.6	storefronts. And DeepSeek, the buzzy artificial intelligence company out
0:55.2	of China, may have trained one of its models by having it ask questions of its American
1:00.0	counterparts. Tech reporter Miles Krupa says so-called distillation has some investors spooked.
1:08.6	First, after a decade-long experiment with real-life stores, Amazon is pulling back. In recent years,
1:15.2	the e-commerce company has closed all kinds of shops. Its portfolio of Amazon Go convenience stores,
1:20.3	where you can just grab an item and walk out and you'll be charged electronically, has
1:24.5	shrunk by about half since early 202323 to 16 stores in four states.
1:30.4	Sales at its stores, including Whole Foods Market, have grown annually, topping $5.2 billion
1:35.8	in the third quarter of 2024, but that compares with about $61.4 billion at Amazon's online
1:42.4	store. Kate King covers real estate for the Wall Street Journal,
1:45.6	and she joins me now. Kate, Amazon Go stores, they do seem pretty innovative. There's no
1:51.0	traditional checkout counter, so there's no line, and no one likes a line. They use these cameras
1:55.8	and sensors to track your purchases. Are customers just not into it? I'm sure some are for sure. I did interview one
2:02.1	person who said that it was convenient in the moment to go into the store and walk out without
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