Why AI companies want you to be afraid of them
Why AI companies want you to be afraid of them
为什么人工智能公司希望你对它们感到恐惧
They built it. They’re scared of it. They’re selling it anyway. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: a tech company says it’s built a new AI that’s so powerful it’s scary. Apparently, it’s too dangerous to release into the world – the consequences would be catastrophic. Luckily for us, they are keeping it locked up for now. They just wanted you to know.
他们制造了它，他们对它感到恐惧，但他们依然在兜售它。如果这个套路你听过，请随时打断我：一家科技公司声称自己开发了一种强大到令人恐惧的新型人工智能。显然，它太危险了，不能发布到世界上——后果将是灾难性的。幸运的是，他们目前将其锁了起来。他们只是想让你知道这件事。
That’s exactly what AI company Anthropic is telling us about its latest model, Claude Mythos. The company says Mythos’ ability to find cybersecurity bugs far surpasses human experts, and it could have world-altering consequences if similar technology lands in the wrong hands. “The fallout – for economies, public safety and national security – could be severe,” Anthropic said in an early April blog post. Some breathless observers warned that Mythos will soon force you to replace every piece of technology in your life, down to your WiFi-enabled microwave, to protect from the digital madness.
这正是人工智能公司 Anthropic 在谈及其最新模型 Claude Mythos 时所传达的信息。该公司表示，Mythos 发现网络安全漏洞的能力远超人类专家，如果类似技术落入坏人之手，可能会产生改变世界的影响。Anthropic 在四月初的一篇博客文章中称：“其后果——对经济、公共安全和国家安全而言——可能是严重的。”一些惊慌失措的观察人士警告说，Mythos 很快会迫使你更换生活中所有的科技产品，甚至包括你的 WiFi 微波炉，以防范这种数字疯狂。
Some security experts doubt these claims, but let’s set that aside. This isn’t new. Executives at leading AI providers regularly issue warnings about how their industry’s products may destroy humanity. Why do AI companies want us to be afraid of them?
一些安全专家对这些说法表示怀疑，但我们暂且不论。这并非新鲜事。领先的人工智能提供商的高管们经常发出警告，称其行业的产品可能会毁灭人类。为什么人工智能公司希望我们对它们感到恐惧？
It’s a strange way for any company to talk about its own work. You don’t hear McDonald’s announcing that it’s created a burger so terrifyingly delicious that it would be unethical to grill it for the public.
对于任何一家公司来说，以这种方式谈论自己的工作都很奇怪。你不会听到麦当劳宣布它创造了一种美味到令人恐惧的汉堡，以至于向公众出售它是不道德的。
Here’s one theory. According to critics, it benefits AI companies to keep you fixated on apocalypse because it distracts from the very real damage they’re already doing to the world. Tech leaders say they’re just warning us about an inevitable future, and safety is a top priority whether it’s now or later. But others argue what we’re actually seeing is fear mongering, which exaggerates the potential of the technology and serves to boost stock prices. And it encourages a narrative that regulators must stand aside, because these AI companies are the only ones who can stop the bad guys and build this technology responsibly.
这里有一个理论。批评人士认为，让公众专注于“世界末日”对人工智能公司有利，因为这可以转移人们对它们目前正在给世界造成的真实损害的注意力。科技领袖们声称，他们只是在警告我们一个不可避免的未来，无论现在还是将来，安全都是重中之重。但其他人则认为，我们实际上看到的是一种恐慌营销，它夸大了技术的潜力，并有助于推高股价。这也助长了一种叙事：监管机构必须靠边站，因为只有这些人工智能公司才能阻止坏人，并负责任地构建这项技术。
“If you portray these technologies as somehow almost supernatural in their danger, it makes us feel like we are powerless, like we are outmatched,” says Shannon Vallor, a professor of the ethics of data and artificial intelligence at the University of Edinburgh in the UK. “As if the only people we could possibly look to would be the companies themselves.”
“如果你将这些技术描绘成具有某种近乎超自然的危险性，这会让我们感到无能为力，仿佛我们处于劣势，”英国爱丁堡大学数据与人工智能伦理学教授 Shannon Vallor 说，“就好像我们唯一能指望的人就是这些公司自己。”
Somebody stop me
有人能阻止我吗
An Anthropic spokesperson told me the company has been clear about these issues. They shared blog posts from other organisations supporting Mythos’ cyber capabilities, but said nothing to address the points in this article, aside from one comment I’ll include below.
Anthropic 的一位发言人告诉我，公司在这些问题上一直很明确。他们分享了其他组织支持 Mythos 网络能力的文章，但除了我将在下面引用的一条评论外，没有对本文提出的观点做出任何回应。
This isn’t the first time Anthropic chief Dario Amodei has worked on a tool that’s been declared too dangerous for the public by the company he worked for. In 2019, when Amodei was an executive at OpenAI, the company announced GPT-2. He and other company leaders said they just couldn’t release GPT-2 because of “concerns about malicious applications of the technology”. This was a tool far less sophisticated than ChatGPT. And months later, they released it anyway. (OpenAI CEO Sam Altman published a blog post which says the company embraces uncertainty, acknowledging that fears about GPT-2 were “misplaced”.)
这并不是 Anthropic 首席执行官 Dario Amodei 第一次参与开发被其所在公司宣布为“对公众过于危险”的工具。2019 年，当 Amodei 在 OpenAI 任职高管时，该公司发布了 GPT-2。他和公司其他领导人表示，由于“对该技术被恶意应用的担忧”，他们无法发布 GPT-2。那是一个远不如 ChatGPT 先进的工具。然而几个月后，他们还是发布了它。（OpenAI 首席执行官 Sam Altman 发表了一篇博客文章，称公司拥抱不确定性，并承认对 GPT-2 的担忧是“错位的”。）
Altman criticised Anthropic’s “fear-based marketing” in a recent podcast interview. But his own “I’ve created a monster” playbook goes back years. “AI will probably most likely lead to the end of the world, but in the meantime, there’ll be great companies,” Altman said in 2015. Years later, Altman claimed he loses sleep wondering if he’s “done something really bad by launching ChatGPT”. If only someone warned him.
Altman 在最近的一次播客采访中批评了 Anthropic 的“恐惧营销”。但他自己那套“我创造了一个怪物”的剧本已经沿用了多年。2015 年，Altman 曾说：“人工智能很可能会导致世界末日，但在此期间，会出现伟大的公司。”多年后，Altman 声称他因为担心自己“推出 ChatGPT 是否做了一件非常糟糕的事”而彻夜难眠。要是有人能早点警告他就好了。
Is Mythos really that bad?
Mythos 真有那么糟糕吗？
Anthropic says its new model already found thousands of “high-severity” vulnerabilities across the tech landscape at a level that surpasses human experts. It also announced a new partnership with more than 40 companies and groups in an “urgent attempt” to patch vulnerabilities before hackers get a chance. A company spokesperson told me Anthropic has been intentional about partnering with organisations to patch the foundational computing systems which represent the “lion’s share” of the problem.
Anthropic 表示，其新模型已经在整个科技领域发现了数千个“高严重性”漏洞，其水平超过了人类专家。该公司还宣布与 40 多家公司和团体建立新的合作伙伴关系，进行“紧急尝试”，以便在黑客利用这些漏洞之前将其修复。一位公司发言人告诉我，Anthropic 一直有意识地与各组织合作，修复那些占据问题“大部分”的基础计算系统。