The future of AI regulation is courting the strangest, most anxious bedfellows

AI 监管的未来正在结交最奇怪、最焦虑的盟友

By Tina Nguyen | Jun 10, 2026 作者：Tina Nguyen | 2026年6月10日

Hello and welcome to Regulator, a newsletter for Verge subscribers about tech politics, tech influence, and tech shenanigans in Washington, DC. We’re back after a two-week hiatus, during most of which I was gallivanting in the Netherlands for a family wedding, and a trip to the Heineken Experience, which is, truly, an experience.

你好，欢迎阅读《监管者》（Regulator）。这是一份为《The Verge》订阅者提供的通讯，旨在探讨华盛顿特区的科技政治、科技影响力以及各种科技闹剧。在两周的休刊后，我们回归了。这段时间我大部分时间都在荷兰参加家庭婚礼，还去了一趟喜力体验馆（Heineken Experience），那确实是一次名副其实的“体验”。

Before I left, I asked everyone in Washington to please chill out while I was gone. This clearly did not happen, and I have returned to a political landscape that can be best described as that meme from Community where the room is on fire. Let’s get into that.

在我离开之前，我曾请求华盛顿的各位在我不在的时候保持冷静。显然，这并没有发生。我回到这里，面对的政治局面只能用美剧《废柴联盟》（Community）里的那个“房间着火”的表情包来形容。让我们深入探讨一下。

If you wanted to get a good sense of how Washington insiders viewed the release of Magnifica Humanitas, Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical laying out Catholic doctrine on artificial intelligence, let me take you inside an actual room of Washington insiders.

如果你想了解华盛顿内部人士是如何看待教皇利奥十四世发布的《Magnifica Humanitas》（阐述天主教关于人工智能教义的通谕）的，请让我带你走进华盛顿内部人士的真实聚会现场。

Here’s the scene: a black-tie gala last week at the Waldorf Astoria, which used to be the Trump hotel, held by the Washington AI Network. In attendance, spotted among the dancers dressed like robots on stilts: AI lobbyists, AI safety nonprofits, tech industry representatives, tech journalists, Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary, senior administration officials — Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Mehmet Oz, Department of Energy Under Secretary Darío Gil — and me. Papal nuncio Archbishop Gabriele Caccia, the Vatican’s top diplomat to the United States, is also there, making his surprise debut to deliver remarks to the assembled, who expected to celebrate the breakout power players of artificial intelligence. (Yeah, Kevin O’Leary was receiving an award. It was that broad of a celebration.)

场景是这样的：上周在华尔道夫酒店（前身为特朗普酒店）举行的一场黑领结晚宴，由华盛顿人工智能网络（Washington AI Network）主办。出席者包括人工智能游说者、人工智能安全非营利组织、科技行业代表、科技记者、《创智赢家》的凯文·奥利里（Kevin O’Leary）、政府高级官员——医疗保险和医疗补助服务中心（CMS）负责人穆罕默德·奥兹（Mehmet Oz）、能源部副部长达里奥·吉尔（Darío Gil），以及我。在踩着高跷打扮成机器人的舞者中间，我还看到了教廷驻美大使加布里埃莱·卡恰（Gabriele Caccia）大主教。他作为梵蒂冈驻美最高外交官惊喜现身，向在场嘉宾发表讲话。而这些嘉宾原本是来庆祝人工智能领域杰出权势人物的。（没错，凯文·奥利里当时正在领奖。这场庆典的范围就是这么广。）

The nuncio is trying to relay the pope’s message of safeguarding humans and the human condition before innovation and profit. But I can barely hear him. The salad course has come out, and Caccia is being drowned out by the sound of cutlery on plates and people murmuring to their tablemates, because this is prime networking time.

这位大使试图传达教皇关于“在创新和利润之前保护人类及人类生存状况”的信息。但我几乎听不清他在说什么。沙拉上桌了，卡恰的声音被餐具碰撞盘子的声音和人们与同桌交谈的低语声淹没了，因为这正是社交的黄金时间。

Even if the general public is excited about Magnifica Humanitas, the pope doesn’t carry the force of law, nor can he impose onerous regulations, and therefore the pope does not immediately matter to Washington. For all the dinner talk chatter, the AI industry seems to be experiencing some tunnel vision. Generally, corporate lobbyists try to befriend everybody, Democrat and Republican alike, and cultivate those relationships for as many years as possible without pissing off either side. But that’s not a possibility in Donald Trump’s Washington, where supporting a Democrat in the past could be viewed as disloyalty, even for tech oligarchs.

即使公众对《Magnifica Humanitas》感到兴奋，教皇也不具备法律效力，也无法强加繁重的监管，因此教皇对华盛顿而言并不具备直接影响。尽管晚宴上谈论不断，但人工智能行业似乎正陷入某种“隧道视野”。通常，企业游说者会试图与所有人（无论是民主党还是共和党）交朋友，并尽可能多年地培养这些关系，而不去激怒任何一方。但在唐纳德·特朗普的华盛顿，这已不再可能——在这里，即便对于科技寡头来说，过去支持民主党也可能被视为不忠。

On the other hand, if they give him money and make him look good, Trump can be convinced to give those oligarchs every regulatory ask they want and force the Republicans to do what he says. But even that control is tenuous. Here’s the incredibly brief recap of Trump’s most recent AI-focused executive order:

另一方面，如果他们给特朗普钱并让他看起来很有面子，特朗普可能会被说服去满足这些寡头的所有监管诉求，并强迫共和党人听从他的指挥。但即使这种控制也是脆弱的。以下是特朗普最近关于人工智能行政命令的简要回顾：

• On May 20th, several outlets report that President Trump will imminently sign an executive order that establishes a government review board for unreleased advanced AI models, delaying release by a maximum of 90 days. 5月20日，多家媒体报道称，特朗普总统即将签署一项行政命令，建立一个针对未发布先进人工智能模型的政府审查委员会，将发布时间最多推迟90天。
• On May 21st, Trump decides not to sign that executive order, thanks to last-minute lobbying from David Sacks and Elon Musk. 5月21日，由于大卫·萨克斯（David Sacks）和埃隆·马斯克（Elon Musk）的最后一刻游说，特朗普决定不签署该行政命令。
• Trump then reverses this decision and signs that order after all on June 2nd, thanks to even more last-minute lobbying from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, but changes the timeline to a 30-day maximum. 随后，由于财政部长斯科特·贝森特（Scott Bessent）更进一步的游说，特朗普在6月2日推翻了这一决定并最终签署了该命令，但将时间限制改为最多30天。

But although Washington can be chaotic and unpredictable, especially when Trump is president, there are two fixed points in time that everyone can plan around: once every two years, a federal election will take place in November, and the winners of those races will be sworn into Congress the following January. There will, inevitably, be some change in the balance of power. But no one can safely anticipate who will hold that power or what it will look like, leading to an infinite series of unknowns for tech companies.

尽管华盛顿可能混乱且不可预测，尤其是在特朗普担任总统期间，但每个人都可以围绕两个固定的时间点进行规划：每两年一次的联邦选举会在11月举行，获胜者将在次年1月宣誓就职国会。权力平衡不可避免地会发生变化。但没有人能准确预见谁将掌握权力或权力格局会是什么样子，这给科技公司带来了一系列无穷无尽的未知数。

But the tech industry’s own interests may be a key issue in the upcoming midterms. It’s easy for a voter to grasp the consequences of famous, instantly recognizable Big Tech CEOs standing behind Trump during the inauguration, or a gold statue from Tim Cook changing the anticipated price of an iPhone, or a check from a tech giant funding a gaudy ballroom (of all things). In this cycle, it’s even easier for voters to draw a straight line from those visible moments to the increasing and often unwanted presence of AI in every aspect of their everyday lives. Those voters complain.

但科技行业自身的利益可能是即将到来的中期选举中的一个关键议题。选民很容易理解这些后果：比如知名的大型科技公司首席执行官在就职典礼上站在特朗普身后，或者蒂姆·库克（Tim Cook）送出的金像改变了iPhone的预期价格，又或者科技巨头开出的支票资助了一个俗气的宴会厅。在这个周期中，选民更容易将这些可见的时刻与人工智能在他们日常生活中日益增加且往往不受欢迎的存在联系起来。而这些选民正在发出抱怨。