When the Trump administration cracks down on Anthropic, who benefits?
When the Trump administration cracks down on Anthropic, who benefits?
当特朗普政府对 Anthropic 采取强硬措施时，谁是受益者？
Anthropic recently took its two newest AI models offline due to an export control order from the Trump administration, prompting broad debates about AI policy and digital sovereignty. On the latest episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Sean O’Kane, Rebecca Bellan, and I discussed what actually prompted the administration’s moves against Anthropic, and what this might mean for the broader AI ecosystem. 由于特朗普政府的一项出口管制令，Anthropic 最近将其两款最新的 AI 模型下线，这引发了关于人工智能政策和数字主权的广泛讨论。在 TechCrunch 的《Equity》播客最新一期节目中，Sean O’Kane、Rebecca Bellan 和我讨论了究竟是什么促使政府对 Anthropic 采取了行动，以及这对更广泛的 AI 生态系统意味着什么。
As Sean put it, “Anthropic has not had the best relationship with the Trump administration in a way that stands apart from the other leading AI labs,” so perhaps other Anthropic’s rivals don’t need to worry about a similar crackdown. But Rebecca also noted that leading cybersecurity experts have “signed an open letter to ask Trump to revoke the order, and they say it’s actually dangerous to have to pull these advanced cybersecurity capabilities from network defenders in the U.S.” And we wondered whether this could all end up being good publicity for Anthropic, especially since — in Rebecca’s words — “everybody loves a bad boy.” 正如 Sean 所言：“Anthropic 与特朗普政府的关系并不融洽，这种疏离感在其他领先的 AI 实验室中并不多见”，因此或许 Anthropic 的竞争对手们无需担心遭遇类似的打压。但 Rebecca 也指出，顶尖的网络安全专家们已经“签署了一封公开信，要求特朗普撤销该命令，他们认为强行从美国网络防御者手中撤下这些先进的网络安全能力实际上是非常危险的。”我们也在思考，这最终是否会成为 Anthropic 的一次正面宣传，毕竟正如 Rebecca 所说——“每个人都喜欢坏小子”。
Keep reading for a preview of our conversation, edited for length and clarity. 请继续阅读我们对话的预览，内容经过删减和润色。
Rebecca Bellan: As I’m sure many of our listeners know, the U.S. government basically just forced Anthropic to pull its two newest models offline — Fable 5, and then there was also Mythos 5, which was the one that was available to current Mythos users, [whereas] Fable 5 was more available to the public. They sent a letter [last] Friday that cited “national security concerns.” No one knows what those concerns are. That report has not been made public, they gave no specifics and told [Anthropic] that they had to ensure that those models couldn’t be used by any foreign nationals. Rebecca Bellan： 我相信很多听众都知道，美国政府基本上强迫 Anthropic 将其两款最新模型下线——Fable 5，以及 Mythos 5（后者仅对现有的 Mythos 用户开放，而 Fable 5 则更广泛地向公众开放）。他们在上周五发了一封信，理由是“国家安全担忧”。没人知道这些担忧具体是什么。那份报告并未公开，政府没有给出任何细节，并告知 Anthropic，他们必须确保这些模型不能被任何外国公民使用。
So Anthropic was like, “Okay, I guess we have to just pull the models entirely, because we don’t know when someone’s a foreign national. A lot of our own employees are foreigners.” But really, [reports said] the White House got tipped off to this because of some Amazon researchers that allegedly found a way to bypass Fable 5’s guardrails. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy raised these concerns with the White House, and it just kind of spiraled from there. 因此 Anthropic 的态度是：“好吧，我想我们只能彻底下线这些模型，因为我们无法判断谁是外国公民。我们自己的很多员工也是外国人。”但实际上，据报道，白宫收到这一消息是因为一些亚马逊研究人员据称找到了绕过 Fable 5 防护栏的方法。亚马逊首席执行官 Andy Jassy 向白宫提出了这些担忧，事情随后便一发不可收拾。
Sean O’Kane: This all moved really fast, especially for a Friday afternoon into a weekend. And it’s at the same time that the administration was ostensibly trying to negotiate some sort of treaty for the war that it started in Iran. Sean O’Kane： 这一切发生得非常快，尤其是在周五下午到周末这段时间。而且与此同时，政府表面上还在试图为其在伊朗发动的战争谈判某种条约。
Rebecca: Friday evening for us in New York. They love a distraction. Rebecca： 对我们纽约人来说是周五晚上。他们很喜欢制造干扰项。
Sean: Let’s step real far back for a moment. Anthropic has not had the best relationship with the Trump administration in a way that stands apart from the other leading AI labs — I think there’s an element, at least, of that playing here. So do you think that this is going to have implications for those other companies? Do you think that the Trump administration would be less inclined to sort of turn off the tap on one of those competitors? Sean： 让我们退后一步看。Anthropic 与特朗普政府的关系确实不如其他领先的 AI 实验室，我认为这在其中至少起到了一定作用。那么你认为这会对其他公司产生影响吗？你认为特朗普政府是否不太可能对那些竞争对手“断供”？
Anthony Ha: Part of the context here is that both the reporting and an analysis from independent security experts suggest that the actual security risk from Anthropic is not that unique. So a lot of this seems to stem as much from parts of the Trump administration and Anthropic just [not getting] along very well. Whatever risks there are, those things are gonna blow up out of proportion just because it seems like they can’t have a civil phone call with each other. Anthony Ha： 这里的背景之一是，相关报道和独立安全专家的分析都表明，Anthropic 带来的实际安全风险并非独一无二。因此，很大程度上这似乎源于特朗普政府的部分官员与 Anthropic 之间“合不来”。无论存在什么风险，这些问题都会被过度放大，仅仅因为看起来他们之间连一次文明的通话都无法进行。
If you’re another company — on the one hand, maybe that’s advantageous to you, because you can say, “Well, we just don’t get these guys mad at us and we can do what we want.” But that’s also not a great regulatory landscape to just [say], “Boy, I hope they don’t get mad at us.” 如果你是另一家公司——一方面，这可能对你有好处，因为你可以说：“好吧，我们只要不惹恼这些人，我们就能做我们想做的事。”但如果监管环境仅仅变成“天哪，希望他们别生我们的气”，那也不是什么好事。
Rebecca: On the one hand, it definitely feels retaliatory — after the government labeled Anthropic a supply chain risk, there’s this big lawsuit going on between them, it really feels like the White House is just looking out for any excuse to pummel Anthropic. And I feel that way not only because that was my initial reaction, but because of what a lot of cybersecurity researchers have said. They say that this should never have triggered an export control [order]. Rebecca： 一方面，这绝对感觉像是报复——在政府将 Anthropic 标记为供应链风险之后，双方之间还有一场大官司，感觉白宫只是在寻找任何借口来打击 Anthropic。我之所以有这种感觉，不仅是因为这是我的第一反应，还因为许多网络安全研究人员的说法。他们表示，这根本不应该触发出口管制令。
They’ve all signed an open letter to ask Trump to revoke the order, and they say it’s actually dangerous to have to pull these advanced cybersecurity capabilities from network defenders in the U.S. Anthropic itself said some of the same jailbreaks could have been found in several other AI models. Cynically, it’s like: Okay, are you just pausing Anthropic so that others can catch up to where Anthropic was? 他们都签署了一封公开信，要求特朗普撤销该命令，并表示强行从美国网络防御者手中撤下这些先进的网络安全能力实际上是危险的。Anthropic 自己也表示，在其他几款 AI 模型中也能发现同样的越狱漏洞。愤世嫉俗地说，这就像是：好吧，你们只是为了让其他人赶上 Anthropic 的水平而暂停了 Anthropic 的业务吗？
But at the same time, I’ve also seen reactions that [say]: Anthropic kinda had this coming. They’re like, “This is too dangerous for anyone to use, but not us, we’re the good guys.” They’re talking out of both sides of their mouth. A week before Fable came out, they were [saying], “Hey, we need to slow down AI, guys. It’s getting really dangerous.” But then boom, “Here’s our most insane ever, super powerful model, go off.” 但与此同时，我也看到了一些反应认为：Anthropic 这是自找的。他们一边说：“这对任何人来说都太危险了，但我们除外，因为我们是好人。”他们这是在自相矛盾。在 Fable 发布前一周，他们还在说：“嘿，大家，我们需要放慢 AI 的发展速度。这变得非常危险。”但紧接着，“砰”的一声，“这是我们有史以来最疯狂、最强大的模型，去用吧。”
Anthony: In some ways this feels like a microcosm of a lot of the discussion around AI, where people like Sam Altman and Jensen Huang are [saying], “Hey, let’s try to lower the temperature. Why is everybody mad at us?” Well, you spent the last couple years essentially saying you’ve built this God machine that will take jobs away from everyone. It’s not exactly a shock that people don’t feel great about this. Anthony： 在某种程度上，这感觉像是围绕 AI 的许多讨论的一个缩影，像 Sam Altman 和黄仁勋这样的人在说：“嘿，让我们试着降降温。为什么每个人都对我们生气？”好吧，你们过去几年基本上一直在说你们制造了一台会夺走所有人工作的“上帝机器”。人们对此感到不爽一点也不令人惊讶。
And there’s something about the way Anthropic talks about Mythos in particular, where they’re like, “This is the most incredibly powerful model ever, it’s too dangerous to release to the public.” And so on some level, [you say,] “Well, okay, let’s say that we take that seriously then. That means that there’s going to be an incredible level of scrutiny around it.” And I do wonder — it does seem like Anthropic is not happy about this. I want to be careful about not overstating how this could be beneficial to them. But we also ran some stories about Ramp analysis to highlight the fact that… 而且 Anthropic 在谈论 Mythos 的方式上有些特别，他们说：“这是有史以来最强大的模型，对公众发布太危险了。”所以从某种程度上说，你会想：“好吧，那我们就当真了。这意味着它将受到极高程度的审查。”我确实在想——Anthropic 看起来对此并不高兴。我不想夸大这对他们可能有什么好处。但我们也发布了一些关于 Ramp 分析的报道，以强调这样一个事实……