Three things to watch amid Anthropic’s latest feud with the government

在 Anthropic 与政府的最新纷争中，有三件事值得关注

This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. For those of you enjoying your summer unaware of Anthropic’s latest feud with the US government, here’s a recap: In April the company said it had built an AI model called Mythos that was so good at working with code it could pose a global cybersecurity threat. Anthropic gave access to a small group of cybersecurity experts so they could see what they were up against. Then it released a modified version called Fable which it said was safer to the public on Tuesday, June 9. That Friday, the federal government told the company it was a threat to national security and placed export controls on the new release. Anthropic revoked access to both models hours later.

本文最初发表于我们的 AI 每周通讯《算法》（The Algorithm）。若想第一时间在收件箱中获取此类报道，请点击此处订阅。对于那些在享受夏天、尚不了解 Anthropic 与美国政府最新纷争的读者，这里做一个简要回顾：今年 4 月，该公司称其构建了一个名为 Mythos 的 AI 模型，该模型在处理代码方面表现极其出色，以至于可能构成全球网络安全威胁。Anthropic 向一小部分网络安全专家开放了访问权限，以便他们了解所面临的挑战。随后，该公司于 6 月 9 日（周二）向公众发布了一个名为 Fable 的改进版本，并称其更为安全。然而到了那个周五，联邦政府告知该公司，该模型对国家安全构成威胁，并对这一新版本实施了出口管制。几小时后，Anthropic 撤销了对这两个模型的访问权限。

People worried about catastrophic effects of AI—broadly labeled “doomers”—have said for years that the technology poses a threat to humanity and published proposals for how the government should intervene in its development. The doomers just got their government intervention—not over a bioweapon or rogue AI, but in response to an AI model that’s basically just really good at coding. And the result so far looks less like a safety plan than like a superficial reaction.

多年来，那些担心 AI 会带来灾难性后果的人（通常被称为“末日论者”）一直声称这项技术对人类构成威胁，并发布了政府应如何干预其发展的建议。现在，末日论者们终于等来了政府的干预——但这并非针对生物武器或失控的 AI，而是针对一个本质上只是“非常擅长编程”的 AI 模型。到目前为止，这一结果看起来更像是一种表面化的反应，而非真正的安全计划。

There’s plenty to dissect about what happened in those few days that led to such drastic action from the government, and it’s notable that Amazon CEO Andy Jassy was the one who told government officials that Fable would be dangerous (Amazon is both invested in Anthropic and building its own competing AI models). It’s also possible this will be a short-lived ban from the government that doesn’t survive legal scrutiny (it’s not clear that Anthropic’s offering access to Fable really counts as “exporting” it, for example). But there are ripple effects happening already.

在那几天里，究竟发生了什么导致政府采取如此激烈的行动，这有很多值得剖析的地方。值得注意的是，是亚马逊首席执行官安迪·贾西（Andy Jassy）向政府官员指出 Fable 具有危险性（亚马逊既是 Anthropic 的投资者，也在开发自己的竞争性 AI 模型）。政府的这项禁令也可能只是昙花一现，无法经受住法律审查（例如，目前尚不清楚 Anthropic 提供 Fable 的访问权限是否真的算作“出口”）。但连锁反应已经开始显现。

For one, this is making a whole lot of people not want to rely on American AI companies. The French politician Bruno Retailleau described it as a “wake-up call” that should motivate Europe to build more AI. But any vision of turning Paris into Silicon Valley—touted by many other European leaders following the shutdown of Anthropic’s models—is complicated by one big thing: China. Open-source models from China are very capable and incredibly cheap, and they can be downloaded to run on anyone’s servers with no rules or guardrails. (This makes them attractive to companies that don’t want access turned off on the basis of a decision from the White House—but equally attractive to cybercriminals, the type that Anthropic hoped to fend off by building safety guardrails into its models.)

首先，这让许多人开始不愿依赖美国的 AI 公司。法国政治家布鲁诺·勒塔约（Bruno Retailleau）将其描述为一次“警钟”，应该激励欧洲开发更多的 AI 技术。然而，在 Anthropic 模型被关停后，许多欧洲领导人所鼓吹的“将巴黎变成硅谷”的愿景，却被一个重大因素所复杂化：中国。来自中国的开源模型功能强大且极其廉价，任何人都可以下载并在自己的服务器上运行，且没有任何规则或护栏。（这使得它们对那些不希望因白宫决策而被切断访问权限的公司极具吸引力——但对网络犯罪分子同样具有吸引力，而这正是 Anthropic 希望通过在模型中建立安全护栏来抵御的对象。）

It’s possible that companies, including those in the US and Europe, will decide that working with Chinese models is just easier, as the skyrocketing of shares in the Chinese startup Zhipu suggests. Playing this forward, is it possible the government’s next drastic decision will be to say that US companies using models from China pose a threat to national security? I wouldn’t write it off.

正如中国初创公司智谱（Zhipu）股价的飙升所暗示的那样，包括美国和欧洲在内的公司可能会认为，使用中国模型反而更简单。展望未来，政府的下一个激进决定是否会是宣布“使用中国模型的美国公司构成国家安全威胁”？我不会排除这种可能性。

Second, it’s possible that shutting off access to Anthropic’s models will leave the country more vulnerable to cybersecurity attacks, not less. Leading cybersecurity experts have said as much in an open letter to the government, writing that access to Anthropic’s models was helping researchers prepare defenses, and that the company’s models are no more dangerous than other leading models that are widely available. Such is the risk of applying the concept of nonproliferation to software—trying to control and restrict dangerous AI models in the manner of the uranium used for nuclear weapons.

其次，切断对 Anthropic 模型的访问可能会使国家在网络安全攻击面前变得更加脆弱，而非更加安全。顶尖的网络安全专家在给政府的公开信中也表达了同样的观点，他们写道，访问 Anthropic 的模型有助于研究人员准备防御措施，而且该公司的模型并不比其他广泛使用的领先模型更危险。这就是将“防扩散”概念应用于软件所带来的风险——试图以对待核武器铀原料的方式来控制和限制危险的 AI 模型。

The third thing worth watching is how US lawmakers will react. Remember that following Anthropic’s last feud with the government over how the Pentagon could or could not use its models, a slate of new bills was introduced that would define the limits of military AI. Right now, the biggest players shaping how AI gets used are the companies and the White House. There’s been much talk about more federal AI regulation, and polling suggests most Americans want it. Lawmakers are still figuring out whether to form rules on how kids use chatbots and are far from a clear answer on the extent to which the government should vet the safety of AI models. But with every drastic action from the White House, the pressure for regulations rises.

第三件值得关注的事情是美国立法者将如何反应。请记住，在 Anthropic 上次与政府就五角大楼能否使用其模型产生纷争后，一系列旨在定义军事 AI 界限的新法案被提出。目前，塑造 AI 使用方式的最大参与者是各大公司和白宫。关于加强联邦 AI 监管的讨论很多，民意调查也显示大多数美国人支持这一点。立法者仍在研究是否要制定关于儿童如何使用聊天机器人的规则，对于政府应在多大程度上审查 AI 模型的安全性，他们远未达成明确共识。但随着白宫每一次激进行动的出台，对监管的需求压力也在不断上升。

To state the obvious, predictions are hard when the administration’s attitudes toward AI change with the wind. When President Trump took office, he threw out the restrictive rulebook for how to make AI safe and promised to get out of the way of tech companies. The White House has now called the most valuable AI startup a risk to national security once in the spring, and again in summer. What will fall bring?

显而易见的是，当政府对 AI 的态度随风而变时，预测未来变得非常困难。特朗普总统上任时，他废除了关于如何确保 AI 安全的限制性规则，并承诺不干预科技公司的发展。而现在，白宫在春季和夏季两次将最有价值的 AI 初创公司称为国家安全风险。秋天又会带来什么呢？