Here’s Why Anthropic Is Pushing States to Regulate AI Faster
Here’s Why Anthropic Is Pushing States to Regulate AI Faster
为什么 Anthropic 正在推动各州加速监管人工智能
Anthropic threw its support behind the first wave of frontier AI safety laws in the United States last year, securing new transparency requirements in California and New York that much of Silicon Valley fought against, arguing they would stifle the AI boom. But Anthropic says those laws may already be outdated, and the company is now pushing states to adopt even tougher regulations.
去年，Anthropic 支持了美国第一波前沿人工智能安全法律，确保了加利福尼亚州和纽约州出台了新的透明度要求。硅谷的大多数企业对此表示反对，认为这会扼杀人工智能的发展热潮。但 Anthropic 表示，这些法律可能已经过时，公司目前正在推动各州采取更严格的监管措施。
“The transparency-focused safety bills of 2025 were a really important start, but as the capabilities of AI systems continue to advance quickly—the policy responses need to match,” Cesar Fernandez, Anthropic’s head of US state and local government relations, told WIRED in an interview. “We think that transparency and self reporting are no longer sufficient safety measures for the most powerful AI systems.”
“2025 年以透明度为重点的安全法案是一个非常重要的开端，但随着人工智能系统能力的快速提升，政策响应也必须跟上，”Anthropic 美国州和地方政府关系负责人 Cesar Fernandez 在接受《连线》（WIRED）采访时表示。“我们认为，对于最强大的人工智能系统而言，透明度和自我报告已不再是足够的安全措施。”
Being so pro-regulation is an odd message to come from a startup that is now valued at nearly $1 trillion. But Anthropic is an odd company. As we’ve written before, Anthropic’s leaders believe it needs to build a massive business based on developing and selling access to advanced artificial intelligence to fulfill its founding mission: “to ensure that the world safely makes the transition through transformative AI.”
对于一家估值已接近 1 万亿美元的初创公司来说，如此积极地支持监管是一个奇怪的信号。但 Anthropic 本身就是一家与众不同的公司。正如我们之前所写，Anthropic 的领导层认为，公司需要通过开发和销售先进人工智能的访问权限来建立庞大的业务，以实现其创始使命：“确保世界能够安全地完成向变革性人工智能的过渡。”
As Anthropic has grown, it’s started endorsing some of the nation’s harshest proposed regulations on frontier AI companies. Many of these rules are designed to mitigate catastrophic AI risks, including the possibility that advanced models could contribute to financial disasters or mass deaths.
随着 Anthropic 的成长，它开始支持美国一些针对前沿人工智能公司最严厉的拟议法规。这些规则中的许多旨在减轻人工智能带来的灾难性风险，包括先进模型可能导致金融灾难或大规模死亡的可能性。
Beyond the self-reporting laws in California and New York, Anthropic has also supported an Illinois measure requiring AI labs to get their safety processes evaluated by third-party auditors. Most recently, the company endorsed a Massachusetts policy that would also require third-party auditing for AI labs—and empower the state’s attorney general to seek injunctive relief from companies that don’t comply.
除了加州和纽约州的自我报告法律外，Anthropic 还支持伊利诺伊州的一项措施，要求人工智能实验室通过第三方审计机构对其安全流程进行评估。最近，该公司还支持了马萨诸塞州的一项政策，该政策同样要求人工智能实验室进行第三方审计，并授权州总检察长对不合规的公司寻求禁令救济。
I sat down with Fernandez this week to understand where the company’s AI policies are heading. Fernandez joined Anthropic earlier than this year, after previously serving as head of US state government relations for the sports betting giant FanDuel and as a senior public policy associate at Uber. He helped both companies win policy battles in states around the country. His expertise will likely prove valuable to Anthropic, as Congress continues to stall on passing AI regulation and states are taking the lead.
本周，我与 Fernandez 进行了交谈，以了解该公司人工智能政策的发展方向。Fernandez 于今年早些时候加入 Anthropic，此前他曾担任体育博彩巨头 FanDuel 的美国州政府关系负责人，以及 Uber 的高级公共政策助理。他曾帮助这两家公司在全国各州的政策博弈中获胜。随着国会在通过人工智能监管方面持续停滞，而各州开始发挥主导作用，他的专业知识很可能会对 Anthropic 产生重要价值。
“Dubious” Motives
“可疑”的动机
While Anthropic’s pro-regulation agenda has been praised by AI safety groups, labor unions, and other allies of the company, some Silicon Valley leaders interpret its political efforts through a more nefarious lens.
尽管 Anthropic 的亲监管议程受到了人工智能安全组织、工会和其他公司盟友的赞扬，但一些硅谷领袖却以更阴暗的视角解读其政治努力。
David Sacks, the former White House AI czar and current technology adviser to President Donald Trump, has claimed that Anthropic is essentially trying to get cumbersome laws passed to trap smaller AI startups in red tape, thus securing its own position as a leader in the AI race.
前白宫人工智能主管、现任唐纳德·特朗普总统技术顾问的大卫·萨克斯（David Sacks）声称，Anthropic 本质上是试图通过推动繁琐的法律来让较小的人工智能初创公司陷入官僚主义的泥潭，从而巩固其自身在人工智能竞赛中的领先地位。
“Anthropic is running a sophisticated regulatory capture strategy based on fear-mongering,” Sacks wrote in a social media post last year. “It is principally responsible for the state regulatory frenzy that is damaging the startup ecosystem.”
“Anthropic 正在实施一种基于散布恐惧的复杂监管俘获策略，”萨克斯去年在社交媒体上写道。“它主要应对正在损害初创企业生态系统的州监管狂潮负责。”
Fernandez outrightly denies the accusation, noting that Anthropic has only supported state AI bills that apply to “large AI model developers,” a term defined differently in every bill, but that generally refers to companies that have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on AI development and have more than $500 million in annual revenue. “It’s hard to imagine a startup meeting that threshold,” Fernandez says.
Fernandez 断然否认了这一指控，并指出 Anthropic 仅支持适用于“大型人工智能模型开发商”的州人工智能法案。这个术语在每项法案中的定义各不相同，但通常指那些在人工智能开发上投入数亿美元且年收入超过 5 亿美元的公司。“很难想象一家初创公司能达到这个门槛，”Fernandez 说。
But in a world where billions of dollars in capital is now required to develop a competitive frontier AI model, there’s arguably a handful of promising startups that could meet those thresholds soon enough. To name a few, Safe Superintelligence, Thinking Machines Lab, and Mistral have each raised billions of dollars from investors, though their revenue remains far lower than the likes of Anthropic or OpenAI. Of course, these aren’t your run-of-the-mill startups, but they are potential competitors of Anthropic.
但在当今这个开发具有竞争力的前沿人工智能模型需要数十亿美元资本的世界里，可以说已经有少数有前途的初创公司很快就能达到这些门槛。例如，Safe Superintelligence、Thinking Machines Lab 和 Mistral 都已从投资者那里筹集了数十亿美元，尽管它们的收入仍远低于 Anthropic 或 OpenAI 等公司。当然，这些并非普通的初创公司，但它们是 Anthropic 的潜在竞争对手。
I think the more defensible version of Fernandez’ argument is that any company large enough to develop a powerful AI model should be subject to the same regulations, because the underlying risks of the technology are the same. Fernandez notes that part of Anthropic’s goal is to “inspire a race to the top developing the most safe and secure AI systems,” which the company thinks encompasses pushing for government legislation.
我认为 Fernandez 的论点中更站得住脚的版本是：任何有能力开发强大人工智能模型的公司都应受到同样的监管，因为该技术的基本风险是相同的。Fernandez 指出，Anthropic 的部分目标是“激发一场开发最安全、最可靠人工智能系统的巅峰竞赛”，公司认为这包括推动政府立法。
“Our mission is to make sure that this transition to a world with advanced AI goes well for Americans and humanity,” says Fernandez. “If you’re an AI model developer that’s developing powerful AI systems, there are requirements to be transparent with people on what you’re building, the model capabilities, and the risks associated with that model to critical infrastructure in states—all of that should be top priority.”
“我们的使命是确保向先进人工智能世界的过渡对美国人和全人类来说都是顺利的，”Fernandez 说。“如果你是一家正在开发强大人工智能系统的人工智能模型开发商，那么你需要向人们透明地说明你正在构建什么、模型的能力，以及该模型对各州关键基础设施的相关风险——所有这些都应该是重中之重。”
Where Anthropic Draws the Line
Anthropic 的底线在哪里
There are limits, however, to what Anthropic thinks states should do in the absence of federal regulation. In a policy document Anthropic published last month, the company recommends that governments should have a mechanism to block companies from deploying new AI models if it deems them unsafe. The suggestion is a bit ironic, given that the Trump administration recently told Anthropic to suspend access to its two most powerful AI models for foreign nationals, and the company wasn’t too big a fan of the move.
然而，在缺乏联邦监管的情况下，Anthropic 对各州应该做什么是有底线的。在 Anthropic 上个月发布的一份政策文件中，该公司建议政府应建立一种机制，在认为新人工智能模型不安全时，阻止公司部署这些模型。这个建议有点讽刺，因为特朗普政府最近要求 Anthropic 暂停向外国公民提供其两款最强大的人工智能模型的访问权限，而该公司对这一举措并不太买账。
Anthropic thinks the right to block unsafe AI model deployments should be reserved for the federal government, and not state lawmakers—though Fernandez notes it’s an evolving conversation. After the Trump administration sent an export control directive to Anthropic that led it to take its Mythos and Fable 5 models offline for everyone, the company wrote in a blog post that blocking AI model deployments should only happen through a fair, transparent evaluation process.
Anthropic 认为，阻止不安全人工智能模型部署的权利应保留给联邦政府，而不是州立法者——尽管 Fernandez 指出这是一个不断演变的对话。在特朗普政府向 Anthropic 发出出口管制指令，导致其将 Mythos 和 Fable 5 模型对所有人下线后，该公司在一篇博客文章中写道，阻止人工智能模型部署只能通过公平、透明的评估程序进行。