Sam Altman and AI’s decel debate

山姆·奥特曼与人工智能的“减速”之争

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently said that it may be time to “pace the rate of AI development” so that society can “harden around some of these new capability levels.” On the latest episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec, Sean O’Kane, and I discussed how Altman’s comments were probably prompted by a recent hack in which an OpenAI agent breached Hugging Face’s systems. OpenAI 首席执行官山姆·奥特曼（Sam Altman）最近表示，现在或许是时候“放缓人工智能的发展速度”了，以便让社会能够“适应这些新的能力水平”。在 TechCrunch 的《Equity》播客最新一期节目中，Kirsten Korosec、Sean O’Kane 和我讨论了奥特曼发表此番言论的原因，这很可能是由最近发生的一起黑客事件引发的——当时一个 OpenAI 的智能体侵入了 Hugging Face 的系统。

Sean noted that while a hack performed by an AI agent is novel, the hack itself was not “some new advanced thing.” “It was more like Nixon’s people breaking into Watergate than some real stealthy cyber-op, because it didn’t need to be, and it wasn’t instructed to be,” Sean said. “Hopefully, this is a sign that these companies will take this forward and be more careful about that stuff.” Sean 指出，虽然由人工智能智能体执行黑客攻击这一行为很新颖，但攻击本身并非“什么高深的新技术”。Sean 说：“这更像是尼克松的人闯入水门大厦，而不是什么真正的隐秘网络行动，因为它不需要那样做，也没有被指令那样做。希望这能成为一个信号，促使这些公司在未来更加谨慎地处理此类问题。”

Altman’s comments also gave me a chance to wonder about the usefulness of the whole accelerationist versus deceleration debate, because (yes, I’m about to quote myself) the framing “kind of suggests that there’s only one path” and “all we get to decide — inasmuch as we get to decide at all — is, do we speed up or do we slow down?” Keep reading for a preview of our conversation, edited for length and clarity. 奥特曼的言论也让我开始思考关于“加速主义”与“减速主义”的争论是否有意义，因为（是的，我要引用我自己的话了）这种框架“似乎暗示只有一条路可走”，而“我们所能决定的——如果我们确实能决定什么的话——仅仅是加速还是减速？”请继续阅读我们对话的预览，内容经过删减和润色。

Sean O’Kane: Maybe we’ve finally hit an inflection point here. I think a big driver of this has to be what we talked about last week, with one of OpenAI’s models breaking into Hugging Face’s data and apparently breaching a few other things around the internet, as well. [Altman’s] not calling for a pause, like we’ve seen some people in the tech industry try to do in the past. He was very careful with his words and saying, “Pace it.” And we’ll see how this holds. Any caution that we see some of these labs throw out there often gets reversed when the incentives push them forward to resume, full speed ahead. So I remain skeptical, big surprise. Sean O’Kane：也许我们终于到了一个转折点。我认为这背后的一个重要驱动因素就是我们上周讨论的内容：OpenAI 的一个模型侵入了 Hugging Face 的数据，显然还侵入了互联网上的其他一些东西。[奥特曼] 并没有像我们过去看到科技行业某些人那样呼吁“暂停”。他在措辞上非常谨慎，只说了“放缓节奏”。我们将拭目以待这是否能持续。每当我们看到这些实验室表现出某种谨慎时，一旦激励机制推动它们继续全速前进，这种谨慎往往就会被抛诸脑后。所以我依然持怀疑态度，这并不令人惊讶。

Kirsten Korosec: Now I will say this — [Altman] might have been careful with his words, but OpenAI and Anthropic did [support] a petition that does reflect what he did talk about. And I do agree with you, I think that a lot of this was very much triggered by Hugging Face. It probably spooked him and certainly a lot of people in the industry. The hard thing here is: How do you thread the needle or how does OpenAI thread the needle of continuing to generate revenue, raise money, or have a successful IPO, and quote unquote “pace development.” I don’t know if they can do that. I’ll be curious to see if they manage both. Kirsten Korosec：我得说——[奥特曼] 的措辞可能很谨慎，但 OpenAI 和 Anthropic 确实[支持]了一份请愿书，这反映了他所谈论的内容。我同意你的看法，我认为很大程度上是由 Hugging Face 事件引发的。这可能吓到了他，也确实吓到了行业里的许多人。难点在于：你如何走钢丝，或者说 OpenAI 如何在继续创造收入、筹集资金或成功进行 IPO 的同时，实现所谓的“放缓发展”。我不知道他们是否能做到。我很想看看他们能否两者兼顾。

Anthony Ha: One of the things I’ve been wrestling with is also this question of: Is acceleration [vs.] deceleration the right framework to be thinking about this? Because it kind of suggests that there’s only one path and we’re all stuck on this path. All we get to decide — inasmuch as we get to decide at all — is, do we speed up or do we slow down? As opposed to — again, I’m going to really torture this metaphor — but do we build different guardrails? Do we choose different paths? I’m just very resistant to this framework. As opposed to saying, “Okay, if we’re not happy about what models are doing right now, what else can we do? Is a slowdown, a pause, a stoppage, the only option?” And I don’t think it is. Anthony Ha：我一直在纠结的一个问题是：加速[与]减速真的是思考这个问题的正确框架吗？因为它似乎暗示只有一条路，而我们都被困在这条路上。我们所能决定的——如果我们确实能决定什么的话——仅仅是加速还是减速？而不是——再说一次，我又要强行使用这个比喻了——我们是否可以建立不同的护栏？我们是否可以选择不同的路径？我非常抵触这种框架。与其说“好吧，如果我们对模型现在的表现不满意，我们还能做什么？减速、暂停、停止是唯一的选择吗？”我认为并非如此。

One thing that I did want to emphasize again, because it’s been really interesting to see the level of alarm around this — this sense of, “What if we have these autonomous agents and models just running around hacking each other, trying to prevent hacks, it’s just all getting out of our control,” leading to all these broader debates about alignment that Rebecca Bellan did a great piece about. But it’s worth coming back to one of the points that we also wrote about at TechCrunch, that this specific hack — yes, it was caused by an OpenAI model, but it sounds like they just didn’t secure the testing site properly. In theory, this model should not have been able to get online. Now, of course, if you have a powerful misaligned AI, the risks of that human error go up dramatically. But it does start from just the fact that they didn’t secure things the way they should have. 有一点我想再次强调，因为看到围绕此事的恐慌程度非常有趣——那种“如果这些自主智能体和模型到处互相攻击，试图阻止黑客攻击，一切都失控了怎么办”的感觉，导致了关于对齐（alignment）的广泛讨论，Rebecca Bellan 对此写过一篇很棒的文章。但值得回到我们在 TechCrunch 上写过的一个观点：这次具体的黑客攻击——是的，它是由 OpenAI 的模型引起的，但听起来他们只是没有妥善保护测试站点。理论上，这个模型本不应该能够联网。当然，如果你拥有一个强大的、未对齐的人工智能，这种人为错误的风险会急剧上升。但问题的根源仅仅在于他们没有按照应有的方式保护好系统。

Sean: I think that’s right. I think your point is well taken in the sense of, we shouldn’t only think about this in some linear fashion and whether things are accelerating or decelerating. There’s a lot that could and should be said about just how responsible these companies are being. Lorenzo, one of our colleagues, also wrote a really good piece walking through how serious security researchers who pay attention to this stuff think that the hack really was. It really does seem like, on both sides of this hack, there were steps that probably should have been taken that would have prevented it. And one of the things that I found most interesting in that story was that some of the researchers were pointing out that what this model did was not some new advanced thing. It was really very human in the way that it thought about trying to break into trying — not to anthropomorphize, but the way that it thought about breaking into Hugging Face, and that it was also very loud and messy and wasn’t really trying to hide its tracks. It was more like Nixon’s people breaking into Watergate than some real stealthy cyber-op, because it didn’t need to be, and it wasn’t instructed to be. That should have been more easily preventable. And hopefully, this is a sign that these companies will take this forward and be more careful about that stuff. Sean：我认为你说得对。你的观点很有道理，我们不应该仅仅以线性的方式思考问题，即事情是在加速还是减速。关于这些公司到底有多负责，有很多话可以而且应该说。我们的同事 Lorenzo 也写了一篇非常好的文章，详细分析了关注此事的严肃安全研究人员认为这次黑客攻击到底有多严重。看起来，在这次攻击的双方，都有一些本应采取的措施可以防止它发生。我在那个故事中发现最有趣的一点是，一些研究人员指出，这个模型所做的事情并不是什么高深的新技术。它在思考如何入侵时表现得非常“人性化”——并不是要拟人化它，而是它思考入侵 Hugging Face 的方式，而且它非常吵闹、混乱，并没有真正试图隐藏踪迹。这更像是尼克松的人闯入水门大厦，而不是什么真正的隐秘网络行动，因为它不需要那样做，也没有被指令那样做。这本应更容易预防。希望这是一个信号，表明这些公司在未来会吸取教训，更加谨慎地处理这些事情。

I will say one other thing on the accel vs decel [debate.] I don’t know if this is the motivation, but you mentioned the IPO, Kirsten. I think it’s smart of Altman to be able to push this advantage that they have now, which is that [OpenAI is] not going to [the] markets next month, or two months from now. He’s even floated the idea of going in 2027 and that they only filed their confidential filing so that they have the option ready when they’re ready. So if you believe all of that, he has the ability to talk this talk in a way that Anthropic can’t. 关于加速与减速[之争]，我还要补充一点。我不知道这是否是他的动机，但 Kirsten 你提到了 IPO。我认为奥特曼能够利用他们现在的优势是很聪明的，那就是 [OpenAI] 不会在下个月或两个月后上市。他甚至提出了 2027 年上市的想法，并表示他们提交保密申请只是为了在准备好时有选择权。所以如果你相信这一切，他就有能力以 Anthropic 无法做到的方式发表这种言论。