Mark Zuckerberg’s AI manifesto is exactly why people don’t like AI
Mark Zuckerberg’s AI manifesto is exactly why people don’t like AI
马克·扎克伯格的 AI 宣言,恰恰解释了为什么人们不喜欢人工智能
On Monday, Mark Zuckerberg published a 6,500-word manifesto about personal AI, largely about the possibilities for the “personal superintelligence” systems Meta AI is building. The ideas in the post aren’t totally new. A version of the essay ran in the Wall Street Journal a few months ago, and he’s talked about them on Meta earnings calls before. But this is probably the most detailed version he’s shared. 周一,马克·扎克伯格发布了一篇关于个人 AI 的 6500 字宣言,主要探讨了 Meta AI 正在构建的“个人超级智能”系统的可能性。文中的观点并非全然新鲜。几个月前,《华尔街日报》曾刊登过该文章的一个版本,他此前也在 Meta 的财报电话会议上谈论过这些内容。但这可能是他分享过的最详尽的版本。
I’ve seen it described as an anti-doomer essay, but that’s not quite right. It’s more of a description of why Mark Zuckerberg is personally excited about the ways AI is going to change society. Yet, even as Zuckerberg tries to paint a picture of the wonderful future abundant superintelligence will bring, he keeps reminding us of all the ways it’s likely to go wrong. 我看到有人将其描述为一篇“反末日论”文章,但这并不准确。它更多是描述了为什么扎克伯格本人对 AI 将如何改变社会感到兴奋。然而,尽管扎克伯格试图描绘超级智能将带来的美好未来,但他却不断提醒我们,它可能会在哪些方面出错。
I find AI exciting too — that’s why I keep writing about it — but a lot of the public sees AI as creepy and unpleasant. So it’s worth pinning down exactly what’s happening here, and why Zuckerberg isn’t doing the industry any favors with essays like this. 我也觉得 AI 很令人兴奋——这就是我不断撰写相关文章的原因——但公众中有许多人认为 AI 令人毛骨悚然且不快。因此,有必要明确这里到底发生了什么,以及为什么扎克伯格发表这样的文章对整个行业并无益处。
Social media is still a sensitive topic in the tech industry, and we don’t have the space here to litigate the relative merits of every single complaint people have about Facebook. Suffice it to say, Facebook as a product and Zuckerberg as a person are both unpopular with the U.S. public. A recent survey found that 64% of Americans believe social media has been harmful to democracy and a similar percentage believe it should be more heavily regulated, numbers that cut evenly across partisan lines. Just this weekend, a court fined the company $567 million for being harmful to children. The vibes are bad. 社交媒体在科技行业仍是一个敏感话题,我们没有篇幅去逐一辩论人们对 Facebook 的每一项投诉。简而言之,Facebook 作为产品和扎克伯格作为个人,在美国公众中都不受欢迎。最近的一项调查发现,64% 的美国人认为社交媒体对民主造成了伤害,同样比例的人认为应该对其进行更严格的监管,这些数据在不同党派间分布均匀。就在这个周末,法院因该公司对儿童造成伤害而对其处以 5.67 亿美元的罚款。舆论氛围很糟糕。
I don’t bring this up to imply that Zuckerberg should withdraw to the wilderness in shame — but the fallout from social media is one of the central reasons we’re now seeing so much anxiety about the social impact of AI. Whether it’s fair or not, the public does not trust tech executives to make sure new technologies like this have a positive impact on society. Instead of acknowledging that and trying to win back their trust, this essay demonstrates over and over again how the trust was lost in the first place. 我提到这些并不是暗示扎克伯格应该羞愧地隐居山林,但社交媒体带来的负面影响,正是我们现在对 AI 社会影响感到如此焦虑的核心原因之一。无论公平与否,公众并不信任科技高管能确保此类新技术对社会产生积极影响。这篇文章不仅没有承认这一点并试图赢回信任,反而反复证明了当初的信任是如何丧失的。
A large part of the essay is devoted to hazy generalities about intelligence — very similar to the hazy generalities Zuckerberg and Dorsey used to give about free speech. Here is one for instance: As everyone gains more powerful tools, each person will become more capable of shaping the future, not less. … People and institutions with competing interests naturally check and balance each other to lead towards positive outcomes. The best and most realistic path to building a positive AI future is by delivering superintelligence to everyone. 文章很大一部分篇幅都在谈论关于智能的模糊概论——这与扎克伯格和多尔西过去谈论言论自由时的模糊概论非常相似。举个例子:随着每个人获得更强大的工具,每个人塑造未来的能力都会增强,而不是减弱……利益相互冲突的人和机构自然会相互制约和平衡,从而导向积极的结果。构建积极 AI 未来的最好且最现实的途径,就是将超级智能交付给每个人。
I guess? I can think of a few examples of conflicting interests leading to bad outcomes, but let’s put that aside. The weirder thing is that this is being presented as an earnest philosophical conclusion, instead of a specific product called “personal intelligence” that Meta is bringing to market. If you’re already inclined to distrust this person, you might worry that they’re writing all this to convince themselves that nothing bad can happen. 是吗?我能想到不少利益冲突导致糟糕结果的例子,但暂且不提。更奇怪的是,这被呈现为一个真诚的哲学结论,而不是 Meta 即将推向市场的名为“个人智能”的具体产品。如果你本来就倾向于不信任这个人,你可能会担心他写下这一切只是为了说服自己:什么坏事都不会发生。
That feeling got more intense for me when Zuckerberg got to the specific examples, many of which are alarmingly out of touch with the reality of how AI tools are being used. For instance, this is Zuckerberg’s take on AI in education: Everyone will have a personalized tutor and coach with a PhD in every subject and unlimited patience to help you learn anything you want. Students will have extra help in areas they need it that is currently only available to those whose parents can pay. Adults will have a superintelligent learning assistant that knows exactly how to teach you new job skills, new languages, new hobbies, or anything else you’re interested in. 当扎克伯格谈到具体例子时,这种感觉对我来说更加强烈了,其中许多例子与 AI 工具的使用现状严重脱节,令人担忧。例如,这是扎克伯格对 AI 在教育领域的看法:每个人都将拥有一位个性化的导师和教练,他们在每个学科都拥有博士学位,并有无限的耐心帮助你学习任何你想学的东西。学生们将在他们需要的领域获得额外的帮助,而这些帮助目前只有那些父母付得起钱的人才能获得。成年人将拥有一位超级智能的学习助手,它确切地知道如何教你新的工作技能、新的语言、新的爱好或任何你感兴趣的东西。
Of course, the product Zuckerberg is describing already exists: This is a consumer chatbot like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. These tools really are helpful if you want to learn about a certain topic, but the main way they’re used in education is to avoid learning, since your personalized tutor can do your homework and write your assigned essay — and because there’s no robust watermarking system in place, there’s no way for teachers to be sure which essays were generated with AI. 当然,扎克伯格所描述的产品已经存在:这就是像 ChatGPT、Claude 和 Gemini 这样的消费级聊天机器人。如果你想学习某个主题,这些工具确实很有帮助,但在教育领域,它们的主要用途却是逃避学习,因为你的“个性化导师”可以帮你做作业、写论文——而且由于目前没有健全的水印系统,老师们无法确定哪些论文是由 AI 生成的。
This is a pretty low-stakes example of AI harms, but it’s a real thing that is happening right now. Sometimes you design a technology to do good things and it has unintended consequences that make things worse. And the fact that one of the most powerful people in the world refuses to acknowledge this can make people understandably nervous! 这是一个 AI 危害中影响较小的例子,但它确实正在发生。有时你设计一种技术是为了做好事,但它却产生了让情况变得更糟的意外后果。而世界上最有权势的人之一拒绝承认这一点,这难免让人感到紧张!
Zuckerberg also gives an example of how AI will change the legal system for the better: As a thought experiment, imagine only one person had a superintelligent lawyer. They would have an unfair advantage in court — even if they were wrong on the merits. That would lead to a worse society. But now imagine everyone has a superintelligent lawyer. In this case, justice would be carried out much more fairly and efficiently than it is today when there is often an imbalance in skills and resources in litigation. 扎克伯格还举了一个例子,说明 AI 将如何改善法律体系:作为一个思想实验,想象只有一个人拥有超级智能律师。即使他们在案情上是错的,他们在法庭上也会拥有不公平的优势。那会导致一个更糟糕的社会。但现在想象每个人都有一个超级智能律师。在这种情况下,正义将比今天更公平、更高效地得到执行,因为今天在诉讼中往往存在技能和资源的不平衡。
Again, that’s a loaded example. Sure, access to legal AI might lead to a more just society, but it also might add more complexity to the bureaucratic hellscape that already exists. Or it might unleash a new wave of vexatious litigants that just clog up the works with the legal equivalent of spam. It’s hard to feel calm about any of this stuff, and the fact that Zuckerberg isn’t worried makes me more worried. 同样,这是一个带有预设倾向的例子。当然,使用法律 AI 可能会带来一个更公正的社会,但它也可能给现有的官僚地狱增加更多复杂性。或者,它可能会引发新一波无理取闹的诉讼,用法律上的“垃圾邮件”堵塞司法系统。对这一切感到平静很难,而扎克伯格并不担心的事实,反而让我更加担心。
In other places, even descriptions of Meta’s existing business practices start to take on an oddly abstract character. For instance, this is how Zuckerberg describes Meta’s commitment to a freemium model: Everyone will have free or affordable access to these tools. … We will offer free versions that will be accessible to billions of people. For those who want to pay to use more compute, there will be a dynamic auction mechanism th 在其他地方,即使是对 Meta 现有商业实践的描述,也开始带有一种奇怪的抽象色彩。例如,扎克伯格是这样描述 Meta 对“免费增值”模式的承诺的:每个人都将免费或以可负担的价格使用这些工具……我们将提供可供数十亿人使用的免费版本。对于那些想要付费使用更多算力的人,将有一个动态拍卖机制……