Andreessen Horowitz is shaping AI policy — while investing in a bleak vision of the future

Andreessen Horowitz 正在塑造人工智能政策——同时投资于一个黯淡的未来

The firm’s investment portfolio is full of companies that have exploited legal loopholes, created disturbing products, and broken the law. 该公司的投资组合中充斥着利用法律漏洞、制造令人不安的产品以及触犯法律的企业。

Marc Andreessen wants to shape US AI policy. The venture capital firm he co-founded and runs, Andreessen Horowitz (abbreviated “a16z”), is a major player in the development of new tech startups. These startups include: 马克·安德森（Marc Andreessen）想要塑造美国的 AI 政策。他联合创立并运营的风险投资公司 Andreessen Horowitz（简称“a16z”）是新兴科技初创企业发展中的重要参与者。这些初创企业包括：

• A bot farm of fake accounts, tricking people and social media platforms into thinking AI-generated ads are posted by real people
• 一个虚假账号机器人农场，诱骗用户和社交媒体平台，使其认为 AI 生成的广告是由真人发布的
• An AI company that wants to normalize cheating on dates, job interviews, and tests with AI
• 一家希望将利用 AI 在约会、求职面试和考试中作弊行为常态化的 AI 公司
• AI companion apps linked to suicide and disturbing behavior toward children
• 与自杀及针对儿童的令人不安的行为有关联的 AI 伴侣应用
• A platform hosting thousands of deepfake models — 96% targeting identifiable women — that have been used to create AI-generated content sexualizing children
• 一个托管数千个深度伪造（deepfake）模型的平台——其中 96% 针对可识别的女性——这些模型已被用于制作将儿童性化的 AI 生成内容
• Gambling platforms that attempt to subvert existing laws and target vulnerable users
• 试图颠覆现有法律并针对弱势用户的赌博平台
• Fintech companies implicated in fraud and illegality
• 卷入欺诈和非法活动的金融科技公司

Many of these companies knew the rules and broke them anyway — or designed products specifically to exploit gaps in consumer protection. The firms profited, and the public paid the costs. 这些公司中的许多在明知规则的情况下依然选择违规，或者专门设计产品来利用消费者保护方面的漏洞。这些公司获利了，而公众却承担了代价。

There’s a growing public desire to rein in tech companies and regulate AI, so a16z is spending tens of millions of dollars to shape the development of AI policy. The firm helped launch a $100 million super PAC, saw former partners take key government roles, and successfully pushed for an executive order attempting to undermine state AI laws. The partners want to set the rules of the road, even as they’re already driving recklessly. 公众对约束科技公司和监管 AI 的呼声日益高涨，因此 a16z 正投入数千万美元来塑造 AI 政策的发展。该公司协助发起了 1 亿美元的超级政治行动委员会（Super PAC），其前合伙人担任了政府关键职务，并成功推动了一项试图削弱州级 AI 法律的行政命令。这些合伙人想要制定道路规则，尽管他们自己已经在鲁莽驾驶。

What follows is The Midas Project’s survey of 18 of Andreessen Horowitz’s most notorious investments. This isn’t a comprehensive overview of the firm’s larger portfolio, but it indicates a pattern of behavior — one comprising hundreds of millions of dollars of investment by a16z. 以下是“迈达斯计划”（The Midas Project）对 Andreessen Horowitz 最臭名昭著的 18 项投资的调查。这并非该公司庞大投资组合的全面概述，但它揭示了一种行为模式——一种涉及 a16z 数亿美元投资的模式。

These investments reveal the lines that a16z is willing to cross and how the lax regulatory environment that they favor would benefit the firm’s bottom line. A16z did not respond to a request to comment for this report. 这些投资揭示了 a16z 愿意跨越的底线，以及他们所青睐的宽松监管环境将如何使公司获利。A16z 未回应本报告的置评请求。

Deception and manipulation

欺骗与操纵

A16z has invested in products designed for mass deception. Even if these tactics don’t explicitly violate the law, they can be corrosive to society. A16z 投资了旨在进行大规模欺骗的产品。即使这些策略没有明确违反法律，它们也可能对社会具有腐蚀性。

As technology like advanced AI improves — making it much easier to fake almost anything — decision makers may want to enact new laws or policies that mitigate the social costs. And if a16z gets its way, we might never update the rulebook. 随着先进 AI 等技术的进步——使得伪造几乎任何东西都变得更加容易——决策者可能希望制定新的法律或政策来减轻社会成本。如果让 a16z 得逞，我们可能永远无法更新规则手册。

Doublespeed

Doublespeed

A16z invested $1 million in October 2025 via Speedrun. Doublespeed sells the capacity to trick everyday people, and social media platforms themselves, into thinking AI-generated ads are genuine human content. A16z 于 2025 年 10 月通过 Speedrun 投资了 100 万美元。Doublespeed 出售一种能力，即诱骗普通人和社交媒体平台本身，使其认为 AI 生成的广告是真实的真人内容。

Here are some select quotes from the company’s promotional video: “We run the only VC-backed bot farm in America. Because why let Russia and China have all the fun?” “We didn’t break the internet. It was broken to begin with. But now we’re killing it entirely.” “Welcome to the dead internet.” 以下是该公司宣传视频中的部分引述：“我们运营着美国唯一一家有风投支持的机器人农场。因为为什么要让俄罗斯和中国独享乐趣呢？”“我们没有破坏互联网。它本来就是坏的。但现在我们正在彻底终结它。”“欢迎来到死气沉沉的互联网。”

A16z’s Speedrun program invested $1 million in Doublespeed, a company that was recently covered in a blistering article by 404 Media, which reported: “Andreessen Horowitz is funding a company that clearly violates the inauthentic behavior policies of every major social media platform.” A16z 的 Speedrun 项目向 Doublespeed 投资了 100 万美元，该公司最近被 404 Media 的一篇尖锐文章报道，文中称：“Andreessen Horowitz 正在资助一家明显违反了每个主流社交媒体平台‘非真实行为’政策的公司。”

Excerpts from Doublespeed’s website

Doublespeed 网站摘录

The company’s business model relies on deception, designed to make social media platforms and their users believe AI-generated images and videos depict real people. How do they do this? By selling access to “phone farms” that create and manage thousands of fake social media accounts to manipulate engagement metrics. The company’s website is explicit, saying its product “mimics” the behavior of real people on social media in order to “get our content to appear human to the algorithms.” 该公司的商业模式依赖于欺骗，旨在让社交媒体平台及其用户相信 AI 生成的图像和视频描绘的是真人。他们是如何做到的？通过出售对“手机农场”的访问权限，这些农场创建并管理数千个虚假社交媒体账号来操纵互动指标。该公司网站明确表示，其产品“模仿”了社交媒体上真人的行为，以便“让我们的内容在算法看来像是人类发布的”。

“Yes, we built a phone farm (and its pretty sick),” said Doublespeed founder Zuhair Lakhani on X. The purpose was “replacing human creators with ai, mainly used for marketing.” “是的，我们建立了一个手机农场（而且它非常酷），”Doublespeed 创始人 Zuhair Lakhani 在 X 上说道。其目的是“用 AI 取代人类创作者，主要用于营销。”

They use thousands of real phones to pull this off because social media platforms like TikTok have policies against and methods to detect the mass generation and deployment of fake accounts. The company has the accounts imitate human behavior before posting deceptive content. This means the fake accounts search specific keywords, scroll their “For You” pages, and use AI to analyze screenshots of content to determine whether to “repost it, comment on it” or “swipe away.” 他们使用数千部真实手机来实现这一目标，因为像 TikTok 这样的社交媒体平台有针对大规模生成和部署虚假账号的政策和检测方法。该公司让这些账号在发布欺骗性内容之前模仿人类行为。这意味着虚假账号会搜索特定关键词、滚动浏览“推荐”页面，并使用 AI 分析内容截图，以决定是否“转发、评论”或“划走”。

This is all designed to circumvent platforms’ restrictions on fake content and then serve that fake content to unsuspecting real people. 这一切都是为了规避平台对虚假内容的限制，然后将这些虚假内容推送给毫无戒心的真实用户。

In a podcast interview, Lakhani offered details about one of the company’s clients: “They’re hitting like the old person niche, which is what I think is like the best niche to hit with AI content.” Polling and research have found that older people are less likely to say they’ve heard about AI and more likely to fall for AI-generated misinformation. 在一次播客采访中，Lakhani 提供了关于该公司其中一位客户的细节：“他们瞄准的是老年人群体，我认为这是用 AI 内容进行营销的最佳利基市场。”民意调查和研究发现，老年人不太可能听说过 AI，也更容易相信 AI 生成的虚假信息。

Lakhani drew a parallel between this client and his prior work producing AI-generated marketing content at scale: “It was all like old person niche stuff. So like all supplements that would, you know, target old people, and that’s when the commission would go crazy.” Lakhani 将这位客户与他之前大规模生产 AI 生成营销内容的工作进行了类比：“那全都是针对老年人的东西。比如所有那些针对老年人的补品，那时候佣金高得离谱。”

“Those brands would tell you to do like, you know, make some like extremely crazy claims,” he said, “especially with supplements.” “那些品牌会让你去，你知道的，做出一些极其疯狂的声明，”他说，“尤其是在补品方面。”