Candidates Are Signing a Pact Promising Action on Data Centers and AI Safety
Candidates Are Signing a Pact Promising Action on Data Centers and AI Safety
候选人签署协议，承诺对数据中心和人工智能安全采取行动
Dan Osborn was finishing up his fourth town hall last Sunday, he says, when a “hardcore MAGA” guy approached him. Osborn, who is running for the US Senate in Nebraska as an independent against Republican incumbent Pete Ricketts, said that he and the man didn’t have much common ground—at first. 丹·奥斯本（Dan Osborn）说，上周日他在结束第四场市政厅会议时，一名“铁杆MAGA”（支持特朗普）的人走近了他。奥斯本正以独立候选人身份竞选内布拉斯加州联邦参议员，挑战共和党现任议员皮特·里基茨（Pete Ricketts）。他说，起初他和那个人并没有太多共同点。
“Then I said, ‘Hey, what’s your take on AI and data centers?’” Osborn says. “Boy, right away, we were in lockstep, 100 percent agreement.” “然后我说，‘嘿，你对人工智能和数据中心怎么看？’”奥斯本说，“天哪，我们立刻就达成了一致，百分之百的共识。”
Osborn is one of more than 15 politicians running for office in states across the country who have signed on to the AI Pact, a set of five promises around regulating both data centers and AI itself. As concerns about data centers have exploded in the midterm cycle, politicians are scrambling to respond to voters’ worries about their environmental impacts, the secrecy surrounding their construction, and the corporate power behind them. The new pledge is intended, according to its website, to provide “a needed baseline to ensure a humanity-first future.” 奥斯本是全美各地竞选公职的15多位政客之一，他们签署了“人工智能公约”（AI Pact）。该公约包含五项承诺，旨在监管数据中心和人工智能本身。随着中期选举周期中对数据中心的担忧激增，政客们正忙于回应选民对环境影响、建设过程中的不透明性以及其背后的企业权力的担忧。据其网站介绍，这项新承诺旨在提供“确保以人为本的未来所需的基准”。
The pact is an offshoot of the Political Integrity Project, an anti-money-in-politics group that has a similar pledge for candidates. Daniel Lobo-Lewis, one of the founders, says that he and his cofounders came up with the five promises in the AI Pact—which include advocating for mandatory safety reviews for AI models, supporting policies that would create an AI dividend for workers, and ensuring that consumers and companies can sue over harms caused by models—by networking with AI safety groups and other political organizations working on AI legislation. (Funding for the AI Pact is provided by a progressive political action committee, and no AI safety groups or tech companies are directly funding the initiative, Lobo-Lewis says.) 该公约是“政治诚信项目”（Political Integrity Project）的分支，这是一个反对金钱政治的组织，也为候选人提供类似的承诺。创始人之一丹尼尔·洛博-刘易斯（Daniel Lobo-Lewis）表示，他和联合创始人通过与人工智能安全组织及其他致力于人工智能立法的政治组织建立联系，制定了公约中的五项承诺。这些承诺包括：倡导对人工智能模型进行强制性安全审查、支持为工人创造人工智能红利的政策，以及确保消费者和公司能够就模型造成的损害提起诉讼。（洛博-刘易斯表示，该公约的资金由一个进步派政治行动委员会提供，没有任何人工智能安全组织或科技公司直接资助该倡议。）
All of the pledge’s current signers, save for Osborn, are Democrats, although Lobo-Lewis emphasizes that it would welcome Republican signers. Some of the signers have built their campaigns around opposition to data centers and Big Tech, like Representative Justin Pearson, a Tennessee Democrat who rose to national prominence pushing back against pollution from SpaceX’s data centers, and Will Lawrence, a left candidate who won a competitive primary in Michigan in a district rife with data center opposition. 除了奥斯本，目前所有签署该承诺的人都是民主党人，尽管洛博-刘易斯强调，他们欢迎共和党人签署。一些签署者将竞选活动建立在反对数据中心和大型科技公司的基础上，例如田纳西州民主党众议员贾斯汀·皮尔森（Justin Pearson），他因抵制SpaceX数据中心造成的污染而声名鹊起；还有在密歇根州一个数据中心反对声浪高涨的选区赢得初选的左翼候选人威尔·劳伦斯（Will Lawrence）。
The pledge does not call for an explicit moratorium on data centers but rather to “support policies that would ban tax breaks, backroom deals, and excessive energy usage for data centers.” This kind of measured language is intentional, Lobo-Lewis says, and is meant to be a “floor” for candidates to sign on to—especially those with strong ties to labor. (Several labor unions have recently reaffirmed their support for data center construction.) 该承诺并未明确要求暂停建设数据中心，而是“支持禁止为数据中心提供税收减免、幕后交易和过度能源使用的政策”。洛博-刘易斯表示，这种审慎的措辞是有意为之，旨在为候选人（尤其是与劳工组织关系密切的候选人）提供一个签署的“底线”。（几个工会最近重申了对数据中心建设的支持。）
“Candidates in swing seats are laser-focused on affordability, creating jobs, and lowering costs,” says Alexander McCoy, a progressive strategist working on AI issues. “Some of them don’t necessarily want to say no to the possibility that a data center project can help with those things. At the same time, AI is expected to be incredibly disruptive unless guardrails are put in place. So is it worth it to create some construction jobs now, at the cost of destroying the opportunities available to other workers in your district?” “摇摆选区的候选人高度关注负担能力、创造就业机会和降低成本，”致力于人工智能问题的进步派战略家亚历山大·麦考伊（Alexander McCoy）说。“他们中的一些人并不一定想拒绝数据中心项目可能带来的好处。与此同时，除非设置护栏，否则人工智能预计将具有极大的破坏性。那么，以牺牲本选区其他工人的机会为代价，现在创造一些建筑工作岗位是否值得？”
When I asked Osborn, a Navy veteran and labor leader, about where he falls on calling for a moratorium, he told me that data centers can provide “a lot of infrastructure and a lot of jobs.” But Osborn, who’s campaigning in rural areas where worried farmers are concerned about losing their land to development, also says that Congress needs to step in to regulate data centers. 当我问及身为海军退伍军人和劳工领袖的奥斯本对“暂停建设”的立场时，他告诉我，数据中心可以提供“大量基础设施和大量就业机会”。但奥斯本在农村地区竞选，那里的农民担心因开发而失去土地，他也表示国会需要介入以监管数据中心。
“We’ve got to get this right,” he says. “Calling a time-out right now doesn’t seem like a horrible thing.” “我们必须把这件事做好，”他说，“现在叫停一下似乎并不是一件坏事。”
Osborn’s position is increasingly common across the political spectrum. In recent weeks, governors who have previously been all in on data center development, like Pennsylvania Democrat Josh Shapiro and Texas Republican Greg Abbott, have taken major steps to assure voters that they are regulating data center development. (Abbott, who said last weekend that data centers have “dug their own grave” in his state, initiated a temporary moratorium on their construction this month.) 奥斯本的立场在整个政治光谱中正变得越来越普遍。最近几周，此前全力支持数据中心发展的州长们，如宾夕法尼亚州民主党人乔什·夏皮罗（Josh Shapiro）和德克萨斯州共和党人格雷格·阿博特（Greg Abbott），都采取了重大举措向选民保证他们正在监管数据中心的发展。（阿博特上周末表示，数据中心在他的州已经“自掘坟墓”，并于本月启动了对其建设的临时暂停令。）
Some of the other promises listed in the AI Pact are, similarly, political positions that leaders of both parties have recently entertained. As WIRED has reported, the White House is currently developing a voluntary safety review for AI models, while Trump has met with AI executives on the idea of developing a worker dividend for AI profits—an idea pitched to him, reportedly, by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. The Trump administration has also encouraged AI companies, governors, and utilities to sign on to a voluntary pledge to protect ratepayers from electricity increases due to data centers. “人工智能公约”中列出的其他一些承诺，同样是两党领导人最近考虑过的政治立场。正如《连线》（WIRED）所报道的那样，白宫目前正在为人工智能模型制定自愿安全审查，而特朗普则与人工智能高管会面，讨论为人工智能利润制定工人红利的想法——据报道，这个想法是由OpenAI首席执行官萨姆·奥特曼（Sam Altman）向他提出的。特朗普政府还鼓励人工智能公司、州长和公用事业公司签署一项自愿承诺，以保护纳税人免受因数据中心导致的电费上涨的影响。
Lobo-Lewis says that the pact provides assurances for much stronger protections, and he dismisses the White House’s actions on AI as just lip service. “I can’t imagine [the Trump administration] would actually want to do mandatory safety reviews for models, or nationwide tax breaks for data center construction,” he says. Abbott’s opponent in the Texas gubernatorial race, state representative Gina Hinojosa, is a signer of the pact; she has gone on the offensive against Abbott’s moratorium, claiming that he is not doing enough to ensure “that the people will be protected.” 洛博-刘易斯表示，该公约提供了更强有力保护的保证，并认为白宫在人工智能方面的行动只是空谈。“我无法想象（特朗普政府）真的会愿意对模型进行强制性安全审查，或者在全国范围内取消数据中心建设的税收减免，”他说。阿博特在德克萨斯州州长竞选中的对手、州众议员吉娜·伊诺霍萨（Gina Hinojosa）是该公约的签署人；她对阿博特的暂停令发起了攻击，声称他做得还不够，无法确保“人民得到保护”。
“These data centers are supporting an AI industry that has no rules. It threatens our jobs, livelihood, health, safety, and well-being. As AI develops this fast, we need basic ground rules—we need laws to protect Texans. We should not be replacing teachers with AI. We should not be replacing nurses with AI,” Hinojosa tells WIRED. “AI can be a useful tool, but it has to be used responsibly, and right now we don’t have the guardrails to make sure it is.” “这些数据中心正在支持一个没有任何规则的人工智能行业。它威胁到我们的工作、生计、健康、安全和福祉。随着人工智能发展如此迅速，我们需要基本的准则——我们需要法律来保护德克萨斯人。我们不应该用人工智能取代教师。我们不应该用人工智能取代护士，”伊诺霍萨告诉《连线》。“人工智能可以是一个有用的工具，但它必须被负责任地使用，而现在我们还没有确保这一点的护栏。”
The pledge comes as the political class debates whether voters’ worries about data centers are related to their concerns about AI—and indeed whether they should be. 这项承诺出台之际，政界正在辩论选民对数据中心的担忧是否与他们对人工智能的担忧有关——以及他们是否应该有关联。