Anthropic CEO outlines plan to slow AI development
Anthropic CEO outlines plan to slow AI development
Anthropic 首席执行官概述放缓人工智能发展的计划
We’ve been seeing increasingly dire warnings from AI researchers about the dangers of artificial intelligence, and even comments from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman that it may be time to “pace” AI development. But what would that actually look like? 我们一直看到人工智能研究人员对人工智能危险性的警告日益严峻，甚至连 OpenAI 首席执行官山姆·奥特曼（Sam Altman）也表示，现在可能是时候“放慢”人工智能的发展步伐了。但那实际上会是什么样子呢？
In a new blog post, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei not only echoed the call to “pace the frontier,” but also outlined three broad strategies for doing so. And he said Anthropic is “unilaterally committing” to one of them, with Altman chiming in to say OpenAI will follow suit. 在一篇新的博客文章中，Anthropic 首席执行官达里奥·阿莫代（Dario Amodei）不仅响应了“放慢前沿技术发展”的呼吁，还概述了实现这一目标的三个广泛策略。他表示，Anthropic 正“单方面承诺”执行其中一项策略，而奥特曼也随声附和，称 OpenAI 将效仿这一做法。
The debate over AI safety and alignment intensified this week after researcher Jacob Coxon wrote that he’s resigning from Anthropic over concerns that the leading AI companies are “gambling with our lives” while the people building the technology “earnestly believe it could kill us all by the end of the decade,” a claim repeated by others at Anthropic. 本周，关于人工智能安全与对齐的辩论愈演愈烈。此前，研究员雅各布·考克森（Jacob Coxon）发文称，他将从 Anthropic 辞职，理由是担心领先的人工智能公司正在“拿我们的生命赌博”，而开发这项技术的人“真诚地相信它可能会在本世纪末杀死我们所有人”——这一说法也得到了 Anthropic 其他员工的认同。
Amodei’s post didn’t explicitly mention Coxon’s resignation or his concerns, but the CEO wrote that two things convinced him it’s time to take a more cautious approach to AI development: the OpenAI-HuggingFace hack, and the fact that “AI has been advancing drastically faster” in recent months, particularly with its “growing ability to build the next generation of AI.” 阿莫代的文章没有明确提及考克森的辞职或他的担忧，但这位首席执行官写道，有两件事让他确信现在是时候对人工智能开发采取更谨慎的态度了：OpenAI-HuggingFace 的黑客攻击事件，以及近几个月来“人工智能进步速度极快”的事实，特别是它“构建下一代人工智能的能力正在不断增强”。
“We must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models,” Amodei wrote. “Progress will still seem fast, and we must make wise use of the time we gain.” “我们必须放慢提升人工智能模型能力的速度，”阿莫代写道。“进步看起来仍然会很快，我们必须明智地利用我们争取到的时间。”
Other AI executives seem to have reacted positively to Amodei’s post, with Altman writing, “I agree with Dario that we need to pace the frontier. This has been a primary topic of discussions we’ve had at OpenAI in recent weeks.” And SpaceX CEO Elon Musk posted, “Dario is right.” 其他人工智能高管似乎对阿莫代的文章反应积极，奥特曼写道：“我同意达里奥的观点，我们需要放慢前沿技术的发展。这是我们 OpenAI 最近几周讨论的主要议题。”SpaceX 首席执行官埃隆·马斯克（Elon Musk）也发帖称：“达里奥是对的。”
Amodei’s proposed first step would involve “embedded evaluators” from third-party organizations like METR — evaluators who can verify that AI companies are actually following their pacing and safety commitments and can also ensure that safety incidents get reported. (OpenAI was recently criticized for not reporting an incident where its AI agents took over a German wiki forum.) 阿莫代提出的第一步涉及来自 METR 等第三方组织的“嵌入式评估员”——这些评估员可以核实人工智能公司是否确实在遵守其进度和安全承诺，并确保安全事件得到报告。（OpenAI 最近因未报告其人工智能代理接管德国维基论坛的事件而受到批评。）
Amodei compared these evaluators to regulators who have been embedded with bank employees, and he said that inviting them in is “something Anthropic is unilaterally committing to (and calls on governments to require other frontier companies to match).” That means giving evaluators company badges, desks, and laptops, and providing access “mostly comparable to what internal risk assessment teams have,” with exceptions when required by law or contracts. 阿莫代将这些评估员比作嵌入银行员工队伍的监管机构，并表示邀请他们入驻是“Anthropic 单方面承诺要做的事情（并呼吁政府要求其他前沿公司效仿）”。这意味着要给评估员提供公司工牌、办公桌和笔记本电脑，并提供“与内部风险评估团队基本相当”的访问权限，法律或合同要求的情况除外。
Altman also said this was a “good idea” and said OpenAI would do the same: “We’ll have more to share soon.” 奥特曼也表示这是一个“好主意”，并称 OpenAI 将会采取同样的做法：“我们很快会有更多消息分享。”
Next, Amodei called for the leading AI companies “within democratic countries” to coordinate “common safety standards as well as limits on the rate of unchecked AI progress.” Such coordination might seem unlikely, because these companies are reportedly worried that a coordinated pause could lead to antitrust scrutiny. 接下来，阿莫代呼吁“民主国家内”的领先人工智能公司协调制定“共同的安全标准以及对不受限制的人工智能进步速度的限制”。这种协调似乎不太可能实现，因为据报道，这些公司担心协调一致的暂停可能会导致反垄断审查。
Amodei alluded to that concern in his post, writing that “for antitrust reasons, it’s helpful for the US government to mediate or at least enable these discussions — they don’t need to participate, but do need to issue a narrow waiver for certain kinds of safety conversations.” 阿莫代在文中提到了这一担忧，他写道：“出于反垄断的考虑，美国政府进行调解或至少促成这些讨论是有帮助的——他们不需要参与其中，但确实需要为某些类型的安全对话发布狭义的豁免。”
Amodei also acknowledged the specter of Chinese AI dominance that’s often raised as an argument against slowing development. But he said that if the US government and tech companies take steps like refusing to sell powerful chips or semiconductor manufacturing equipment to Chinese companies, as well as cracking down on model distillation, they could “slow China’s progress enough to widen America’s lead significantly over the next 3–5 years.” 阿莫代还承认了中国人工智能主导地位的阴影，这经常被作为反对放缓发展的论据。但他表示，如果美国政府和科技公司采取诸如拒绝向中国公司出售高性能芯片或半导体制造设备，以及打击模型蒸馏等措施，他们可以“放慢中国的进步速度，从而在未来 3-5 年内显著扩大美国的领先优势”。
Lastly, Amodei called for “global coordination,” where the United States and its allies “attempt to coordinate with authoritarian governments, to the extent this is possible.” Amodei said this would mean “cooperation with China,” and he admitted that there are “stark limits on what can be achieved,” but he still suggested there might be opportunities for agreement, even if it’s just “prohibiting certain narrow and obviously dangerous uses of AI, such as using AI for the production of biological weapons or allowing users to do so.” 最后，阿莫代呼吁进行“全球协调”，即美国及其盟友“在可能的情况下，尝试与威权政府进行协调”。阿莫代表示，这意味着“与中国合作”，他承认“能实现的目标存在严格限制”，但他仍然认为可能存在达成协议的机会，即使只是“禁止某些狭隘且明显危险的人工智能用途，例如利用人工智能制造生物武器或允许用户这样做”。
With Amodei’s past willingness to acknowledge AI’s potential dangers, and with the company’s relative openness to certain forms of regulation, some AI boosters have already criticized him as a doomer whose comments have fed the current AI backlash. 鉴于阿莫代过去愿意承认人工智能的潜在危险，以及该公司对某些形式的监管持相对开放的态度，一些人工智能支持者已经批评他是“末日论者”，认为他的言论助长了当前对人工智能的抵制情绪。
In response, Amodei said he’s tried to offer a “balanced perspective” and argued that the backlash is “fundamentally a crisis of trust,” as people have become skeptical of tech companies, the tech industry, and the government. 对此，阿莫代表示他试图提供一种“平衡的视角”，并辩称这种抵制“从根本上是一场信任危机”，因为人们对科技公司、科技行业和政府已经产生了怀疑。
Industry critics have also been skeptical about these apocalyptic AI warnings, suggesting that they’re a distraction from the harm that the technology is already causing. Journalist Brian Merchant, for example, wrote that he has yet to see “a credible, step-by-step documentation of how exactly AI might move from self-recursively improving AI to killing every single human on the planet”; he also suggested that proposals similar to Amodei’s “would likely only wind up serving Anthropic and OpenAI; it’s what regulatory capture looks like in action.” 行业批评人士也对这些人工智能末日警告持怀疑态度，认为它们转移了人们对该技术已经造成的伤害的注意力。例如，记者布莱恩·莫钱特（Brian Merchant）写道，他尚未看到“关于人工智能究竟如何从自我递归改进演变为杀死地球上每一个人的一份可信的、循序渐进的文档”；他还指出，类似于阿莫代的提议“最终可能只会服务于 Anthropic 和 OpenAI；这就是监管俘获的实际表现。”
In his new post, Amodei wrote that he continues “to believe that AI can enormously improve the quality of human life.” “My desire to achieve these benefits is undimmed,” he said. “But the benefits will only be achieved if we build the technology in the right way, and — so long as we use the time we gain well — it is worth taking unusually deliberate care to get it right.” 在他的新文章中，阿莫代写道，他仍然“相信人工智能可以极大地改善人类的生活质量”。“我实现这些利益的愿望丝毫未减，”他说。“但只有当我们以正确的方式构建这项技术时，这些利益才能实现，而且——只要我们善用争取到的时间——花格外谨慎的心思去做好它是值得的。”