Is the AI industry really ready to slow down?

人工智能行业真的准备好放慢脚步了吗？

We’re seeing a big debate over AI safety and a potential slowdown, as Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei recently published a plan to “pace the frontier,” while Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has publicly echoed President Donald Trump’s claims that the AI backlash is a hoax and regulation is unnecessary. 关于人工智能安全和潜在的行业放缓，目前正引发激烈的辩论。Anthropic 首席执行官 Dario Amodei 最近发布了一项旨在“为前沿技术设定节奏”的计划，而英伟达（Nvidia）首席执行官黄仁勋则公开附和唐纳德·特朗普总统的说法，称针对人工智能的抵制是一场骗局，监管是不必要的。

On the latest episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec, Sean O’Kane, and I discussed whether executives like Amodei and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman are serious about wanting to slow down. While I was surprised at how many industry leaders seemed to throw their support behind Amodei’s plan, Sean noted that the plan seemed short on details. 在 TechCrunch 的《Equity》播客最新一期节目中，Kirsten Korosec、Sean O’Kane 和我讨论了像 Amodei 和 OpenAI 首席执行官 Sam Altman 这样的高管是否真的想要放慢脚步。虽然我对这么多行业领袖似乎支持 Amodei 的计划感到惊讶，但 Sean 指出，该计划似乎缺乏细节。

And when Kristen asked whether a combination of existing regulation and the workings of the free market could provide enough safeguards on their own, Sean replied, “We have a federal government at the moment that certainly does not seem eager to enforce regulations broadly speaking, let alone specifically speaking here.” Plus, he argued, “There does not seem like there is a ton of consumer choice driving this market, in the sense of, okay, if one of these companies does something really bad, then they will see an impact in how many cancellations there are or whatever.” 当 Kristen 询问现有的监管与自由市场机制的结合是否足以提供足够的保障时，Sean 回答道：“目前的联邦政府似乎并不热衷于广泛地执行监管，更不用说针对这一特定领域了。”此外，他认为：“在这个市场上，似乎并没有太多的消费者选择权在驱动——也就是说，如果其中一家公司做了非常糟糕的事情，他们并不会因为用户取消订阅或其他行为而受到实质性影响。”

Keep reading for a preview of our conversation, edited for length and clarity. 请继续阅读我们对话的预览，内容经过删减和润色。

Anthony Ha: Sean, what do you think? Are we actually going to ”pace the frontier”? Anthony Ha： Sean，你怎么看？我们真的会“为前沿技术设定节奏”吗？

Sean O’Kane: That sounds, for some reason, like something from “Point Break.” It’s just a very California statement, like, “We’re gonna pace the frontier, bruh.” I don’t know. I said on this show last week, I didn’t think we were headed for a slowdown of any kind, in large part because I don’t think these companies are structured in a way where that works. So this was a pretty immediate flip of what I said a week ago, to hear this from Dario at Anthropic and Sam at OpenAI and even Elon Musk to a certain degree — and we can get into whether we believe that or not. Sean O’Kane： 不知为何，这听起来像是电影《惊爆点》（Point Break）里的台词。这是一种非常“加州式”的说法，就像是说：“兄弟，我们要为前沿技术设定节奏了。”我不知道。我上周在节目里说过，我不认为我们会迎来任何形式的放缓，很大程度上是因为我认为这些公司的结构并不支持这样做。所以，听到 Anthropic 的 Dario、OpenAI 的 Sam，甚至在某种程度上包括埃隆·马斯克这么说，这与我一周前的观点发生了相当直接的冲突——我们可以深入探讨是否相信他们。

I will say, I don’t think I was completely wrong, because even with these loose plans that Dario laid out in a blog post and some of the other leaders have talked about, I feel like we’re still missing a lot of specifics here, not only on some of the claims about why these people think there are dangers and risks, but also specifics on what they mean by slowing down. Anthony, I know you read this stuff pretty closely last weekend as it was all popping off, so I’m curious if you’re maybe more generous than I am, as far as understanding what it is they’re trying to say here. 我想说，我不认为我完全错了，因为即使 Dario 在博客文章中列出了这些松散的计划，以及其他领导者所谈论的内容，我仍然觉得这里缺少很多细节。不仅是关于他们为何认为存在危险和风险的声明，还有他们所说的“放慢脚步”具体指什么。Anthony，我知道上周末这些消息爆发时你读得很仔细，所以我很好奇，在理解他们到底想表达什么方面，你是否比我更宽容一些？

Anthony: I mean, I also have questions. What really stood out to me is the fact that so many people in the industry seemed to coalesce around this fairly quickly. Even before Amodei published his blog post, I was seeing other people post some version of this [plan,] just in the days leading up to it. My understanding is, these suggestions that have come out of the AI safety community; these are things that have been percolating for a while. They’re not just things that [Amodei] thought up on his own. But it just seemed like a lot of people were kind of ready to embrace this and in some ways, [it’s] encouraging to see that there’s a consensus. But it also makes me a little skeptical that this would represent genuine, major steps towards a slowdown. Anthony： 我的意思是，我也有疑问。真正让我感到惊讶的是，业内这么多人似乎很快就围绕这一点达成了共识。甚至在 Amodei 发布博客文章之前，我就看到其他人在那几天里发布了类似（计划）的内容。据我了解，这些来自人工智能安全社区的建议已经酝酿了一段时间。它们并非（Amodei）凭空想出来的。但似乎很多人都准备好接受这一点，从某种程度上说，看到达成共识是令人鼓舞的。但这也让我有点怀疑，这是否代表了迈向放缓的真正、重大的步骤。

Kirsten Korosec: First of all, consensus can be a good thing. Also, it can be the beginnings of forming a cartel. And so, let’s be clear [about] who we’re talking about here. We’re talking about frontier AI labs, and that’s specific and important. You did say a minute ago that the details aren’t really clear, but we do know that the general idea here is that independent third party evaluators would come in that would work inside [companies] like Anthropic or OpenAI and monitor AI safety practices and incidents. But there is a lot of vagueness around that. Then there’s another proposal to have major AI companies in democratic countries coordinate on safety standards and limits. And then this international coordination piece. So those are the general ideas around this. I’ll also add that there’s been very considerable pushback from very specific people. And surprisingly, some people I didn’t think would push back on this. The obvious one, I guess, would be Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang, who had some pretty choice words. I don’t know what either of you think of […] some of his comments and the call he took from President Trump on-stage [at the All-In Summit]. Kirsten Korosec： 首先，共识可以是件好事。但它也可能是形成卡特尔（垄断联盟）的开端。所以，我们要明确我们在这里讨论的是谁。我们讨论的是前沿人工智能实验室，这一点很具体也很重要。你刚才确实说过细节不太清楚，但我们知道这里的大致想法是，独立的第三方评估机构将进入像 Anthropic 或 OpenAI 这样的（公司）内部，监督人工智能的安全实践和事故。但关于这一点有很多模糊之处。此外，还有另一个提议，即民主国家的主要人工智能公司应在安全标准和限制方面进行协调。还有国际协调的部分。这些就是围绕此的大致想法。我还要补充一点，来自特定人士的抵制非常强烈。令人惊讶的是，有些人我没想到会对此进行抵制。最明显的例子大概就是英伟达首席执行官黄仁勋，他发表了一些相当尖锐的言论。我不知道你们俩怎么看……他的一些评论，以及他在（All-In 峰会）舞台上接听特朗普总统电话这件事。

Sean: I think Jensen understands that, to a certain extent, he is seen as the adult in the room here. Which is interesting, because that’s a dynamic that I think has changed. If you were to ask people a year, almost two years ago now, who was playing that role as these AI companies were really starting to blow up in big ways, I think a lot of people would have pointed to Microsoft and Satya Nadella, and I feel like Microsoft has — for a number of reasons that we don’t need to get into right now — lost that grip on being the adult in the room. Certainly in part because Nadella said he was going to make Google dance, and then that never happened. And in fact, the opposite happened, in a lot of ways. Jensen, I think, understands not only that he needs to be pleasing the most amount of people and so he wants to say the most measured thing, he also is one of the most useful liaisons between this field and this administration, to the point that he’s getting a call from the president while he’s on-stage at this very well-attended and high-profile conference that allowed both of them to respond to all this mess. Sean： 我认为黄仁勋明白，在某种程度上，他被视为这里的“成年人”。这很有趣，因为我认为这种动态已经改变了。如果你在一年前，甚至快两年前问人们，当这些人工智能公司开始大规模爆发时，谁在扮演那个角色，我想很多人会指向微软和萨提亚·纳德拉（Satya Nadella）。我觉得微软——出于一些我们现在不需要深入探讨的原因——已经失去了作为“成年人”的掌控力。这在一定程度上是因为纳德拉曾说要让谷歌“跳舞”，但那从未发生。事实上，在很多方面，情况恰恰相反。我认为黄仁勋不仅明白他需要取悦大多数人，因此他想说最得体的话，他还成为了该领域与本届政府之间最有用的联络人之一，以至于他在这个备受关注的高规格会议上站在台上时，还能接到总统的电话，这让他们两人都有机会回应所有这些混乱局面。

Kirsten: [To] your point about him being the adult in the room and the liaison, he is in a position where he could do that. But in my view, I would say that [his appearance,] which did feel a little staged, went a step too far and really highlighted the fact that Nvidia greatly benefits from AI moving forward in an unpaced manner. I hate to be cynical about it, but that w… Kirsten Korosec： 关于他作为“成年人”和联络人的观点，他确实处于能够做到这一点的地位。但在我看来，（他的出场）确实感觉有点刻意安排，做得有点过火了，这真正凸显了一个事实：英伟达从人工智能以不受限制的方式发展中获益匪浅。我讨厌对此持怀疑态度，但那……