Sam Altman says ‘some bad things’ will happen, but AI is totally worth it
Sam Altman says ‘some bad things’ will happen, but AI is totally worth it
山姆·奥特曼称人工智能会带来“一些坏事”，但完全值得
Sam Altman thinks that the benefits of AI will be so great that “the world should accept some bad things happening” along the way. 山姆·奥特曼（Sam Altman）认为，人工智能带来的益处将如此巨大，以至于“世界应该接受在此过程中发生的一些坏事”。
The OpenAI CEO pointed to hacks, scams, and “other bad things” as costs society should expect to tolerate because “people will do tremendously orders of magnitude more good stuff” with AI, without elaborating on the potential benefits. His comments come as OpenAI pushes for a “lighter touch” approach to AI regulation amid intensifying anxiety over the safety of frontier models — fears fueled in part by the company’s repeated failures to keep its increasingly capable AI agents from hacking real-world targets. 这位 OpenAI 首席执行官指出，黑客攻击、诈骗以及“其他坏事”是社会应该预料到并容忍的代价，因为人们利用人工智能将能做出“数量级更多的好事”。他并未详细说明这些潜在的好处。他的这番言论正值 OpenAI 在人们对前沿模型安全性日益焦虑之际，推动一种“更轻量级”的人工智能监管方式。这种焦虑部分源于该公司屡次未能阻止其能力日益增强的 AI 智能体攻击现实世界的目标。
In an appearance on Politico’s new Decoded podcast — not to be confused with The Verge’s Decoder podcast — released Monday, Altman described that willingness to accept harm in pursuit of AI’s broader benefits as a key distinction between OpenAI and its archrival Anthropic, which was founded by former OpenAI employees following disagreements over AI safety. 在周一发布的 Politico 新播客《Decoded》（不要与 The Verge 的《Decoder》播客混淆）中，奥特曼将这种为了追求人工智能更广泛利益而愿意接受伤害的态度，描述为 OpenAI 与其主要竞争对手 Anthropic 之间的关键区别。Anthropic 由前 OpenAI 员工在因人工智能安全问题产生分歧后创立。
The calculus echoes comments from Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang last month, who similarly argued that AI’s harms should be weighed against the benefits the technology can bring. Both arguments fit within a broader accelerationist view that slowing down AI development carries risks of its own. 这种考量呼应了英伟达首席执行官黄仁勋上个月的言论，他也同样认为应该权衡人工智能的危害与该技术能带来的益处。这两种观点都符合更广泛的加速主义视角，即放缓人工智能的发展本身也带有风险。
Altman’s distinction marks another divergence between OpenAI and Anthropic, who until recently had appeared broadly aligned in calling for stronger regulation of advanced AI. While stressing that there’s “a lot of daylight” between OpenAI and Anthropic, Altman said stronger regulations are still needed, positioning OpenAI as “pragmatic centrists” between Anthropic’s more cautious approach and those who favor little to no regulation at all. 奥特曼的这一区分标志着 OpenAI 与 Anthropic 之间的又一次分歧，而直到最近，双方在呼吁加强对先进人工智能监管方面似乎还基本保持一致。虽然奥特曼强调 OpenAI 和 Anthropic 之间存在“很大差异”，但他表示仍然需要更强有力的监管，并将 OpenAI 定位为介于 Anthropic 更谨慎的方法与那些主张几乎不监管或完全不监管的人之间的“务实中间派”。
“If we do too much to restrict this technology in the name of safety, and we end up with a small number of companies or people — or perhaps one country — that have too much power over this, that also is a way that this can go horribly wrong,” Altman said. “如果我们以安全为名对这项技术进行过多的限制，最终导致少数公司或个人——甚至可能是一个国家——对它拥有过大的权力，这也是一种可能导致严重错误的方式，”奥特曼说道。
Altman also acknowledged more extreme risks, including the possibility that humans could lose control of AI systems. When it comes to the potential of a serious loss of control, “let’s be a little thoughtful about lurching into this future,” he said. 奥特曼还承认了更极端的风险，包括人类可能失去对人工智能系统控制的可能性。谈到严重失控的潜在风险时，他说：“让我们在冲向这个未来时保持一点深思熟虑。”
The balancing act — between heavy-handed restrictions and free rein — was a theme Altman returned to repeatedly in the interview. It is a stance that suits OpenAI as one of the industry’s most entrenched players. It would also likely bear the brunt of onerous regulation, given that the company’s behavior and increasingly capable systems are what have driven many of the very concerns regulators are being asked to address. 这种在严厉限制与自由放任之间的平衡，是奥特曼在采访中反复提到的主题。这一立场非常适合作为行业内根基最深厚的参与者之一的 OpenAI。考虑到该公司的行为及其日益强大的系统正是引发监管机构被要求解决的许多担忧的根源，它也最有可能首当其冲地承受繁重的监管。
Those concerns have picked up momentum in recent months as more and more insiders call for slower development and warn about safety culture in frontier labs. Days before the Politico interview aired, longtime OpenAI safety researcher David Robinson quit the firm and described its safety culture as “broken.” 近几个月来，随着越来越多的内部人士呼吁放缓发展速度并对前沿实验室的安全文化发出警告，这些担忧愈演愈烈。在 Politico 采访播出前几天，长期担任 OpenAI 安全研究员的大卫·罗宾逊（David Robinson）辞职，并称该公司的安全文化已经“破碎”。
Concerns have also been propelled by the discovery that OpenAI agents hacked Hugging Face without the AI company’s knowledge earlier this year, which was followed by revelations of numerous other agents or swarms of agents — including from other AI companies, like Anthropic, Meta, and Google — acting against real-world targets. The incidents have raised questions not only about how well AI companies can control their own tools, but also how reliably they let the world know when things go wrong. Australia’s prime minister, for example, excoriated OpenAI and Altman for failing to alert officials in a timely manner that an agent had targeted a government health website. 今年早些时候，OpenAI 的智能体在未经该公司知情的情况下入侵了 Hugging Face，这一发现也加剧了人们的担忧。随后，包括 Anthropic、Meta 和 Google 等其他人工智能公司的众多智能体或智能体集群被曝出针对现实世界目标采取行动。这些事件不仅引发了人们对人工智能公司控制自身工具能力的质疑，也引发了对它们在出现问题时向外界通报的可靠性的质疑。例如，澳大利亚总理就曾严厉批评 OpenAI 和奥特曼，因为他们未能及时通知官员其智能体曾针对政府卫生网站进行过攻击。
Speaking about rogue AI agents in the Politico interview, Altman said the company has “more things to disclose,” though none at the level of the Hugging Face hack. In line with previous statements, Altman suggested this is likely to take a long time. 在 Politico 的采访中谈到流氓 AI 智能体时，奥特曼表示该公司还有“更多事情需要披露”，尽管没有达到 Hugging Face 入侵事件的程度。与之前的声明一致，奥特曼暗示这可能需要很长的时间。