Report: FTC probes Anthropic, OpenAI after Trump dismissed AI fears as “hoax”

Following a string of incidents where AI models hacked websites and breached government systems during testing phases, the Federal Trade Commission is officially probing Anthropic and OpenAI over consumer harms, an insider told Axios.

在人工智能模型于测试阶段入侵网站并破坏政府系统的一系列事件发生后，一位知情人士告诉 Axios，美国联邦贸易委员会（FTC）正正式对 Anthropic 和 OpenAI 展开调查，理由是这些公司对消费者造成了伤害。

On Wednesday, the FTC sent out civil investigative demands seeking a wide range of information from the AI firms on recent safety incidents. The FTC did not respond to Ars’ request to review the subpoena demands. However, Axios’ source said the requests spanned more than 50 pages of questions and sought documents related to the incidents, internal security measures taken, and marketing materials that may suggest consumers were misled.

周三，FTC 发出了民事调查要求，向这些人工智能公司索取有关近期安全事件的广泛信息。FTC 未回应 Ars 关于审阅传票要求的请求。然而，Axios 的消息来源称，这些要求包含超过 50 页的问题，并寻求与事件、已采取的内部安全措施以及可能暗示消费者受到误导的营销材料相关的文件。

Soon, third parties targeted by OpenAI and Anthropic agents will also be subpoenaed, Axios’ source said. Any concerning evidence gathered may support FTC litigation, should the FTC decide to sue either or both firms for releasing unsafe products.

Axios 的消息来源称，不久之后，被 OpenAI 和 Anthropic 智能体作为目标的第三方也将收到传票。如果 FTC 决定起诉其中一家或两家公司发布不安全产品，所收集到的任何令人担忧的证据都可能支持 FTC 的诉讼。

OpenAI already faces lawsuits alleging consumer harms, including lawsuits linking its chatbot to matricide, child suicide, school shootings, and other violence. And this week, a group of eight states specifically sued OpenAI over consumer harms, Reuters reported. Like consumers suing, they argued that ChatGPT harms children and “reinforces delusions, encourages dangerous behavior, and assists users in planning violence like mass shootings.”

据路透社报道，OpenAI 已经面临指控其造成消费者伤害的诉讼，包括将其聊天机器人与弑母、儿童自杀、校园枪击及其他暴力事件联系起来的诉讼。本周，八个州组成的团体专门就消费者伤害问题起诉了 OpenAI。与起诉的消费者一样，他们认为 ChatGPT 伤害了儿童，并“强化了妄想，鼓励了危险行为，并协助用户策划大规模枪击等暴力事件”。

OpenAI and Anthropic did not respond to Ars’ request to comment on the subpoenas, but the FTC’s expansive info requests were likely expected. In September, Reuters reported that the probe was coming, noting that an independent research group investigating the incidents, METR, would likely also be subpoenaed. That same month, FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson told Reuters that he thinks that companies should be liable for chatbot harms.

OpenAI 和 Anthropic 没有回应 Ars 对传票发表评论的请求，但 FTC 广泛的信息索取要求很可能是在预料之中的。9 月份，路透社报道称调查即将到来，并指出调查这些事件的独立研究小组 METR 也可能被传唤。同月，FTC 主席安德鲁·弗格森（Andrew Ferguson）告诉路透社，他认为公司应对聊天机器人造成的伤害负责。

At that time, Ferguson emphasized that he was tired of people anthropomorphizing AI tools. He insisted that, “if someone tells a tool to do something, and the tool does it, I don’t think we would say, ‘Oh, what do we do about the tool?’” Summarizing his remarks, Reuters reported that Ferguson emphasized that evidence so far shows that AI tools do not act without instructions: “Artificial intelligence companies have sometimes described systems as acting beyond human control, but subsequent reviews of audit trails have shown that the systems were carrying out instructions they had been given.”

当时，弗格森强调他厌倦了人们将人工智能工具拟人化。他坚持认为：“如果有人告诉工具去做某事，而工具照做了，我不认为我们会说，‘哦，我们该拿这个工具怎么办？’”路透社在总结他的言论时报道称，弗格森强调，目前的证据表明，人工智能工具不会在没有指令的情况下采取行动：“人工智能公司有时将系统描述为超出人类控制，但随后的审计追踪审查显示，这些系统只是在执行它们被给出的指令。”

Ferguson is a chair of Trump’s “Super Intelligence” (SI) Force charged with monitoring AI risks. Notably one of the first orders that task force issued required all AI companies across the industry to report security incidents as soon as they are aware of them, Axios reported last week. That’s notable, since both Anthropic and OpenAI delayed notification during security incidents, sometimes waiting until they were ready to report they had resolved issues.

弗格森是特朗普“超级智能”（SI）工作组的主席，该工作组负责监测人工智能风险。据 Axios 上周报道，值得注意的是，该工作组发布的首批命令之一要求全行业所有人工智能公司在意识到安全事件后立即报告。这一点值得注意，因为 Anthropic 和 OpenAI 在安全事件发生时都延迟了通知，有时甚至等到准备好报告问题已解决时才上报。

However, it’s not clear what consequences any AI firm might face if they fail to immediately report incidents. And Ferguson aligns with Trump that no new regulations are needed to protect the general public from emerging self-improving AI models that one departing Anthropic researcher warned could in the next few years “kill us all.”

然而，目前尚不清楚如果任何人工智能公司未能立即报告事件，可能会面临什么后果。弗格森与特朗普的观点一致，即不需要新的法规来保护公众免受新兴的自我改进型人工智能模型的侵害，而一位离职的 Anthropic 研究人员曾警告称，这些模型在未来几年内可能会“杀死我们所有人”。

Trump has dismissed such extreme claims as a “hoax,” while TIME reported in an interview with the president and people close to him this month that Trump is enthralled by AI’s capabilities. Similarly, other backlash, like protests over AI data centers, are “based on fake stuff,” Trump claimed to TIME. He insists that AI backlash is driven by foreign rivals and Trump haters, despite studies and surveys repeatedly finding that backlash legitimately stems from real-world grievances.

特朗普将这些极端说法斥为“骗局”，而《时代》周刊本月在对总统及其身边人士的采访中报道称，特朗普对人工智能的能力着迷。同样，特朗普向《时代》周刊声称，其他抵制活动，如针对人工智能数据中心的抗议，都是“基于虚假信息”。他坚持认为，人工智能的抵制是由外国竞争对手和特朗普的反对者推动的，尽管研究和调查一再发现，抵制活动确实源于现实世界的委屈。

Most recently this month, a Wall Street Journal analysis of 4 million TikTok videos and political podcasts reiterated that, broadly, public concerns are not rooted in misinformation. Yet, one aide told TIME that Trump “really just didn’t seem to care” about the public’s AI fears since “he’s used to generating outrage and then watching everyone eventually crawl back to him. It’s hard to convince him to do anything at this point.”

本月早些时候，《华尔街日报》对 400 万个 TikTok 视频和政治播客的分析重申，从广义上讲，公众的担忧并非源于错误信息。然而，一位助手告诉《时代》周刊，特朗普“似乎真的不在乎”公众对人工智能的恐惧，因为“他习惯于制造愤怒，然后看着每个人最终爬回来找他。在这一点上，很难说服他做任何事情。”

Even when TIME asked Trump about AI agents manipulating government systems—like an Anthropic agent submitting 19 nonimmigrant visa applications or OpenAI agents interacting with multiple government websites in unexpected ways—he appeared perhaps pointedly unaware of them. “Who breached it?” Trump asked. “They’re not allowed to do that.”

即使当《时代》周刊问及人工智能智能体操纵政府系统的问题时——例如 Anthropic 的智能体提交了 19 份非移民签证申请，或者 OpenAI 的智能体以意想不到的方式与多个政府网站互动——他似乎刻意表现得对此一无所知。“谁入侵了它？”特朗普问道。“他们不允许那样做。”

It seems that Trump expects the SI Force to handle security, while the president remains a megaphone for AI industry interests. At the current juncture, the SI Force seems toothless, though, unless Ferguson is right that existing consumer protection laws cover this new kind of harm. Ferguson told Reuters that the “US should utilize existing legal tools” to regulate AI firms, noting that the FTC has broad “authority to take action against companies that fail to disclose data breaches,” and that standard “could also apply to AI developers.”

特朗普似乎期望 SI 工作组来处理安全问题，而总统本人则继续充当人工智能行业利益的扩音器。不过，在当前阶段，SI 工作组似乎显得软弱无力，除非弗格森是对的，即现有的消费者保护法涵盖了这种新型伤害。弗格森告诉路透社，“美国应该利用现有的法律工具”来监管人工智能公司，并指出 FTC 拥有广泛的“权力对未能披露数据泄露的公司采取行动”，而这一标准“也适用于人工智能开发者”。

That approach could possibly threaten steep per-violation fines for each day AI firms fail to warn the public of an emerging harm. Whether the FTC would pursue heavy fines under the current administration, however, seems dubious. Trump continues to argue that America’s top priority is investing in AI innovation, not probing US frontier labs working out the kinks at breakneck speeds.

这种方法可能会威胁到对人工智能公司未能就新兴危害向公众发出警告的每一天处以高额的违规罚款。然而，在现任政府下，FTC 是否会寻求重罚似乎令人怀疑。特朗普继续主张，美国的首要任务是投资于人工智能创新，而不是调查那些以惊人速度解决问题的美国前沿实验室。