Will the real Anthropic please stand up

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This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. After weeks of frenzied speculation, Anthropic has filed its IPO prospectus. The 335-page document (100 pages or so are focused on risks) lays out the company’s unique view of the technology it is building and the ways it believes it will change the world.

本文最初发表于我们的 AI 每周通讯《算法》（The Algorithm）。若想第一时间在收件箱中获取此类报道，请在此注册。经过数周的疯狂猜测，Anthropic 终于提交了其首次公开募股（IPO）招股说明书。这份长达 335 页的文件（其中约 100 页专注于风险）阐述了该公司对其正在构建的技术的独特见解，以及它认为该技术将如何改变世界的愿景。

It also warns that there’s a fair chance that its tech could “erode trust, harm society and destabilize the geopolitical order” and, if things don’t go to plan, “pose catastrophic or existential risks to humanity.” “We encourage you, as a prospective owner of our stock, not to think of your purchase in purely transactional terms,” the company writes. “We hope you will see it instead as an opportunity to be part of something greater. The advent of machine intelligence is one of the seminal moments in human history.”

它还警告称，其技术很有可能“侵蚀信任、伤害社会并破坏地缘政治秩序”，如果进展不顺利，还可能“对人类构成灾难性或生存风险”。该公司写道：“我们鼓励作为潜在股票持有者的您，不要仅仅从交易的角度看待您的购买行为。我们希望您将其视为参与更伟大事业的机会。机器智能的出现是人类历史上最具开创性的时刻之一。”

This kind of public messaging is a master class in narrative capture. But Anthropic has been honing its storytelling skills for years. Earlier this month, Jack Clark, the company’s cofounder and head of policy, gave a speech at the IMF meeting in Bangkok in which he announced to the assembled economists, bankers, and lawmakers that the singularity is already here.

这种公开信息传递是叙事掌控的大师级课程。但 Anthropic 多年来一直在磨练其讲故事的技巧。本月早些时候，该公司联合创始人兼政策主管杰克·克拉克（Jack Clark）在曼谷举行的国际货币基金组织会议上发表了演讲，向在场的经济学家、银行家和立法者宣布：奇点已经到来。

Introduced by the science fiction writer and futurist Vernor Vinge around 40 years ago (and long debated on the nerdier fringes of the internet), the singularity is supposed to be the point at which technology gets so good that it outstrips the abilities of its makers. Humans are left in the dust, the idea goes, no longer able to compete with—or even understand—the fruits of their former creation.

奇点概念由科幻作家兼未来学家弗诺·文奇（Vernor Vinge）在大约 40 年前提出（并长期在互联网的极客边缘地带争论不休），它被认为是技术发展到超越其创造者能力的临界点。按照这一观点，人类将被甩在身后，不再能够与他们曾经创造的成果竞争，甚至无法理解这些成果。

And this fictional world that many of us have imagined since we were kids? Apparently we’re already living in it: “I believe that this year we have gained convincing evidence that it has now begun,” Clark told his audience. The company tells a vivid (and in many ways scary) story about a future it portrays as inevitable but one that has not yet happened, often co-opted from well-worn science fiction memes.

而这个我们许多人从小就想象的虚构世界呢？显然我们已经身处其中了：“我相信今年我们已经获得了令人信服的证据，证明它现在已经开始了，”克拉克告诉听众。该公司讲述了一个生动（且在许多方面令人恐惧）的未来故事，将其描绘为不可避免但尚未发生，且经常借用陈旧的科幻迷因。

It presents its technology as mysterious and dangerous, and insists that it is the only company trustworthy enough to tame it. (What investor wouldn’t want in on that?) If you skim through the long sections about risks in the IPO prospectus, it’s clear this is no ordinary offering and no ordinary company. The way Anthropic tells it, business success depends not only on the firm’s ability to translate its technology into profitable products but also to save the world from what it has made.

它将自己的技术呈现为神秘而危险的，并坚称自己是唯一有足够信誉去驾驭它的公司。（哪个投资者不想参与其中呢？）如果你浏览 IPO 招股说明书中关于风险的长篇章节，就会清楚地发现，这并非普通的发行，也不是一家普通的公司。按照 Anthropic 的说法，商业成功不仅取决于公司将技术转化为盈利产品的能力，还取决于它能否从自己创造的事物中拯救世界。

Take another example. Last year, Chris Olah, another Anthropic cofounder, was invited to address the Vatican, where he told Pope Leo XIV and other religious scholars and officials what his company was learning about its technology. “I will be honest: We keep finding things that are mysterious, even unsettling,” he said. “We find evidence of introspection. We find internal states that functionally mirror joy, satisfaction, fear, grief, and unease.”

再举一个例子。去年，Anthropic 的另一位联合创始人克里斯·奥拉（Chris Olah）受邀在梵蒂冈发表演讲，向教皇利奥十四世及其他宗教学者和官员讲述了他的公司对其技术的研究发现。“坦白说：我们不断发现一些神秘甚至令人不安的事情，”他说。“我们发现了内省的证据。我们发现了在功能上反映出快乐、满足、恐惧、悲伤和不安的内部状态。”

Never mind that many researchers would scoff at such an overt suggestion that Anthropic’s software has humanlike inner experience. This view of its technology makes its way into the prospectus as one more risk to its business. Anthropic states that: “In addition, given our focus on developing frontier AI, and the way we approach model sentience and moral status, we may face heightened scrutiny or pressure in connection with these debates and could elect to adopt policies, safeguards, or limitations regarding model development, deployment, or modification that go beyond existing legal requirements, which could constrain our operations, increase costs, or limit the commercial potential of our models, platform, and applications.”

尽管许多研究人员会对这种暗示 Anthropic 软件具有类人内心体验的说法嗤之以鼻，但这并不重要。这种对其技术的看法被写入了招股说明书，成为其业务面临的又一风险。Anthropic 指出：“此外，鉴于我们专注于开发前沿 AI，以及我们处理模型感知和道德地位的方式，我们可能会在这些辩论中面临更高的审查或压力，并可能选择采取超出现有法律要求的关于模型开发、部署或修改的政策、保障措施或限制，这可能会限制我们的运营、增加成本或限制我们模型、平台和应用程序的商业潜力。”

In other words, if Claude wakes up, it could be a problem. I’m not saying they’re necessarily wrong about any of this (although it’s pretty wild to read about machine sentience in an IPO prospectus.) But in a world where nobody knows what’s coming, companies like Anthropic get to fill the vacuum. When so little seems certain, what it says is snatched up and clung to like pieces of a sinking ship.

换句话说，如果 Claude 觉醒了，那可能会是个问题。我并不是说他们在这些方面一定错了（尽管在 IPO 招股说明书中读到机器感知的内容确实非常疯狂）。但在一个没人知道未来会发生什么的世界里，像 Anthropic 这样的公司填补了这一真空。当一切似乎都如此不确定时，它所说的话就像沉船的碎片一样被人们抢夺并紧紧抓住。

It’s worth taking a moment to ask: What is Anthropic? It might sound like a starter question on a family quiz show, but it’s far harder to answer than you might think. The question has been on my mind since reading an exchange on X last week kicked off by Nathan Calvin, who is chief strategy officer at Encode AI, an organization based in Washington, DC, that advocates for regulation.

值得花点时间问问：Anthropic 到底是什么？这听起来可能像是家庭问答节目中的入门问题，但回答起来比你想象的要难得多。自从上周读到内森·卡尔文（Nathan Calvin）在 X 上发起的一场交流后，这个问题就一直萦绕在我的脑海中。卡尔文是位于华盛顿特区的监管倡导组织 Encode AI 的首席战略官。

Calvin was unhappy about the legislation that Anthropic proposed in a draft bill it circulated in secret to US lawmakers (which was then leaked). Anthropic wants to be seen as the good guy, Calvin said. But why should we trust it? “What is Anthropic?” he asked. Here’s one answer: Anthropic is a company whose IPO values it at more than $1.5 trillion, netting its cofounders, including Clark and Olah, vast wealth.

卡尔文对 Anthropic 在秘密分发给美国立法者（随后被泄露）的草案中提出的立法建议感到不满。卡尔文说，Anthropic 希望被视为好人。但我们为什么要信任它？“Anthropic 是什么？”他问道。这是一个答案：Anthropic 是一家 IPO 估值超过 1.5 万亿美元的公司，为其包括克拉克和奥拉在内的联合创始人带来了巨额财富。

But Anthropic has always insisted it is more than that. As Calvin noted: Anthropic might instead be considered an AI safety organization focused on developing powerful technology that is reliable and (almost) risk-free. Or it might be considered a group of people hell-bent on creating a technology with superhuman capabilities before anyone else—maybe because they believe they’re the most responsible people to do so, or maybe because of their egos.

但 Anthropic 一直坚称它不仅仅于此。正如卡尔文所指出的：Anthropic 可能被视为一个专注于开发可靠且（几乎）无风险的强大技术的 AI 安全组织。或者，它也可能被视为一群一心想在任何人之前创造出具有超人能力技术的人——也许是因为他们认为自己是承担这项任务最负责任的人，又或许是因为他们的自负。

In fact, Anthropic is all of these things. As CEO Dario Amodei put it in a reply to Calvin’s post: “Our strategy has always been what I’ve called the ‘race to the top’—by showing how it’s possible to build the technology responsibly, we can raise the bar for the entire industry. The forces that drive the race to the top are hugely more effective if the company practicing them is at the frontier; that’s one lesson I’ve learned repeatedly. And looking at that strategy as a whole, I’m proud of our track record and stand by it.” Amodei makes it sound as if he’s got it.

事实上，Anthropic 兼具所有这些特质。正如首席执行官达里奥·阿莫代（Dario Amodei）在回复卡尔文的帖子时所言：“我们的战略一直是我所说的‘向顶峰竞赛’——通过展示如何负责任地构建技术，我们可以提高整个行业的标准。如果实践这些力量的公司处于前沿，那么推动向顶峰竞赛的力量会有效得多；这是我反复学到的一个教训。从整体上看待这一战略，我为我们的业绩记录感到自豪，并坚持这一立场。”阿莫代的话听起来仿佛他已经掌控了一切。