请真正的 Anthropic 站出来：它究竟是安全使者还是万亿商业巨兽？

我并不是说他们关于这方面的看法一定错了。（那是另一个话题了。）但在一个没人知晓未来走向的世界里，像 Anthropic 这样的公司得以填补这一权力真空。

现在值得停下来问一句：Anthropic 到底是什么？ 这听起来可能像家庭问答竞赛的入门题，但其实远比你想象的更难回答。

自从上周读到 Nathan Calvin 在 X 上的讨论后，这个问题就一直萦绕在我脑海中。Calvin 是 Encode AI 的首席战略官，该组织总部位于华盛顿特区，致力于推动监管立法。此前 Anthropic 曾向美国议员秘密分发一份立法草案（该草案随后遭到泄露），Calvin 对其提出的法案内容十分不满。

Calvin 指出，Anthropic 希望被视作行业内的“老好人”。但我们凭什么信任它？“Anthropic 究竟是什么？”他问道。

这里有一种答案：Anthropic 是一家 IPO 估值超过 1.5 万亿美元的公司，为包括 Clark 和 Olah 在内的联合创始人带来了巨额财富。

但 Anthropic 一向坚称自己远不止于此。正如 Calvin 所指出的：Anthropic 也可以被看作是一个 AI 安全组织，专注于开发可靠且（近乎）零风险的强大技术；或者它也可以被视为一群一心想抢在所有人之前创造出超人类能力技术的人——也许是因为他们坚信自己是最负责任的构建者，又或者只是出于自大与虚荣。

事实上，Anthropic 兼具所有这些身份。 正如其 CEO Dario Amodei 在对 Calvin 帖子的回应中所写：“我们的策略一直是我所说的‘良性竞争（race to the top）’——通过展示如何以负责任的方式构建技术，我们可以提高整个行业的标准。如果践行这一策略的公司本身就处于前沿地位，那么驱动‘良性竞争’的力量将显著增强；这是我反复学到的一课。纵观这一整体战略，我为我们的过往成果感到自豪，并坚信这一路线。”

Amodei 听上去似乎已经把一切处理得滴水不漏，但要在多个角色间周旋绝非易事。例如，AI 安全组织的优先目标与以营利为导向的商业巨兽之间，存在着巨大的内在张力。（Amodei 在他的帖子中也承认自己犯过错误。）

归根结底，Anthropic 说给自己听的故事，理应有助于我们理解它讲给外界的故事。这些叙事本应帮助我们判断：究竟在多大程度上可以信任它的自律，还是说我们应当强制它按照外界而非它自己的规则向外部安全测试人员开放模型访问权限。当类似带有自私动机的立法草案曝光时，这些叙事也本应帮助我们决定是否该对它报以善意的信任（或不再盲信）。

但在我看来，这些故事折射出的却是一只多头九头蛇。Anthropic 对不同的人展现出截然不同的面孔，而我不确定这是否会让它变得更值得信赖。在许多方面，一家规规矩矩的传统科技公司——没有科幻般的角色扮演，也没有故弄玄虚的玄学包装——反而会清晰好懂得多。

I’m not saying they’re necessarily wrong about any of this. (That’s for another day.) But in a world where nobody knows what’s coming, companies like Anthropic get to fill the vacuum.

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. 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.

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.

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 all tied up, but playing multiple roles is hard. There are huge tensions between the priorities of an AI safety organization and a profit-driven megacorp, for example. (Amodei admits in his post that he has made mistakes.)

Ultimately, the stories Anthropic tells itself should help us understand the stories it tells us. They should help us figure out how much to trust it to self-regulate or whether we should be forcing it to give external safety testers access to its models on our terms rather than theirs. They should help us give it the benefit of the doubt (or not) when what looks like a self-serving piece of legislation comes to light.

But I think the stories reveal a multiheaded hydra. Anthropic is many things to many people, and I’m not sure that makes it more trustworthy. In many ways, a good old-fashioned technology company—without the science fiction role-play, without the woo-woo—would be far easier to read.