Anthropic 认为自身成功是打造 AI 安全的关键

过去五年，Anthropic 一直在警告世界，先进人工智能可能引发大规模破坏、破坏社会稳定并带来一系列其他严重危害。但与此同时，它已成为推动 AI 能力发展最强大的力量之一。该公司如今跻身尖端 AI 模型的顶级开发者和分发者之列，并积极争取包括美国军方在内的客户。其近期估值已达近 1 万亿美元。

初看之下，Anthropic 的鲜明警示与其行为似乎根本矛盾。

但在公司内部，很多人并不认为存在冲突。要理解其中原因，首先需要明白 Anthropic 基于两个核心信念运作。第一个信念是，人工智能是人类历史上最具变革性的技术，其到来不可避免。唯一真正的问题是，它是带来灾难还是非凡繁荣。

第二个信念是，根据几位以匿名条件接受《连线》采访的前员工透露，Anthropic 相信，如果自己能够保持在 AI 竞赛的前沿，世界将会变得更好。两位消息人士称，公司内部的领导者和员工常将自己称为“好人”，即负责任的 AI 技术管理者。公司将积累力量——无论是资本、算力、研究人才还是政治影响力——本身并非目的，而是履行其使命的代价：“确保世界安全地完成通过变革性 AI 的过渡。”

乔治城大学安全与新兴技术中心执行主任、前 OpenAI 董事会成员 Helen Toner 用一个比喻来描述 Anthropic 的世界观。她将强大的 AI 比作一座既蕴藏魔法宝藏又栖息着危险怪物的森林。附近所有村民都被宝藏吸引，蜂拥而入。按照她的说法，Anthropic 希望比任何人都更深入森林，同时大力投入驯服怪物——也就是获取 AI 的好处，同时遏制其灾难性风险。

“Anthropic 的独特之处在于他们的态度：‘反正人们都会进入森林，我们必须第一个进去。’这非常明确地体现了他们的策略：打造尖端 AI，从而成为能在谈判桌上讨论尖端 AI 系统是什么样子、带来哪些风险，并推动合理保障措施的重要参与者，”Toner 告诉我。“他们对此非常坦率。只是这个策略过于古怪，以至于人们很难听得进去。”

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei 在发布在公司招聘页面上的与联合创始人的对话中，直截了当地阐述了这一策略：“你必须找到一种方法，既要真正具备竞争力，在某些情况下引领行业，又要设法安全行事，”他说。“如果你能做到这一点，你所施加的引力将无比巨大。”

Anthropic 于 2021 年由一群前 OpenAI 员工创立，他们对公司领导层——尤其是 CEO Sam Altman——能否安全地将变革性 AI 带给世界失去了信心。这种情绪至今仍在塑造着这家公司。与我交谈的两位前员工表示，在内部讨论中，Anthropic 高管经常将 Altman 和 OpenAI——以及在较小程度上将 Meta 和 Elon Musk 的 xAI——描述为警示案例，以此帮助定义 Anthropic 自身的责任感。

在许多方面，Anthropic 和其他硅谷公司别无二致。许多初创公司将自己塑造成挑战守旧巨头的大卫。谷歌、Facebook 和苹果都创立于理想主义原则，但随着它们变得更富有、更庞大、更有影响力，这些原则后来或被模糊，或干脆被抛弃。

Anthropic has spent the last five years warning the world about how advanced artificial intelligence could enable mass destruction, destabilize society, and cause a litany of other grave harms. But simultaneously, it has become one of the most powerful forces pushing AI capabilities forward. The company is now among the top developers and distributors of cutting-edge AI models and courts customers like the US military. It was recently valued at almost $1 trillion.

At first glance, Anthropic's stark messaging and its actions seem fundamentally at odds.

But inside the company, many people don’t see a contradiction. To understand why, you first have to understand that Anthropic operates based on two core beliefs. The first is that artificial intelligence is the most transformative technology in human history, and its arrival is inevitable. The only real question is whether it leads to catastrophe or extraordinary prosperity.

The second is that Anthropic believes the world will be better off if it remains at the frontier of the AI race, according to several former employees who spoke to WIRED on the condition of anonymity. Internally, leaders and employees at the company often refer to themselves as the “good guys,” meaning the ones being responsible stewards of AI technology, two of the sources said. The company sees accumulating power—whether in the form of capital, compute, research talent, or political influence—not as an end in itself, but as the price of fulfilling its mission: “to ensure the world safely makes the transition through transformative AI.”

Helen Toner, executive director of Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology and a former OpenAI board member, uses an analogy to describe Anthropic’s worldview. She compares powerful AI to a forest filled with both magical treasures and dangerous monsters. All the villagers nearby are rushing in, lured by the treasure. In her telling, Anthropic wants to venture farther into the forest than anyone else while investing heavily in taming the monsters—that is, capturing AI’s benefits while containing its catastrophic risks.

“What’s distinctive about Anthropic is they’re like, ‘People are going in the forest anyway, we have to do it first.’ This is very explicitly their strategy: build cutting-edge AI in order to be a serious player at the table who can talk about what cutting-edge AI systems look like, what risks they pose, and pushing for reasonable safeguards,” Toner tells me. “They’re very straightforward about this. It’s just a weird enough strategy that people have a hard time hearing it.”

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei outlined this approach plainly in a conversation with his cofounders posted on the company’s career page: “You have to find a way to actually be competitive, to actually lead the industry in some cases, and yet manage to do things safely,” he says. “If you can do that, the gravitational pull you exert is so great.”

Anthropic was founded in 2021 by a group of former OpenAI employees who defected after losing faith in the ability of the company’s leadership—particularly CEO Sam Altman—to safely bring transformational AI into the world. That sentiment still shapes the company today. Two of the former employees I spoke with say that, in internal discussions, Anthropic executives often describe Altman and OpenAI—and, to a lesser extent, Meta and Elon Musk’s xAI—as cautionary examples that help define Anthropic’s own sense of responsibility.

In many regards, Anthropic is just like any other Silicon Valley company. Many startups market themselves as David fighting the outdated, entrenched Goliaths of the industries they want to disrupt. Google, Facebook, and Apple were all founded upon idealistic principles, which later became muddied or were abandoned altogether as they became richer, larger, and more influential.