THE NEWS is full of how an ignominious(可耻的，丢脸的) peace deal with Iran exemplifies a decline in American power. That conclusion could hardly be more wrong(几乎错得不能再错了). On June 12th the Trump administration ordered Anthropic to block(阻止，封锁) foreigners from Fable and Mythos, its latest and most capable frontier AI models. In an instant, everyone learned that the American government can decide who may use the world’s most important technology. You don’t get much more powerful than that.
新闻里充斥着与伊朗的可耻和平协议如何体现了美国实力的衰落。这个结论几乎不可能更错了。6月12日，特朗普政府命令Anthropic禁止外国人使用其最新、最强大的前沿AI模型Fable和Mythos。顷刻间，所有人都明白了，美国政府可以决定谁可以使用世界上最重要的技术。没有比这更强大的了。
The administration was responding to a supposed jailbreak(越狱，突破安全限制) for Fable, meaning a prompt that circumvent(规避，绕开)s defences against uses such as hacking computers or making bioweapons. The chances are that it wanted Anthropic to switch off the models for everyone, and that targeting foreigners was a means to an end. Sure enough, that is what Anthropic did, while claiming that the concern about its model was overblown. The legal basis of the order remains unclear, and the ban seems unlikely to last.
美国政府是在应对所谓的Fable“越狱”行为，即一种绕过安全防御的提示，这些防御旨在防止黑客入侵或制造生物武器等用途。很可能，它想让Anthropic对所有人关闭模型，而针对外国人只是达到目的的一种手段。果然，Anthropic照做了，同时声称对其模型的担忧被夸大了。该命令的法律依据尚不明确，这项禁令似乎也不会持久。
What matters, though, is the demonstration that global access to the best AI may come down to a decision in the Oval Office. The administration showed in March that it is prepared to trample on(践踏，侵犯) the frontier AI companies, when it designated Anthropic a “supply-chain risk(供应链风险)”. Now it has shown that it is prepared to trample on users, too.
然而，重要的是，它表明全球对最优秀AI的访问可能取决于白宫椭圆形办公室的一项决定。美国政府在三月份就表明，它准备践踏前沿AI公司，当时它将Anthropic列为“供应链风险”。现在它又表明，它也准备践踏用户。
Token gestures
象征性姿态