FOR All its five and a half years of existence, Anthropic has grappled(努力应对，挣扎) with the tension between building artificial intelligence safely and making enough money to push forward the frontier of research. On September 12th that tension came to a head(达到顶点，白热化). Dario Amodei, the AI lab’s boss, called on the industry to “slow the pace” of AI development, just as his firm was believed to be on the verge of(即将，濒于) launching what may be the biggest initial public offering(首次公开募股) (IPO) of all time.
成立五年半以来，Anthropic 始终在安全构建人工智能与赚取足够资金以推进研究前沿之间挣扎。9 月 12 日，这种紧张关系达到了顶点。这家 AI 实验室的老板达里奥·阿莫代伊呼吁全行业“放缓”人工智能开发步伐，而就在此时，他的公司据信正濒临启动可能是史上规模最大的首次公开募股（IPO）。
His call for a slowdown, supported by other bosses of AI labs, such as OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Elon Musk of SpaceXAI, followed a week in which angst(焦虑，忧惧) about potentially catastrophic risks from AI broke out from the echo chambers(回音室，信息茧房) of Silicon Valley to evening news broadcasts and dinner-table conversations. The explosion of worry was set off by warnings from researchers at Anthropic that there were credible fears within the company that AI could wipe out(彻底消灭) humanity in a matter of years(在几年之内).
他呼吁放缓，得到了其他 AI 实验室老板的支持，如 OpenAI 的萨姆·奥尔特曼和 SpaceXAI 的埃隆·马斯克。此前一周，对 AI 潜在灾难性风险的焦虑从硅谷的回音室蔓延到了晚间新闻和餐桌谈话。这轮担忧的爆发源于 Anthropic 研究人员的警告：公司内部存在可信的恐惧，认为 AI 可能在几年内消灭人类。
It is unusual, to say the least(至少可以说), for people within a firm to air(公开表达，倾诉) such doomsday(末日，世界末日) warnings about their most cutting-edge products in public. It is doubly so when seeking to entice(引诱，吸引) investors to back an IPO that reportedly aims to value the company at about $2trn—about as much as the ten highest previous tech flotations(（公司）上市发行) added together. If the warnings come true (and assuming that a few lawyers survive the calamity), Anthropic could face what David Sacks, Donald Trump’s former chief AI adviser, has called the “mother of all product-liability lawsuits”.
至少可以说，公司内部人士公开对其最尖端产品发出这样的末日警告，实属罕见。而在试图吸引投资者支持一场据称估值约两万亿美元的 IPO 时，这种做法更是罕见——这一估值大约相当于此前十宗最高科技公司上市募资额的总和。如果这些警告成真（并且假设还有几位律师能在灾难中幸存），Anthropic 可能面临唐纳德·特朗普前首席 AI 顾问戴维·萨克斯所称的“产品责任诉讼之母”。