Both artificial intelligence and the tricky business of valuing stocks boil down to(归结为) questions of timelines. Establishing what a company is worth is a hazy(模糊的) exercise at the best of times(即使在最好的情况下), full of courageous(大胆的) assumptions about which cashflows will arrive when. Consider, too, timelines for AI—the years, few or many, until the technology’s capabilities surpass humans’—and the exercise veer(转向)s into incoherence(不连贯).
人工智能和股票估值这一棘手行当，归根结底都是时间线的问题。确定一家公司的价值，即便在最好的时候也是一件模糊的事，充满了关于哪些现金流将在何时到来的大胆假设。再考虑一下人工智能的时间线——这项技术的能力超越人类需要多少年，是少数几年还是许多年——那么这种估值练习就会变得毫无逻辑可言。
Markets do not enjoy the luxury of coherence(逻辑连贯的奢侈), though. Take the imminent(即将发生的) listing of Anthropic, the first big pure-play(纯业务公司) AI developer to go public. Anthropic’s prospectus(招股说明书) tout(吹嘘)s the many remarkable (and profitable) ways in which advanced AI could transform the economy, but also warns would-be buyers off. “Our decision-making may run counter to(与……背道而驰) investors’ expectations,” it says, for instance with “forward investments…that may seem irresponsibly large at first glance(乍看之下)”.
然而，市场并没有享受逻辑连贯这种奢侈。以Anthropic即将上市为例，这是第一家大型纯人工智能开发公司上市。Anthropic的招股说明书吹嘘了先进人工智能可能改变经济的许多非凡（且有利可图的）方式，但也警告潜在买家不要靠近。它说：“我们的决策可能与投资者的预期背道而驰”，例如“前瞻性投资……乍看之下可能显得不负责任地庞大”。
Still, somewhere between Utopia and Armageddon(乌托邦与末日), investors need to find a way to pick a number. Anthropic is aiming to float at a valuation of around $1.5trn, which would make it one of the 15 biggest public companies in the world.(Anthropic的目标是以约1.5万亿美元的估值上市，这将使其成为全球第15大上市公司。)
尽管如此，在乌托邦和末日之间，投资者需要找到一种方法来选一个数字。Anthropic的目标是以约1.5万亿美元的估值上市，这将使其成为全球第15大上市公司。
