Another day, another horseman of the apocalypse(天启四骑士之一) galloping over the horizon. Lately we have heard from so many AI doomer(末日论者)s – tech whistleblowers popping up to warn that their work is probably going to kill us – that we’re becoming almost blase(麻木不仁的，无动于衷的) about it. Humanity wiped out within a decade? Well, only if another world war or the climate crisis doesn’t get us first. Since it’s never clear whether the tech threat is real, or just a twisted form of hype from an industry that drums up investment by making their products sound more powerful than they really are, most of us settle for trying not to think about it too hard.(由于始终不清楚这种技术威胁是真实的，还是某个行业为了鼓动投资、把产品吹得比实际更强大而制造的扭曲炒作，我们大多数人索性选择不去多想。)
又是新的一天，又是天启四骑士之一策马奔来。近来我们听到太多AI末日论者的声音——科技吹哨人纷纷现身，警告他们的工作很可能会要了我们的命——以至于我们几乎对此麻木了。人类会在十年内灭绝？好吧，除非另一场世界大战或气候危机先要了我们的命。由于始终不清楚这种技术威胁是真实的，还是某个行业为了鼓动投资、把产品吹得比实际更强大而制造的扭曲炒作，我们大多数人索性选择不去多想。
But something about the AI researcher Jacob Coxon’s very public resignation from the cutting-edge American lab Anthropic, via a post on X arguing that he can’t keep working for companies “gambling with our lives(拿我们的生命赌博)”, has cut through(穿透，产生强烈影响) where bigger names have not. Most chillingly, he claimed that colleagues still at Anthropic aren’t staying because they think he’s wrong about the dangers of pursuing self-improving super intelligence – the holy grail of machines that are not just smarter than humans but capable of building their own even more powerful successors, evolving independently of humans – but because they’re afraid of ceding the field to people with fewer scruples.(最令人不寒而栗的是，他声称仍留在Anthropic的同事之所以不走，并非认为他对追求自我改进超级智能的危险判断有误——那是机器的圣杯，不仅比人类更聪明，还能自行建造更强大的后继者，独立于人类进化——而是害怕把这一领域拱手让给更没底线的人。) His colleagues, Coxon said, talk routinely about the “endgame(终局，最后阶段)” or the “crunch time(关键时刻)”, meaning that what they do in the next year or two will decide the fate of humanity. Whether that’s true or simply self-aggrandising(自我抬高的) techbro(科技兄弟（贬义）) delusion, what he describes is an industry now practically begging to be saved from itself.
但AI研究员雅各布·考克森从美国前沿实验室Anthropic非常公开地辞职一事，却比那些更大牌人物的警告更能触动人心。他在X上发帖称，自己无法继续为“拿我们的生命赌博”的公司工作。最令人不寒而栗的是，他声称仍留在Anthropic的同事之所以不走，并非认为他对追求自我改进超级智能的危险判断有误——那是机器的圣杯，不仅比人类更聪明，还能自行建造更强大的后继者，独立于人类进化——而是害怕把这一领域拱手让给更没底线的人。考克森说，同事们日常谈论的是“终局”或“关键时刻”，意思是他们未来一两年的所作所为将决定人类的命运。无论这是事实，还是科技兄弟自抬身价的妄想，他所描述的，是一个如今几乎在乞求被从自身手中拯救的行业。
The frisson(一阵兴奋/恐惧) of alarm over AI running through Westminster(威斯敏斯特，代指英国政治中心) this week was real, sharpened by news of Anthropic – which pitch(宣传，定位)es itself as being more safety-conscious(注重安全的) than its rivals OpenAI – declining for the first time to submit a new model for scrutiny(审查，仔细检查) by Britain’s AI safety watchdog(安全监管机构). We are now entering a far more disruptive(颠覆性的，破坏性的) era of AI, dominated not by relatively basic chatbots but by agents designed to undertake tasks on humans’ behalf(代表人类，替人类), making their own decisions about how to complete them. Unfortunately, it turns out even basic life admin requires the kind of fine judgments that come instinctively to humans but seem remarkably hard to codify for machines.(不幸的是，事实证明，即便是基本的生活事务管理，也需要那种人类本能具备、机器却极难编码的精细判断。)
本周威斯敏斯特弥漫的AI警报并非空穴来风，而Anthropic的消息更令其加剧——这家自称比竞争对手OpenAI更注重安全的公司，首次拒绝将新模型提交给英国AI安全监管机构审查。我们正进入一个破坏性远甚以往的AI时代，主导者不再是相对基础的聊天机器人，而是被设计来替人类执行任务的智能体，它们自行决定如何完成任务。不幸的是，事实证明，即便是基本的生活事务管理，也需要那种人类本能具备、机器却极难编码的精细判断。