Brer Rabbit and AI Extinction

There are so many dimensions of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) conversation that interest me.

人工智能 (AI) 对话的很多方面都让我感兴趣。

But my background as both an economist, who looks at the financial system through a Minskyian lens, and a former senate staffer, who remembers what it was like to sit around the table debating complex issues with Bernie Sanders, has primarily drawn me to the financial and political aspects of our AI moment.

但我的背景主要是吸引我去关注人工智能时代的金融和政治方面。

Like many of you, I have opinions and concerns about how these technologies are being developed, deployed and debated.

和你们许多人一样，我对这些技术的开发、部署和辩论的方式也有自己的看法和担忧。

And even if AI is the last thing you really care about, it’s basically impossible to get through a day without some new AI revelation grabbing for your attention.

即使人工智能是你真正关心的最后一件事，但如果没有一些新的人工智能启示吸引你的注意力，基本上不可能度过一天。

There was outrage from the mathematical community after OpenAI announced a solution to the Navier-Stokes equations last week.

上周 OpenAI 宣布纳维-斯托克斯方程的解后，引起了数学界的愤怒。

There’s new research from a team at MIT showing that AI is having harmful impacts on university students.

麻省理工学院的一个团队的最新研究表明，人工智能正在对大学生产生有害影响。

The American Federation of Teachers ( AFT ) is worried about the risks of AI in the classroom.

美国教师联合会（AFT）担心人工智能在课堂上的风险。

Teenagers themselves are increasingly turned off by the technology, and the Pew Research Center found that a majority of adults are now “more concerned than excited” about the future of AI.

青少年本身对这项技术越来越反感，皮尤研究中心发现，大多数成年人现在对人工智能的未来“更担心而不是兴奋”。

Basically, a lot of people are really wary about this technology.

基本上，很多人对这项技术非常警惕。

And then there’s the AI infrastructure, specifically the data centers and their voracious appetite for water, land and electricity , not to mention the air and noise pollution they inflict on neighboring communities.

然后是人工智能基础设施，特别是数据中心及其对水、土地和电力的贪婪需求，更不用说它们对邻近社区造成的空气和噪音污染。

Farmers and ranchers are mad , plenty of voters are angry, and lawmakers across the country have introduced hundreds of bills to regulate or ban data centers and AI.

农民和牧场主很生气，大量选民很愤怒，全国各地的立法者提出了数百项法案来监管或禁止数据中心和人工智能。

And this brings me to the AI discourse that dominated the news cycle over the weekend, you know the one that has everyone debating what to do with companies like OpenAI and Anthropic now that an ex-Anthropic employee named Jacob Coxon has publicly warned of human extinction risk from AI.

这让我想到了周末新闻周期中主导的人工智能话题，你知道，现在每个人都在争论如何处理 OpenAI 和 Anthropic 这样的公司，因为一位名叫 Jacob Coxon 的前 Anthropic 员工公开警告人工智能带来的人类灭绝风险。

To make sure he wasn’t dismissed as a lone, attention-seeking AI-hype bro, Coxon assured us that it isn’t hype and his warning wasn’t a marketing stunt.

为了确保他不会被视为一个孤独的、寻求关注的人工智能炒作兄弟，考克森向我们保证这不是炒作，他的警告也不是营销噱头。

“The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.”

“构建人工智能的人们真诚地相信，到本世纪末，它可能会杀死我们所有人。”

As of 12:00 pm (ET) today, that last comment had more than 26 million views.

截至今天中午 12:00（东部时间），最后一条评论的浏览量已超过 2600 万次。

Add to that hundreds of thousands of retweets, thousands of news articles and hundreds of television segments, and it’s not unreasonable to think that half of the world’s population may be wondering whether AI is going to kill us all.

再加上数十万条转发、数千篇新闻文章和数百个电视片段，世界上一半的人口可能想知道人工智能是否会杀死我们所有人，这并非没有道理。

Senator Bernie Sanders is certainly taking it seriously.

参议员伯尼·桑德斯当然认真对待它。

Earlier this morning, Axios reported that Jacob Coxon would be teaming up with Bernie and former Trump White House advisor Steve Bannon at an event to “push for human-controlled AI”.

今天早上早些时候，Axios 报道说，雅各布·考克森将与伯尼和前特朗普白宫顾问史蒂夫·班农一起参加一个活动，“推动人类控制的人工智能”。

Coxon called the announcement “ fake news ” and said that he was invited but didn’t agree to attend.

考克森称这一消息是“假新闻”，并表示他受到邀请但不同意参加。

I’m not here to pooh-pooh the dangers of AI.

我并不是来嘲笑人工智能的危险的。

I think there are plenty of reasons to be worried about what this rapidly-evolving, circularly-financed, surveillance-state Boomdoggle™ means for the near-term stability of our financial system and the longer-term future of humanity.

我认为有很多理由担心这种快速发展、循环融资、监视状态的 Boomdoggle™ 对我们金融体系的短期稳定和人类的长期未来意味着什么。

But I can’t shake the feeling that something about the latest p(doom) warnings from OpenAI and Anthropic are a bit…how shall I put it…reminiscent of the old folktale about Brer Rabbit .

但我无法摆脱这样的感觉：OpenAI 和 Anthropic 最新的 p(doom) 警告有点……我该怎么说……让人想起关于兔子兄弟的古老民间故事。

If you remember the tale, Brer Fox is fed up with Brer Rabbit and his antics.

如果你还记得这个故事，狐狸兄弟已经厌倦了兔子兄弟和他的滑稽动作。

So one day, Brer Fox sets out to teach Brer Rabbit a lesson.

有一天，狐狸兄弟开始给兔子兄弟上一课。

He sculpts a little baby out of sticky tar and leaves it where Brer Rabbit will find it.

他用粘稠的焦油雕刻了一个小婴儿，并将其留在兔子兄弟会找到的地方。

Sure enough, Brer Rabbit spots the Tar Baby and tries to strike up a conversation.

果然，兔子兄弟发现了焦油宝宝并试图搭讪。

When he gets no response, he grows angry and starts attacking the Tar Baby.

当他没有得到回应时，他变得愤怒并开始攻击焦油宝宝。

But, uh-oh!

但是，呃哦！

Tar is sticky, and now Brer Rabbit is in trouble.

焦油很粘，现在兔子兄弟遇到了麻烦。

Brer Fox finally has the upper hand, but he can’t decide what to do next.

狐狸兄弟终于占据了上风，但他无法决定下一步该做什么。

Should he hang him?

应该吊死他吗？

Burn him?

烧死他？

Drown him?

淹死他？

While Brer Fox is contemplating his next move, Brer Rabbit appeals for mercy.

当狐狸兄弟正在考虑下一步行动时，兔子兄弟请求宽恕。

Whatever you do, “PLEASE DON’T THROW ME IN THE BRIAR PATCH!” Brer Fox didn’t intend to show mercy.

无论你做什么，“请不要把我扔到荆棘丛中！”福克斯弟兄并没有打算怜悯。

He threw Brer Rabbit in the briar patch because he believed it was the last place Brer Rabbit wanted to end up.

他把兔子兄弟扔到了荆棘丛中，因为他相信那是兔子兄弟最不想去的地方。

In the end, Brer Rabbit had the last laugh.

最终，兔哥笑到了最后。

The briar patch was exactly where he wanted to be!

这片荆棘丛正是他想去的地方！

Brer Fox: Earnestly concerned members of Congress and the regulatory apparatus.

福克斯弟兄：认真关心的国会议员和监管机构。

The Briar Patch : A comprehensive federal AI framework (licensing regimes, compute thresholds, liability standards, legislated “responsible scaling” commitments, etc.) that is built and administered with heavy input from the frontier labs, ostensibly to contain them.

Briar Patch：一个全面的联邦人工智能框架（许可制度、计算阈值、责任标准、立法的“负责任的扩展”承诺等），该框架是在前沿实验室的大量投入下构建和管理的，表面上是为了遏制它们。

In other words, the doom rhetoric is a plea to be thrown to safety.

换言之，末日论调是在恳求人们逃到安全的地方。

Once Brer Rabbit is thrown into the Briar Patch, compliance costs become a moat.

一旦Brer Rabbit被扔进Briar Patch，合规成本就变成了护城河。

Startups and open-weight competitors get trapped on the outside.

初创公司和公开重量级竞争对手被困在局外。

And you have an implicit federal backstop (because of the regulatory relationship), so your investors don’t need to be so jittery ahead of your IPO.

而且你有一个隐性的联邦支持（因为监管关系），所以你的投资者不需要在你的首次公开募股之前如此紧张。

I don’t know whether famed investor Michael Burry ( The Big Short ) would agree with my take, but this post suggests he might.

我不知道著名投资者迈克尔·伯里（大空头）是否会同意我的看法，但这篇文章表明他可能会同意。