Inside the Mind of Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei | The Circuit | Extended Interview

How much are you sleeping? 你每天睡多久？ You know, I've never been someone who slept all that. 你知道，我从来不是那种睡很多的人。 Well, let's just say I'm, you know, I'm, I'm learning the art of, of, you know, finding ways to relax and sleep through, through moments of unusual pressure. 好吧，就说我正在学习一门艺术，学着在异乎寻常的压力时刻找到放松和入睡的方法。 It is all moving so fast. 这一切都在以飞快的速度推进。 How does it feel on the inside? 从内心深处感觉是什么样的？ It's this feeling of like the exponential, like, you know, suppose you were to accelerate away from earth on a spaceship at relativistic speed. 这种感觉就像指数级加速，就好像你驾驶飞船以相对论速度离开地球一样。 The way special relativity works is, you know, you go, you go to sleep and you wake up in two days have gone by on earth. 狭义相对论的运作方式是，你入睡，醒来时地球上已过去两天。 And so you have to deal with two days in one day. 于是你得在一天之内应对两天的事。 And then you go to sleep. 然后你再次入睡。 And then because you've continued to accelerate, three days have gone by on earth, and then the next day and four days have gone by. 然后因为你持续加速，地球上又过去了三天，再过一天就又过去了四天。 And that's a little bit what it feels like. 感觉就有点像那样。 I mean, do you go to bed constantly paranoid about what you'll wake up to? 我的意思是，你上床睡觉时会不会一直担心醒来后又发生了什么？ There are enough clear and present issues that we have to deal with that I'm, I'm constantly dealing with those, while thinking about how we can prepare. 有很多迫切的现实问题需要处理，我一直在应对这些问题，同时也在思考我们该如何做好准备。 But, but you know, I, you know, I, I don't think paranoia or worrying about what you'll wake up to is productive. 但是，你知道，我觉得对醒来后的情况感到偏执或担忧并没有任何成效。 You know, I've looked at people in history who've, you know, who've dealt with these very high pressure situations and, you know, you need to learn to respond rationally and, and not put dangers out of proportion to each other. 你知道，我研究过历史上那些经历过极高压力处境的人，需要学会理性地应对，不把各种危险的重要性混淆放大。 This yo-yoing between, I'm not worried and oh my God, we need to panic today. 在'我一点不担心'和'天哪，今天必须恐慌'之间来回摇摆。 I, I I, I, I think that's a hallmark of immature decision making. 我认为这是不成熟决策的典型标志。 And the actual mature decision making is we can't ignore this. 真正成熟的决策是：我们不能忽视这件事。 We can't be complacent. 我们不能安于现状。 In fact, it's getting to be a bigger and bigger risk. 事实上，这正在成为越来越大的风险。 But, you know, we, we have to respond rationally. 但是，我们必须理性地应对。 You know, like a, like a surgeon would deal with an operation or, you know, like a military officer would, you know, deal with a military operation or, you know, someone making decisions that affect a lot of people has to make those decisions rationally and they have to understand the risk, but they, they, you know, they have to maintain a basic sense of calm. 就像外科医生处理手术，或者军官处理军事行动，或者做出影响众多人决策的人，他们必须理性地做出那些决定，必须理解风险，但他们要保持基本的冷静。 So my son yesterday was like, can I use your Claude Cowork account? 所以我儿子昨天说，我能用你的 Claude 工作账号吗？ And I was like, absolutely not. 我说，绝对不行。 I need my tokens. 我的 token 要留着用。 We're seeing more and more of them, even in the consumer space. 我们在消费端也看到越来越多这样的用例。 We wanted to be more of an enterprise company. 我们本想更专注于企业市场。 But, you know, it's even, even even consumer without us putting that much effort is starting to go fast. 但即便是消费端，即使我们没有投入太多精力，增长也开始快速起来。 You are at the center of the AI universe right now. 你现在处于 AI 宇宙的中心。 What does that feel like? 这种感觉是什么样的？ The interesting thing is, is that the experience I've had for my whole career and certainly the whole time at Anthropic is that there's this kind of smooth exponential and the experience, the smooth exponential is, nothing's happening, nothing's happening, nothing's happening. 有意思的是，我整个职业生涯、在 Anthropic 工作的每一天，都感受着一条平滑的指数曲线。平滑指数曲线的体验就是：什么都没发生，什么都没发生，什么都没发生。 A little things happen and then zoom, it goes crazy. 只有一点点小事发生，然后嗖地一声，它就疯长起来了。 That's the experience of the world. 这是整个世界的体验。 That's the experience of the scale of the company compared to the other companies and compared to the world. 这也是我们公司相对于其他公司、相对于整个世界在规模上的体验。 So, you know, I was watching this graph for a while and I said, oh yeah, we'll probably become the AI company with, you know, the, the most revenue and the most valuation some sometime around this time. 我盯着这张图看了很久，心想：好吧，我们大概会在某个时间点成为营收最高、估值最高的 AI 公司。 And, and indeed, indeed it has happened. 而确实，它真的发生了。 So in one sense, I'm not surprised 'cause there's just a smooth line on the graph. 从某种意义上说，我并不感到意外，因为图上就是一条平滑的曲线。 But of course in another sense, when things actually happen, you just, you see so much more, you know, detail and color to it and it, you know, it definitely is surprising. 但从另一种意义上说，当事情真正发生时，你会看到更多细节和色彩，这确实还是会让你感到惊讶。 And what we're just keeping in mind, all the things we usually keep in mind, which are, which are just, you know, how do we train good models? 我们始终牢记那些老问题：怎样训练出好的模型？ How do we put them in good products? 怎样把它们放进好的产品？ How do we make sure that everything's safe? 怎样确保一切都安全？ How do we help people but also manage the societal risks around the technology? 怎样帮助人们，同时管控这项技术带来的社会风险？ It's, it's all the same questions, just kind of under a bigger, under a bigger microscope as it were. 都是同样的问题，只是放在了一个更大的显微镜下。 What were you like as a kid growing up in San Francisco? 你在旧金山长大的时候是什么样的孩子？ I know your, your dad was a leather craftsman. 我知道你父亲是一位皮革工匠。 Your mom worked in libraries. 你母亲在图书馆工作。 How did that shape you? 这些对你有什么影响？ You know, the whole, you know, like first, you know, internet revolution was happening around me and I had absolutely no interest in it. 那时候，第一波互联网革命正在我身边发生，但我对它完全没有兴趣。 I was just interested in like, doing math and like scra, you know, scrawling things, I was interested in, like understanding the universe. 我只对做数学感兴趣，还有涂涂画画，我感兴趣的是理解宇宙。 I was interested in science fiction. 我对科幻小说很感兴趣。 Like that was, that was kind of the, you know, that was the, that was the general, that was the general milieu. 那就是我当时的整体氛围。 I, I think I just felt a lot of curiosity about the world. 我想，我当时只是对这个世界充满了好奇。 You grew up in the town where, you know, that is the center of technology and right now it's the center of AI you know? 你在这座城市长大，这里曾经是科技的中心，而现在它是 AI 的中心。 Is there anything about this place, this city here that informed your worldview? 这个地方、这座城市有没有什么东西塑造了你的世界观？ Yeah, I mean, I think the general, you know, the general spirit of kind of, you know, nonconformism and individualism and it's okay to be crazy. 对，我觉得硅谷那种不循规蹈矩、强调个人主义的大氛围，还有那种「发疯也没关系」的精神，确实影响了我。 I think, I think a good deal of that probably did, probably did probably did rub off against me. 我想，其中相当一部分大概确实对我产生了影响。 You know, you hear these stories about, you know, you go to countries in Europe or you know, even other parts of this country where it's, it's just, you know, it's just kind of discouraged or considered weird to like, think about things in some different way, right? 你会听到这样的说法：去欧洲的一些国家，或者去这个国家的其他地方，用不同方式思考问题会被劝阻，甚至被认为是奇怪的，对吧？ Or have some set of, of some set of crazy ideas. 或者说持有某些「疯狂」的想法。 And, you know, there's a lot of things I'm actually very critical about with, with Silicon Valley. 当然，硅谷有很多东西我其实也有不少批评，但有一点我觉得是好的，就是这种鼓励： But one thing that I think is good about it is this, this encouragement of like, you know, it doesn't matter if all the experts are against you, it doesn't matter, you know, if you have a coherent vision and a coherent world view of the world, you should go and pursue it. 哪怕所有专家都反对你，也没关系；只要你有连贯的愿景和一套自洽的世界观，你就应该去追求它。 Maybe it just won't work at all. 也许根本就行不通。 But, but if it does, there's this kind of long tailed ness to it where, you know, there are certain places you can, you know, you can, you can search certain veins of war where, you know, you might, you might find a huge goldmine there. 但如果真的可行，它就具有这种长尾特性，你知道，在某些地方，你可以探索某些领域的矿脉，说不定会在那里挖到巨大的金矿。 I think that spirit is very important. 我认为这种精神非常重要。 You, Daniela, your sister and her husband, Holden Karnofsky lived in a group house together back in 2016. 你、丹妮拉、你姐姐和她的丈夫 Holden Karnofsky，在 2016 年曾一起合住在一栋房子里。 What were you debating back then? 你们当时在讨论什么？ That was, I think the time when, you know, Open Philanthropy project was, was, you know, first being startup, which Holden was the lead of. 那时候，我记得是 Open Philanthropy 项目刚刚起步的时候，Holden 是负责人。 And I was at that time, you know, like a, a biological scientist. 而我那时候，算是一名生物科学家。 So, you know, I was helping them with some of the stuff they were doing around kind of developing world health or biological research. 所以，我在帮他们做一些工作，主要围绕发展中国家的卫生或生物研究领域。 So, you know, I I kind of advised on that stuff and, you know, what were the areas that were promising? 所以，我提供了一些建议，讨论哪些领域是有前景的。 What were the areas that were less promising 哪些领域前景较差 Your decision to leave 你离开的决定 Open AI has become Silicon Valley lore. OpenAI 已经成了硅谷的传奇。 What really happened? 究竟发生了什么？ Like, beyond the narrative, what were the issues? 超越那些说法，真正的问题是什么？ What did you disagree on? 你们在哪些方面存在分歧？ Look, I'll, I'm gonna say it, I'm gonna say it very simply. 听着，我来说，我会说得非常直接。 You know, there are many difficult issues that you know, you face when you're building powerful technology that Anthropic faces every day where we don't know whether we're making the right decision or the wrong decision. 你知道，构建强大技术时会面临很多棘手的问题，这也是 Anthropic 每天都要面对的，我们并不总是知道自己做的是对还是错。 So, you know, there are many valid disagreements to be had on safety. 所以，在安全问题上，存在很多合理的分歧。 We certainly had some of those disagreements with them, but, you know, people that, that, that, that alone is not sufficient to leave. 我们确实与他们有过一些分歧，但仅凭这一点还不足以离开。 People here have had disagreements with me, people here have disagreements with each other. 这里的人跟我有过分歧，这里的人彼此之间也有分歧。 But when you feel that you can't trust someone, when you feel that their values are not what they say they are, when you feel that they're not honest, when you feel that they're not in it for the reasons that they say, when you see disturbing patterns of behavior dishonesty, that makes it very hard to, you know, to continue to work with a company, to continue to trust the company. 但当你觉得无法信任某人，当你觉得他们的价值观与他们所说的不符，当你觉得他们并不诚实，当你觉得他们参与其中的动机并非他们所说的那样，当你看到令人不安的行为模式和不诚信的表现，这就很难继续在一家公司工作，很难继续信任这家公司。 And look, at the end of the day, why argue with someone when you don't have the same vision and you don't trust them. 说到底，当你们没有共同的愿景、又无法信任对方时，何必还要争论呢。 Like the way the the way to resolve it is you go off and do your thing. 解决的方式就是你离开，去做自己的事。 They go off and do their thing. 他们也去做他们自己的事。 And I am completely at peace with the idea that we're doing things our way and they're doing things their way. 我完全接受这样的现实：我们按自己的方式做事，他们按他们的方式做事。 We'll see who wins in the market and we'll see who wins in the court of public opinion. 市场会给出答案，公众舆论也会给出答案。 I think those things speak louder than any drama about why, who left, what, you know, we're, we're providing an example of how to deploy this technology, you know, in what we think is a responsible way. 我认为这些事实比任何关于谁为何离开的戏剧性说法都更有说服力。我们正在提供一个范例，展示如何以我们认为负责任的方式部署这项技术。 If they disagree, they should make that argument. 如果他们有异议，应该去论证。 And you know that, I think that's really all there is to say about it. 而且你也知道，我认为关于这件事真的没什么更多可说的了。 There was a moment at India's AI summit where you and Sam Altman appeared to refuse to hold hands on stage. 在印度的 AI 峰会上，有一个时刻，你和萨姆·奥尔特曼似乎拒绝在台上握手。 What happened there? 发生了什么？ What happened is that the summit was extremely disorganized. 事情是这样的，那次峰会组织极其混乱。 We all came up at the last minute and they like changed the order in which we were standing, and then like, they took a picture of us and then they ordered us all to like, hold hands. 我们所有人都是在最后一刻上台的，他们临时改变了我们站立的顺序，然后给我们拍了张照片，之后又要求我们所有人拉手。 You know, if you've ever been to one of these summit, I am not saying anything bad about India in particular, but like all of these kind of international type summits that have like heads of state are like super disorganized. 你知道，如果你参加过这类峰会，我不是针对印度，但所有这种有国家元首出席的国际峰会，都乱得一塌糊涂。 Okay? 好吧？ But everyone else held hands. 但其他所有人都拉手了。 Come on. 得了吧。 I, I look, I don't know, I don't know what to tell you. 我，我看，我不知道，我真不知道该对你说什么。 Okay. 好吧。 There was like, you know, Narendra Modi up there suddenly telling everyone to, like suddenly telling everyone to hold hands. 当时纳伦德拉·莫迪就在台上，突然要求所有人拉手。