The Ex-Congressman Who Says AI Isn't Unstoppable — Brad Carson

So I remember when I was first elected to Congress 20 years ago now. 我记得20年前，我第一次当选国会议员的时候。 The Congressional Management Foundation gives you this book of kinda like, how to be a congressman, how to run your office, what to expect day to day. 国会管理基金会会给你一本手册，差不多就是教你怎么做一名国会议员，怎么管理你的办公室，每天大概会遇到什么事情。 And I remember reading in the back, they had a survey of the existing Congress. 我记得翻到后面，里面有一份对现任国会议员的调查。 And they said, how much time a day do you have to read and to get smarter about issues? 问题是，你每天有多少时间用来阅读，提升自己对各类议题的了解？ And the answer was 17 minutes. 答案是17分钟。 We control the most important part of AI, and that is the chips. 我们掌控着AI最关键的部分，那就是芯片。 We can stop other countries from developing super AI, you know, in their tracks. 我们可以阻止其他国家就这样发展出超级AI。 If you're in Gaza, Keith, you have a 0.73, you know, percent that you're a Hamas terrorist. 如果你在加沙，Keith，系统会给你打出0.73分，意思是说你有0.73的概率是哈马斯恐怖分子。 And, you know, what makes that you know, what is 0.73? 那个0.73意味着什么？ Like, do you get struck for that, or are you off the list for that? 你会因为那个分数被打击，还是说那个分数还不够高？ Like, what's the threshold? 门槛是多少？ Right. 对吧。 You know, people will often say this about AI. 人们谈到AI的时候，常常会说这样的话。 Like, it's coming. 就是，它要来了。 You have to accept it. 你必须接受。 We regulate and change technologies all the time. 我们对技术进行监管和调整，这是一直在发生的事。 And so I do think there is a world where we should not just accept the future as being determined. 所以我确实认为，我们不应该只是接受未来已经被决定了这个前提。 We shape it actively. 我们可以主动塑造它。 The anthropomorphic tendency we have when we see language. 我们看到语言的时候，会产生一种拟人化的倾向。 We love language. 我们热爱语言。 We think it's a unique human skill. 我们以为这是人类独有的能力。 When this machine turns it out, we know through AI psychosis and other things that people think it's a person. 当机器也能产出语言，通过AI心理作用等现象，我们知道人们会开始把它当成人。 And therefore, they're giving the rights of persons to something. 于是，他们开始把人的权利赋予一个物体。 And that to me is a very dangerous thing. 在我看来，这是非常危险的事。 But it's a machine, and we should treat it like a machine. 但它是一台机器，我们应该把它当机器对待。 I mean, the fear of the Soviet Union was real and powerful. 对苏联的恐惧是真实而强烈的。 But nonetheless, we had people, both parties, wise men, who got together and said, like, this arms race thing is gonna kill us all. 但即便如此，两党都有一批有远见的人聚在一起说，军备竞赛会把我们所有人都拖死。 How you win wars is with people. 打赢战争靠的是人。 You know? 你知道吧？ That's a fundamental 那是一个根本性的 And I think it is I often said from my time in the military watching this all go down. 从我在军队里亲历这一切的那段时间开始，我就常常说这句话。 The American way of war, in many ways, is substituting capital for labor. 美国的战争方式，在很多方面，就是用资本替代劳动力。 We love bright, shiny objects. 我们喜欢闪亮的新玩意。 We think there are technical solutions to vexing human problems. 我们总以为技术能解决棘手的人性问题。 And we're always betrayed by that. 然后我们总是被自己背刺。 Because in the end, when you go to Iraq, you go to Afghanistan, you go to Iran, all the fancy kit, they can reduce your city to rubble. 因为最终，不管你去伊拉克、阿富汗还是伊朗，那些花哨的装备可以把城市夷为平地。 Right? 对吧？ But the only thing they can't do, and only humans can do this, is basically come kick in your door and occupy your place and, like, you know, reinstantiate a new government there that we like to see. 但有一件事它们做不到，只有人类能做到，就是踹开你家门、占领你的地盘，然后重新扶植一个我们想看到的政府。 That's a human endeavor. 那是人才能完成的事。 You know, I had a long standing interest in artificial intelligence just as someone interested in kind of public life, society, how 1 governs an ever changing world. 我一直对人工智能很感兴趣，就是作为一个关心公共生活、社会议题、治理问题的人，想搞懂在一个不断变化的世界里如何管理一切。 So I followed AI for probably 20 years casually reading about it. 所以我断断续续地关注AI大概20年了。 When I was in the Department of Defense running the army, I had the chance to work on the law of war. 在国防部主管陆军的时候，我有机会参与战争法方面的工作。 We oversaw that for the entire Pentagon, for all of the military services. 我们替整个五角大楼和所有军种监管这方面的事务。 And right as I was leaving, the question of autonomous weapons became an important issue for the Pentagon. 就在我即将离任的时候，自主武器问题成了五角大楼的一个重要议题。 And we were sending army lawyers over to Geneva to talk to the Red Cross about, you know, a possible treaty or or address their many concerns about it. 我们派陆军律师到日内瓦去和红十字国际委员会商讨，讨论可能的条约，以及他们对此的种种担忧。 I was following it there as well. 在那方面我也一直保持关注。 And I often tell people 1 of the great qualities I have, which isn't that important, but it's helped me a lot in life, is I always answered the phone and took a lot of cold calls. 我常常告诉人们，我有一个优点，算不上什么了不起，但对我帮助很大就是我总会接电话，接了很多陌生来电。 And so I was a professor at the University of Virginia for a short while after Obama left office during really the first Trump administration. 奥巴马离任后，特朗普第一届任期期间，我曾在弗吉尼亚大学短暂担任教授。 And 1 day, the phone rings. 有一天，电话响了。 And it's someone who I'd never heard of before. 打来的是一个我完全没听说过的人。 And my phone in the office never rang. 我办公室的电话从来不响的。 And I thought it could be an emergency or something. 我以为可能是什么紧急情况之类的。 And so I picked it up, and he says, I'm Anthony Aguirre. 于是我接起来，他说，我是 Anthony Aguirre。 I'm a physicist at the University of California system. 我是加州大学系统的一位物理学家。 He said, we wanna invite you to this amazing AI conference that's gonna happen over the New Year's in Puerto Rico. 他说，我们想邀请你参加一个非凡的AI会议，将在元旦期间在波多黎各举行。 And I said, well, I don't know that I can really add a lot to such a conference. 我说，我不太确定自己能在这样的会议上贡献什么。 That's a long ways away. 那地方也挺远的。 He said, oh, we have a stellar panel of people coming. 他说，我们邀请到了一批非常出色的嘉宾。 I said, yeah. 我说，好啊。 Like who? 都有谁？ He says, you'll probably know some of them. 他说，你可能认识其中一些人。 He said, well, Dario Amodei? 他说，Dario Amodei？ I said, never heard of him. 我说，没听说过。 He said, Stuart Russell. 他说，Stuart Russell。 I said, nope. 我说，没有。 Yoshua Bengio. Yoshua Bengio。 I said, I had never heard of these people. 我说，这些人我一个都没听说过。 He went about 6 deep into this till he finally said, well, Reid Hoffman and Elon Musk are supposed to come. 他一连报了六个名字，最后说，Reid Hoffman 和 Elon Musk 应该也会来。 I said, well, I know them just from kind of the business pages of the newspaper or from pop culture. 我说，这两位我倒是知道，不过是从商业新闻或流行文化里了解的。 He said, it'll be great. 他说，会非常棒的。 There's only a 100 people coming. 就100个人。 You should you should visit this event. 你应该来参加这个活动。 I said, well, New Year's, it's warm in Puerto Rico. 我说，元旦嘛，波多黎各那时候天气暖和。 I said, why not? 我说，为什么不去呢？ It's already a massive problem that other industries have successfully captured regulation, you know, to their advantage and to the detriment of of the rest of us. 其他行业已经被成功地监管俘获，为自身利益服务，而损害了我们其余人的利益，这本身就已经是个巨大的问题了。 You know, the people who are not not the biggest players. 也就是那些不是最大玩家的人。 In fact, 1 of my favorite, sci fi shows, even though it only lived for for 1 year is Firefly. 事实上，我最喜欢的一部科幻剧，虽然只播了一年，就是《萤火虫》。 And then there has this excellent quote where Shepard Book says, you know, a government is just a body of people, usually, notably, ungoverned. 剧里有一句绝妙的台词，Shepherd Book 说，政府不过是一群人的集合，通常情况下，值得注意的是，这群人是不受管束的。 It is a daunting problem, but I think there are examples in government that have been less captured by the industry, and those can prove some kind of paradigm for us as well. 这确实是个令人生畏的问题，但我认为政府里有些领域受行业俘获的程度更轻，它们可以为我们提供一种参照模式。 I think having Congress have strong oversight of it, having a lot of democratic accountability. 我觉得让国会对AI进行有力监督，加强民主问责，非常重要。 And, you know, 1 of the things we advocate for are ways that actually minimize the government while ensuring we have proper kind of public oversight. 我们倡导的一些方式，实际上是在尽量缩减政府规模的同时，确保建立适当的公共监督机制。 So, for example, we've been strong advocates for mandatory testing and evaluation of frontier models. 比如，我们一直是强制测试和评估前沿模型的有力倡导者。 It doesn't have to be done by a bureaucracy in the Department of Commerce or Department of Energy. 这件事不一定要由商务部或能源部的官僚机构来做。 There's lot of interesting ideas about independent verification organizations, you know, kind of the model we use in public company accounting. 有很多关于独立核查机构的有趣构想，类似于我们在上市公司会计领域采用的模式。 But that's all done by the private sector, but it's also overseen by the SEC to make sure that it's not fraudulent and you don't have an Enron, you know, Arthur Andersen situation. 那整套是由私营部门完成的，但也受美国证券交易委员会监管，确保不会出现造假，不会出现安然、安达信那样的丑闻。 And I know I don't think public company accounting is seen as a captured industry, but it provides a meaningful service to the capital markets. 我知道，上市公司会计领域并不被视为被俘获的行业，但它确实为资本市场提供了有意义的服务。 So I think there are models like that. 所以我觉得类似的模式是存在的。 And I do think the problem I have often, who advocate for regulatory capture, Dean Ball and I will go back and forth on this question, is like, it's searching for a pea under a 100 mattresses. 我常常遇到的问题，和那些拿监管俘获说事的人，比如 Dean Ball，我们会来回争论这个问题，就好比在100床褥子下面找豌豆。 It's never falsifiable. 永远无法证伪。 You say, well, it's regulatory capture. 你说，这是监管俘获。 Well, you know, right now, we don't have any regulations. 你看，现在我们根本没有任何法规。 And my view is that groups like a 16 z or people in Silicon Valley have largely captured the process because they work very informally through networks of political influence. 我的看法是，a16z 这类团体或硅谷人士，在很大程度上已经通过非正式的政治影响力网络掌控了这个进程。 That it's really about what the alternatives are going to be. 关键在于其他备选方案会是什么。 Having an agency subject to regulatory capture, yes, is at least more accountable than the kind of informal, very moneyed networks that are controlling AI policy as we sit here in 2026. 设立一个可能被监管俘获的机构，确实存在风险，但它至少比那种非正式的、充斥着金钱运作的网络更具问责性，而正是那类网络在2026年的今天主导着AI政策。 We always have to look at politics about the alternative. 评估政治问题时，我们总要看清楚备选方案是什么。 Like, imagine the SEC. 想想证券交易委员会。 So is the SEC captured? 证券交易委员会被俘获了吗？ Well, I'm sure 我相信 the industry has a lot of influence over the SEC, both informally and formally. 业界对证券交易委员会的影响力是很大的，无论正式还是非正式渠道。 Would we be a better world without the SEC because it's been captured? 如果没有证券交易委员会，即便它被俘获了，世界就会更好吗？