Opinion

Who will control the future of AI?
观点谁将控制人工智能的未来？

There is no third option — and it’s time to decide which path to take. The United States currently has a lead in AI development, but continued leadership is far from guaranteed. Authoritarian governments the world over are willing to spend enormous amounts of money to catch up and ultimately overtake us. Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has darkly warned that the country that wins the AI race will “become the ruler of the world,” and the People’s Republic of China has said that it aims to become the global leader in AI by 2030.
没有第三种选择 — 是时候决定走哪条道路了。美国目前在人工智能发展方面处于领先地位，但领导地位远非确保。世界各地的威权政府愿意投入巨额资金来迎头赶上并最终超越我们。俄罗斯独裁者弗拉基米尔·普京曾暗示，赢得人工智能竞赛的国家将“成为世界的统治者”，中国人民共和国表示，他们计划在 2030 年成为全球人工智能领导者。

These authoritarian regimes and movements will keep a close hold on the technology’s scientific, health, educational and other societal benefits to cement their own power. If they manage to take the lead on AI, they will force U.S. companies and those of other nations to share user data, leveraging the technology to develop new ways of spying on their own citizens or creating next-generation cyberweapons to use against other countries.
这些威权政权和运动将紧密控制技术的科学、医疗、教育和其他社会益处，以巩固自身权力。如果他们成功领先人工智能，他们将迫使美国公司和其他国家的公司共享用户数据，利用技术开发新的监视本国公民的方式，或者制造下一代网络武器用于攻击其他国家。

The first chapter of AI is already written. Systems such as ChatGPT, Copilot and others are functioning as limited assistants — for instance, by writing up patient visits so nurses and doctors can spend more time with the sick, or serving as more advanced assistants in certain domains, such as code generation for software engineering. More advances will soon follow and will usher in a decisive period in the story of human society.
人工智能的第一章已经写就。像 ChatGPT、Copilot 等系统已经作为有限助手发挥作用 — 例如，通过记录患者就诊情况，使护士和医生能够花更多时间照顾病人，或者在某些领域充当更高级的助手，比如为软件工程生成代码。更多进展将很快到来，并将开启人类社会故事中的决定性时期。

If we want to ensure that the future of AI is a future built to benefit the most people possible, we need a U.S.-led global coalition of like-minded countries and an innovative new strategy to make it happen. The United States’ public and technology sectors need to get four big things right to ensure the creation of a world shaped by a democratic vision for AI.
如果我们希望确保人工智能的未来是造福尽可能多人的未来，我们需要一个由美国领导的志同道合国家的全球联盟，以及一个创新的新战略来实现这一目标。美国的公共和技术部门需要做好四件大事，以确保创造一个由民主愿景塑造的世界。

First, American AI firms and industry need to craft robust security measures to ensure that our coalition maintains the lead in current and future models and enables our private sector to innovate. These measures would include cyberdefense and data center security innovations to prevent hackers from stealing key intellectual property such as model weights and AI training data. Many of these defenses will benefit from the power of artificial intelligence, which makes it easier and faster for human analysts to identify risks and respond to attacks. The U.S. government and the private sector can partner together to develop these security measures as quickly as possible.
首先，美国人工智能公司和行业需要制定强有力的安全措施，以确保我们的联盟在当前和未来的模型中保持领先地位，并使我们的私营部门能够创新。这些措施将包括网络防御和数据中心安全创新，以防止黑客窃取关键的知识产权，如模型权重和人工智能训练数据。许多这些防御措施将受益于人工智能的力量，使人类分析师更容易更快地识别风险并应对攻击。美国政府和私营部门可以合作尽快开发这些安全措施。

Second, infrastructure is destiny when it comes to AI. The early installation of fiber-optic cables, coaxial lines and other pieces of broadband infrastructure is what allowed the United States to spend decades at the center of the digital revolution and to build its current lead in artificial intelligence. U.S. policymakers must work with the private sector to build significantly larger quantities of the physical infrastructure — from data centers to power plants — that run the AI systems themselves. Public-private partnerships to build this needed infrastructure will equip U.S. firms with the computing power to expand access to AI and better distribute its societal benefits.
其次，基础设施对于人工智能来说是命运。早期安装光纤电缆、同轴线和其他宽带基础设施是美国能够在数字革命中花费数十年并建立目前在人工智能领域领先地位的原因。美国决策者必须与私营部门合作，建设大量更多的物理基础设施，从数据中心到发电厂，以运行人工智能系统本身。建立这些必要基础设施的公私合作伙伴关系将为美国企业提供计算能力，扩大人工智能的使用范围，并更好地分配其社会效益。

Building this infrastructure will also create new jobs nationwide. We are witnessing the birth and evolution of a technology I believe to be as momentous as electricity or the internet. AI can be the foundation of a new industrial base it would be wise for our country to embrace.
建设这一基础设施还将在全国范围内创造新的就业机会。我们正在见证一项我认为与电力或互联网同等重要的技术的诞生和演变。人工智能可以成为一个新工业基础的基石，我们的国家应该明智地拥抱这一技术。

We need to complement the proverbial “bricks and mortar” with substantial investment in human capital. As a nation, we need to nurture and develop the next generation of AI innovators, researchers and engineers. They are our true superpower.
我们需要在人力资本方面进行实质性投资，以补充那些传统的“砖瓦”基础。作为一个国家，我们需要培养和发展下一代人工智能创新者、研究人员和工程师。他们才是我们真正的超级力量。

Third, we must develop a coherent commercial diplomacy policy for AI, including clarity around how the United States intends to implement export controls and foreign investment rules for the global build out of AI systems. That will also mean setting out rules of the road for what sorts of chips, AI training data and other code — some of which is so sensitive that it may need to remain in the United States — can be housed in the data centers that countries around the world are racing to build to localize AI information.
第三，我们必须为人工智能制定一项连贯的商业外交政策，包括明确美国打算如何实施出口管制和外国投资规则，以全球构建人工智能系统。这也意味着制定规则，规定哪些芯片、人工智能训练数据和其他代码——其中一些可能如此敏感以至于需要留在美国——可以存放在世界各国正竞相建设的数据中心中，以本地化人工智能信息。

Our existing AI lead, at a time when nations worldwide are vying for greater access to the technology, will make it easier to bring more countries into this new coalition. Making sure open-sourced models are readily available to developers in those nations will further bolster our advantage. The challenge of who will lead on AI is not just about exporting technology, it’s about exporting the values that the technology upholds.
在全球各国争相获取更多科技资源的时候，我们现有的人工智能领先地位将有助于更多国家加入这个新的联盟。确保开源模型能够方便地提供给这些国家的开发者，将进一步增强我们的优势。AI 领导权的挑战不仅仅是关于技术输出，更是关于输出技术所秉持的价值观。

And fourth, we need to think creatively about new models for the world to establish norms in developing and deploying AI, with a particular focus on safety and ensuring a role for the global south and other nations who have been historically left behind. As with other issues of global importance, that will require us to engage with China and maintain an ongoing dialogue.
第四，我们需要创造性地思考建立新模式来制定发展和部署人工智能的规范，特别关注安全，并确保全球南方和其他历史上被落下的国家发挥作用。与其他全球重要问题一样，这将要求我们与中国合作，并保持持续对话。

I’ve spoken in the past about creating something akin to the International Atomic Energy Agency for AI, but that is just one potential model. One option could knit together the network of AI safety institutes being built in countries such as Japan and Britain and create an investment fund that countries committed to abiding by democratic AI protocols could draw from to expand their domestic computer capacities.
我过去曾谈到过要创建类似于国际原子能机构的人工智能机构，但那只是一个潜在的模式。一个选择是将正在日本和英国等国建立的人工智能安全研究所网络结合起来，创建一个投资基金，致力于遵守民主人工智能协议的国家可以从中获取资金，以扩大其国内计算机能力。

Another potential model is the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which was established by the U.S. government in 1998, less than a decade after the creation of the World Wide Web, to standardize how we navigate the digital world. ICANN is now an independent nonprofit with representatives from around the world dedicated to its core mission of maximizing access to the internet in support of an open, connected, democratic global community.
另一个潜在的模式是互联网名称与数字分配公司（ICANN），该公司于 1998 年由美国政府建立，距离万维网创建不到十年，旨在规范我们如何在数字世界中导航。ICANN 现在是一个独立的非营利组织，拥有来自世界各地的代表，致力于其核心使命，即支持开放、连接、民主的全球社区，以最大程度地提高互联网的访问。

While identifying the right decision-making body is important, the bottom line is that democratic AI has a lead over authoritarian AI because our political system has empowered U.S. companies, entrepreneurs and academics to research, innovate and build.
在确定正确的决策机构很重要，但归根结底，民主人工智能领先于专制人工智能，因为我们的政治体系赋予了美国公司、企业家和学者进行研究、创新和建设的权力。

We won’t be able to have AI that is built to maximize the technology’s benefits while minimizing its risks unless we work to make sure the democratic vision for AI prevails. If we want a more democratic world, history tells us our only choice is to develop an AI strategy that will help create it, and that the nations and technologists who have a lead have a responsibility to make that choice — now.
除非我们努力确保民主人工智能的愿景占上风，否则我们将无法拥有旨在最大化技术利益同时最小化风险的人工智能。如果我们希望有一个更加民主的世界，历史告诉我们，我们唯一的选择是制定一个有助于创造这一愿景的人工智能战略，那些领先的国家和技术专家有责任立即做出这一选择。