本文节选自John Collison对Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei的播客访谈。Amodei认为，AI可能带来每年10%的经济增长，但他也强调AI风险不应仅仅关注误用，更要警惕因监管不当或进展缓慢而错失的巨大社会福祉。他以家人因疾病去世但后来被治愈的经历为例，深刻体会到进展缓慢的代价。Amodei不主张停止AI技术发展，因为地缘政治竞争和巨额资本利益使得暂停不切实际。他提出，与其在“慢”与“快”之间抉择，不如探索如何融入安全保障措施，在不大幅减缓技术进步的前提下，为AI发展购买“风险保险”，例如以9%的经济增长换取对AI风险的充分规避。他认为AI技术发展过快可能导致“过热”，因此重点在于“聚焦”而非“停止”。

💡 AI的潜力与经济增长：Amodei指出，AI有可能驱动每年10%的经济增长，这预示着巨大的经济效益和社会进步潜力。然而，他认为AI的风险不应仅局限于其被误用，更在于可能因不当监管或技术发展滞后而错失的潜在人类福祉，强调了加速AI发展的经济和社会重要性。

⚖️ 风险与代价的权衡：Amodei以个人经历强调了技术进展缓慢的沉重代价，因为他曾有家人因当时尚未被治愈的疾病而去世，而这些疾病在几年后便有了治愈方法。这让他深刻理解到，未能足够快地推进AI技术，可能会导致大量本可避免的人类痛苦和生命损失，因此他认为“慢下来”的风险可能比“加速”更大。

🚀 暂停AI发展的局限性：Amodei明确表示不赞成停止AI技术发展，他认为这在现实中是不可行的。一方面，地缘政治竞争对手不会停止研发，这构成了外部压力；另一方面，巨额资本利益的驱动也使得任何实质性的技术暂停都面临巨大的经济阻力，他估计有数万亿美元的资本反对任何形式的减速。

🛡️ 安全与速度的平衡之道：Amodei提出了一种更具建设性的思路，即在追求AI发展速度的同时，积极融入安全与保障措施。他设想了一种权衡，即如果能以9%的经济增长换取对AI潜在风险的充分保障，这将是一种明智的交易。他认为AI的快速发展可能导致“过热”，因此关键在于“聚焦”而非“停止”，通过优化发展方向来管理风险。

Published on August 7, 2025 3:21 AM GMT

This is a cross-post of John Collison's August 6, 2025 podcast interview with Dario Amodei: https://cheekypint.substack.com/p/a-cheeky-pint-with-anthropic-ceo

Key excerpt:

John Collison:
To put numbers on this, you've talked about the potential for a 10% annual economic growth powered by AI. Doesn't that mean that when we talk about AI risk, it's often harms and misuses of AI, but isn't the big AI risk that we slightly misregulated or we slowed down progress, and therefore there's just a lot of human welfare that's missed out on because you don't have enough AI?

Dario Amodei:
Yeah. Well, I've had the experience where I've had family members die of diseases that were cured a few years after they die, so I truly understand the stakes of not making progress fast enough. I would say that some of the dangers of AI have the potential to significantly destabilize society or threaten humanity or civilization, and so I think we don't want to take idle chances with that level of risk.

Now, I'm not at all an advocate of like, "Stop the technology. Pause the technology." I think for a number of reasons, I think it's just not possible. We have geopolitical adversaries; they're not going to not make the technology, the amount of money... I mean, if you even propose even the slightest amount of... I have, and I have many trillions of dollars of capital lined up against me for whom that's not in their interest. So, that shows the limits of what is possible and what is not.

But what I would say is that instead of thinking about slowing it down versus going at the maximum speed, are there ways that we can introduce safety, security measures, think about the economy in ways that either don't slow the technology down or only slow it down a little bit? If, instead of 10% economic growth, we could have 9% economic growth and buy insurance against all of these risks. I think that's what the trade-off actually looks like. And precisely because AI is a technology that has the potential to go so quickly, to solve so many problems, I see the greater risk as the thing could overheat, right? And so I don't want to stop the reaction, I want to focus it. That's how I think about it.

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