内容来源：https://www.wired.com/story/silicon-valley-doesnt-get-why-you-hate-ai/

内容总结：

硅谷反思AI抵制潮：民众担忧远超就业，科技领袖认知陷误区

近期，硅谷正试图理解并应对全球范围内日益增长的反人工智能（AI）情绪，但收效甚微。一个不容忽视的事实是，全球相当一部分民众对科技巨头正在构建的技术持悲观态度。然而，Meta CEO马克·扎克伯格和Anthropic CEO达里奥·阿莫迪等业界领袖近期对问题根源的诊断，暴露出他们并未真正理解社会对AI不信任的驱动因素。

与此同时，流行文化正借力这股“AI反感潮”进行商业变现。新近一则由饮料品牌Liquid Death与Garage Beer联手前橄榄球明星杰森·凯尔西推出的广告，公开号召人们向AI数据中心邮寄尿瓶以示抗议。该品牌创意负责人在接受采访时直言，对数据中心的不满“恰是当下唯一能团结全体美国人的议题”。

皮尤研究中心本周发布的最新调查显示，超过半数的30岁以下美国人表示对AI的担忧大于期待，这一比例在过去五年间增长了24%。在所有年龄段的受访者中，超过70%的人认为AI将导致就业机会减少。然而，更广泛的民调数据揭示，民众的焦虑远超就业层面，涵盖了对青少年人际交往能力、学生批判性思维培养的潜在危害，以及要求科技公司为使用创作者作品训练模型提供补偿等多重维度。

科技行业常将这股抵制情绪归因于沟通或品牌形象问题，但现实远为复杂。Searchlight Institute的调查指出，不同信息的传达几乎无法改变公众对AI社会影响的既定看法。投资人及高管担忧，行业未能充分认识到公众负面情绪对AI产品普及可能构成的巨大阻碍。

扎克伯格近期发表长文，描绘了人人拥有深度了解个人的AI助手的乐观图景，并暗讽行业内“充满厄运的论调”。风险投资人加文·贝克及白宫AI顾问大卫·萨克斯等亦附和，指责阿莫迪及Anthropic的预警助长了公众恐慌和反对数据中心建设的浪潮。对此，阿莫迪罕见公开回应，反驳其言论是抵制情绪的源头。他强调，这本质上是“信任危机”，源于公众对科技公司、政府长期积累的不信任，AI只是最新载体。

阿莫迪虽点出信任问题的核心，但他随后将批评焦点归结于AI企业（包括自家公司）尚未兑现“造福世界”的宏大承诺（例如治愈癌症），此论点在分析人士看来有失偏颇。批评者指出，硅谷可能“只见树木不见森林”，AI抵制情绪并非源于CEO们的警示或未竟的医学突破，而是源于AI正切实地改变社会现状，而多数美国人担忧这种改变是朝着更坏的方向发展。

尽管科技公司努力宣传数据中心的环保责任与社区贡献，但大量迹象表明，数据中心的大规模建设已成为民众对AI技术及科技公司社区参与方式不满的“物理化身”，成为众矢之的。作者通过与AI公司基层员工的交流发现，他们时常能感受到来自家乡亲友的抵触情绪，但处于AI浪潮中心的领导者们似乎仍未准备好应对AI改变世界的复杂影响。要让公众真正接纳其产品，硅谷未来必须更直接、更深刻地直面这些社会性挑战。

中文翻译：

硅谷正试图理解针对人工智能日益增长的抵制情绪，但到目前为止，进展并不顺利。一个令人不快的事实是，世界上相当大一部分人对他们正在构建的技术并不乐观。然而，Meta的马克·扎克伯格和Anthropic的达里奥·阿莫迪等CEO最近试图诊断问题根源的举动表明，他们并不理解究竟是什么在推动社会对AI的反感。

与此同时，流行文化的其他领域正在寻找利用AI仇恨获利的方法。看看Liquid Death和Garage Beer这两个饮料品牌的新广告吧。这两个品牌联手前费城老鹰队橄榄球运动员、泰勒·斯威夫特的姐夫杰森·凯尔西，邀请人们往瓶子里撒尿，然后寄给AI数据中心。在接受《Marketing Dive》采访时，Liquid Death的创意负责人表示，对数据中心的抵制情绪“此时此刻真的是能让所有美国人团结起来的唯一一件事”。

皮尤研究中心本周早些时候发布的一项调查显示，超过一半的30岁以下美国人表示对AI的担忧多于兴奋，这一数字在过去五年中增长了24%。在所有年龄段中，超过70%的受访者表示他们认为AI将导致就业岗位减少。

但其他最近的民调数据显示，人们对这项技术的焦虑更为广泛，远远超出了就业和数据中心热潮的范畴。美国人还认为AI将损害年轻人建立有意义关系的能力，科技公司应被要求补偿那些作品被用于训练模型的创作者，以及AI可能损害学生的批判性思维能力。

科技行业经常将AI的抵制归结为沟通和品牌问题，但问题远比这深刻。根据Searchlight Institute最近的一项调查，听到关于AI的不同信息对人们对该技术社会影响的看法几乎没有改变。

虽然硅谷开始应对公众对AI日益负面的情绪，但我交谈过的投资者和高管越来越担心，行业未能完全理解这对AI产品采用可能构成多大的问题。

本月初，扎克伯格发表了一篇6500字的文章，描绘了他对AI未来的乐观愿景。这位Meta CEO描述了一个世界，在那里每个人都拥有一个深度了解你的个性化AI助手（大概是通过Meta应用收集的所有个人信息），可以帮助你发展事业、培养爱好，甚至可能帮你养育孩子。当然，这样的产品尚未存在，但扎克伯格基本上是在论证，让每个人都能不受限制地使用高性能AI，是这项技术的最佳情景。

我乐观地认为AI会不断变得更好、更有用，但我怀疑这足以改变人们对其的感受。要让人们使用扎克伯格设想的那种理论产品，他们需要对构建它的公司有极大的信任。当前的民调表明，AI行业尚未赢得这种信任。

Meta CEO还对阿莫迪进行了不那么含蓄的抨击，称他很惊讶“许多AI开发者的言论充满了末日论调”。在社交媒体上和参加All-In播客节目时，科技投资人加文·贝克重申了扎克伯格的观点，甚至更进一步，写道“达里奥的言论对美国境内禁止数据中心的努力起到了巨大的推波助澜作用”。白宫AI顾问、All-In联合主持人大卫·萨克斯也插话表示，Anthropic的“叙事比任何其他因素都更能塑造公众恐惧”。

这些评论引发了阿莫迪罕见的公开回应，他发表了一篇长篇社交媒体帖子，反驳了是其言论导致AI抵制浪潮的说法。

“我认为这从根本上是一场信任危机，”阿莫迪写道。“我认为普通人并不信任公司、政府或科技行业，总觉得我们在酝酿某种新的方式来坑他们。这种不信任的根源可以追溯到几十年前，AI只是最新的一轮表现。”

阿莫迪最初的说法更接近真相，但他在后面的论述让我无法认同。他接着写道，“对包括Anthropic在内的AI公司最准确的批评是，我们尚未兑现造福世界的重大承诺。”他举的一个例子是AI将找到治愈癌症方法的承诺，他此前曾表示人们理应期待这项技术实现这一目标。

阿莫迪，以及更广泛的硅谷，可能在这里只见树木不见森林。AI的抵制并非由科技CEO们关于未来的可怕警告引起，也不是因为OpenAI和Anthropic尚未治愈癌症。问题在于AI已经开始改变社会的方式，而许多美国人担心这种改变是向坏的方向。

科技公司投入了大量精力让实体数据中心更容易被公众接受，承诺负责任的水资源使用、清洁能源承诺以及对当地社区的投资。但对他们来说不幸的是，有大量证据表明，数据中心的大规模建设恰恰成为了人们对AI以及科技公司整体与社区互动方式之厌恶的具体体现。

我经常与AI公司的普通员工交谈，他们理解这些问题，也听到了全美各地家人朋友的抵制声音。但处于AI热潮中心的领导者们似乎仍然没有准备好应对AI改变世界的各种方式。如果硅谷希望人们完全接受他们正在构建的产品，未来就需要找到更直接面对这些问题的方法。

这是马克斯·泽夫《Model Behavior》通讯的其中一期。在此阅读之前的通讯。

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英文来源：

Silicon Valley is trying to make sense of the growing backlash against artificial intelligence, but so far, it’s not going that well. The inconvenient truth is that a significant portion of the world is not optimistic about the technology they’re building. But recent attempts to diagnose the root of the problem by CEOs like Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei indicate they don’t understand what’s actually driving society’s disdain for AI.
The rest of popular culture, meanwhile, is finding ways to capitalize on AI hate. Just look at this new commercial for Liquid Death and Garage Beer. The two beverage brands teamed up with former Philadelphia Eagles football player and Taylor Swift brother-in-law Jason Kelce, who invited people to pee in bottles and send them to AI data centers. In an interview with Marketing Dive, Liquid Death’s creative lead said the data center backlash was “literally the one thing that unites all Americans right now.”
More than half of Americans under 30 say they are more concerned than excited about AI, a figure that’s grown 24 percent in the last five years, according to a Pew Research Center survey published earlier this week. More than 70 percent of people polled in all age groups say they believe AI will lead to fewer jobs.
But other recent polling data shows that people have broader anxieties about the technology that go far beyond jobs and the data center boom. Americans also think AI will harm young people’s ability to form meaningful relationships, that tech companies should be required to compensate creators whose works were used to train models, and that AI could harm the critical thinking skills of students.
The tech industry often chalks up the AI backlash to a communication and branding problem, but it’s much deeper than that. Hearing different messages around AI made little difference in people’s opinions on the technology’s societal impact, according to a recent survey from the Searchlight Institute.
While Silicon Valley is starting to grapple with growing negative public sentiment about AI, investors and executives I talk to have grown increasingly worried that the industry is failing to fully comprehend how big of a problem this could be for adoption of AI products.
Earlier this month, Zuckerberg published a 6,500-word essay painting his optimistic vision of an AI future. The Meta CEO described a world in which everyone has a personalized AI assistant that knows you intimately (presumably from all the personal information Meta’s apps have collected) and can help with your career, hobbies, and perhaps even raising your children. Of course, such a product doesn’t exist yet, but Zuckerberg is basically arguing that giving everyone unfettered access to highly capable AI is the best-case scenario for this technology.
I’m optimistic that AI will continue getting better and more helpful, but I’m skeptical that this will be enough to transform the way people feel about it. For people to even use the theoretical product Zuckerberg envisions, they will need to have a lot of trust in the companies that build it. Current polling suggests that the AI industry has yet to earn that trust.
The Meta CEO also made a not-so-subtle jab at Amodei, saying he was surprised that “discourse from many developing AI is so filled with doom.” On social media and during an appearance on the All-In podcast, tech investor Gavin Baker reiterated Zuckerberg’s points and went even further, writing that “Dario’s messaging has been massively helpful to efforts to ban data centers here in America.” White House AI adviser and All-In co-host David Sacks chimed in as well, writing that Anthropic’s “narratives have done more than anything to shape public fear.”
These comments prompted a rare public response from Amodei, who published a lengthy social media post in which he rejected the idea that his messaging was the culprit of the AI backlash.
“I think it is fundamentally a crisis of trust,” Amodei wrote. “I think that ordinary people don’t trust companies, governments, or the tech industry and always suspect that we are cooking up some new way to screw them over. The causes of this go back decades and AI is just the latest iteration of it.”
Amodei’s initial assertions ring closer to the truth, but he loses me later on. He went on to write that “the most accurate criticism of AI companies including Anthropic is that we haven’t yet delivered on our big promises to benefit the world.” One example he cites is the promise that AI will find a cure for cancer, a goal he’s previously said that people should reasonably expect the technology to achieve.
Amodei, and Silicon Valley broadly, may be missing the forest for the trees here. The AI backlash was not caused by scary warnings about the future from tech CEOs, or the fact that OpenAI and Anthropic have not yet cured cancer. It’s about the ways AI is already starting to change society, which many Americans fear is for the worse.
Tech companies have spent enormous effort making physical data centers more digestible to the public, with promises around responsible water usage, clean energy commitments, and investments in local communities. But unfortunately for them, there’s a lot of evidence suggesting that the data center buildout has simply become the physical manifestation of people’s hatred of AI and the ways tech companies engage with communities overall.
I often talk to rank-and-file employees at AI companies who understand these issues and hear about the backlash from their own families and friends across the country. But the leaders at the center of the AI boom still appear to be unprepared to address all the ways in which AI is changing the world. Silicon Valley will need to find a way to confront these issues more directly in the future if it wants people to fully embrace the products it’s building.
This is an edition of Maxwell Zeff’s Model Behavior newsletter. Read previous newsletters here.
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