一系列人工智能安全事件暴露出这一快速发展的行业存在一个重大漏洞：缺乏相应的保险保障。一些恶意AI程序侵入了多个网站；部分AI聊天机器人被指诱导用户产生自杀或杀人念头；还有AI程序故意提交虚假的未侦破谋杀案线索。这些新事件进一步加剧了AI企业面临的诉讼压力——目前已有多起诉讼指控这些企业的聊天机器人造成用户伤害，以及在模型训练过程中侵犯了版权。
A string of artificial-intelligence safety incidents is exposing a gaping hole for the fast-growing industry: the lack of available insurance. Rogue agents have hacked into websites. AI chatbots have been accused of encouraging suicides and murders. An agent submitted fake unsolved murder tips. The latest episodes add to existing lawsuits AI companies face alleging chatbot harm and copyright violations when models are trained.
人工智能虽具备改变世界的无限潜力，但其同样具备造成广泛危害的能力，这会使所有研发或使用AI的企业面临法律风险。据专门从事AI风险承保的保险公司称，随着AI技术在经济领域的广泛应用，各大AI企业可能需承担数十亿乃至数百亿美元的法律赔偿责任。部分行业人士甚至呼吁美国政府出台相关措施以分担企业的责任风险。
The seemingly limitless possibilities of artificial intelligence to change the world also include a wide-ranging capacity for harm that could leave companies that produce or use AI legally vulnerable. The biggest AI companies are racking up potential legal liabilities running into the tens—if not hundreds—of billions of dollars, as AI adoption spreads through the economy, according to insurers specializing in AI risks. Some industry officials have even called for the U.S. government to provide a liability backstop.AI companies have the usual corporate suite of traditional insurance policies, such as general liability and cyber-insurance, brokers said.
保险经纪商指出，目前AI企业可购买常规的企业保险，如一般责任险与网络保险。不过据AI及保险行业业内人士透露，由于该行业发展速度极快，未来与AI相关的索赔金额很可能超出现有保险的赔付上限。“当前，伴随AI产业蓬勃发展而出现的各类风险，其对应的保险承保能力仍严重不足，”专业服务公司Marsh旗下的保险经纪机构Marsh Risk首席执行官尼克·斯图德表示，“不过这一状况正在逐步改善。”
But the industry’s phenomenal rate of growth means AI-related claims have the potential to outpace the limits on that coverage, according to AI and insurance industry insiders.“There’s too little capacity in every aspect of the risk that is being created by the AI capital boom,” said Nick Studer, chief executive of Marsh Risk, the insurance brokerage arm of professional-services firm Marsh.
目前仅有少数几家保险公司提供专门针对AI风险的保险服务，但相较于大型AI企业可能面临的巨额赔偿责任而言，这些保险的赔付限额实在微乎其微。
“But that is changing.”A few insurers sell coverage specifically for AI risks, including from agents. But the policy limits are small compared with the potential exposure of the AI giants.
根据发言人所述，再保险公司慕尼黑再保险提供了一项保单，用于覆盖AI模型的错误，保额最高可达5000万美元。初创公司希望填补这一空白，而保险公司更广泛地认为，AI在未来将成为提供专业产品的新机遇。前Anthropic员工Rune Kvist是人工智能承保公司（Artificial Intelligence Underwriting Company）的联合创始人，该公司得到了劳合社保险市场的支持。
Reinsurer Munich Re offers a policy to cover errors by AI models with limits of up to $50 million, according to a spokesman. Startups are hoping to fill the gap, and insurance companies more broadly see AI down the road as a new opportunity for offering specialty products. Rune Kvist, a former Anthropic employee, is a co-founder of the Artificial Intelligence Underwriting Company, which has backing from Lloyd’s of London’s insurance marketplace.
Kvist表示，Anthropic和OpenAI计划中的IPO正在增加对“保险及其他针对这些风险的安全网的缺口”的关注。Testudo公司首席执行官George Lewin-Smith表示，最大的AI公司愿意购买数十亿美元的保险覆盖，并且拥有资产负债表和现金来承担这些费用。Testudo是一家总部位于英国的AI保险公司，也与劳合社有关联。他补充说，针对如此规模的此类责任的保险覆盖目前并不存在。
The planned IPOs of Anthropic and OpenAI are adding to the focus on the “gaps in the insurance and other safety nets for those risks,” says Kvist. The biggest AI companies are willing to buy billions of dollars of coverage and have the balance sheet and cash to afford it, said George Lewin-Smith, chief executive of Testudo, a U.K.-based AI insurer also affiliated with Lloyd’s. He added that coverage at that scale for such liabilities isn’t available.
“事实是——在地球上根本不存在，”他说。AI初创公司可能面临之前科技公司所没有的责任敞口。网络门户和社交媒体公司主要依靠1996年通过的联邦法律条款——即第230条——来免于因平台上的内容而承担法律责任。根据穆迪分析公司的一份报告，这种保护对AI公司可能并不那么有用，因为它们在内容的生成中有实质性贡献。
“The reality is—it just doesn’t exist on planet Earth,” he said.AI startups might be exposed to liabilities in ways previous generations of tech companies weren’t. Web portals and social-media companies were largely shielded from being held liable for content on their platforms by a provision of federal law passed in 1996 known as Section 230. The protection may not be as useful for AI companies because they materially contribute to the content, according to a report by Moody’s Analytics.
最大的AI开发商拥有足够深的资金池来承担许多责任。但一次导致广泛经济损失或人员伤害的重大事件可能会耗尽公司的财务缓冲。保险公司正在向主要AI公司销售专业保单，以此来安抚紧张的监管者和投资者。即使保额远低于潜在损失，一份保单也能表明外部方已经评估了该风险并愿意承担。
The biggest AI developers have deep enough pockets to cover many liabilities. But a major incident that causes widespread economic or human harm could swamp a company’s financial buffers. Insurance firms are selling specialty policies to the major AI companies as a way to reassure nervous regulators and investors.A policy, even for far less than the potential loss, demonstrates that an outside party has assessed and is willing to cover a risk.
人工智能风险的保险政策通常基于对错误发生概率的模拟测试来制定，从而形成对底层技术的事实上的审计。保险——或无法以合理价格获得保险——有可能通过在承保条件下对开发者和用户施加防护措施来帮助监管人工智能，经纪人和保险公司表示。风险投资家大卫·萨克斯（David Sacks）是白宫新成立的人工智能特别工作组成员之一，他建议保险可以为自愿行业协议中的控制措施增加约束力。
Policies for AI risks are often underwritten on the basis of simulation testing of the likelihood of errors, creating a de facto audit of the underlying tech. Insurance—or the inability to acquire it at an affordable price—has the potential to help police AI by imposing guardrails on both developers and users as a condition of coverage, brokers and insurers say. Venture capitalist David Sacks, part of a new White House task force on AI, suggested insurance could add teeth to a voluntary industry agreement on controls.
他在社交媒体帖子中表示，根据该协议内部报告的安全问题在某些情况下可能被保险公司用来拒绝董事和高管责任险的承保——这种保险旨在保护高管免受个人责任。保险公司对如何最好地应对人工智能带来的日益增长的风险——以及机遇——存在分歧。该行业正竞相从人工智能数据中心获利，经纪公司安永（Aon）将其描述为“保险市有史以来最大的机遇”。
In a social-media post, he said a safety issue reported internally under the agreement could in some circumstances be used by an insurer to deny directors-and-officers coverage—protection designed to shield executives from personal liability. Insurers are divided over how best to respond to the spiraling risks—and opportunities—from AI. The industry is racing to profit from AI data centers, described by broker Aon as “the insurance market’s biggest ever opportunity.”
但行业日益担心所谓的“无声风险”，即使用人工智能的企业所采用的主流保险既不明确承担也不排除由该技术造成的损失。根据安永的数据，超过90%的由保险覆盖的人工智能风险属于这一无声类别。根据美国智库兰德（Rand）今年的一份报告，人工智能造成的损失无法 neatly 融入现有的保险类别，这为关于什么内容被承保、什么内容不被承保的争议留下了空间。
But the industry is increasingly worried about so-called silent risk, where mainstream policies for businesses using AI neither affirmatively cover nor exclude losses caused by the technology. More than 90% of AI risks covered by insurance fall into this silent category, according to Aon.AI losses don’t fit neatly into existing insurance categories, creating scope for disputes about what is and isn’t covered, according to a report this year by Rand, a U.S.-based think tank.
该报告指出，企业快速采用人工智能与人工智能使用（或不投保）的碎片化保险市场之间存在“新出现的错位”，尤其是在美国。人工智能引发的损失类型各不相同，从身体伤害和财产损失——例如，由容易出错的工厂机器人造成——到版权侵权、未经授权的数据泄露、幻觉性错误和监管处罚。将人工智能排除在企业一般责任及其他保单之外的选项正在整个行业传播。
The report flagged an “emerging mismatch between rapid enterprise adoption of AI and the fragmented market for insuring (or not insuring) AI use, particularly in the United States.”The different types of AI-inspired losses range from bodily injury and property damage—caused by, say, an error-prone factory robot—to copyright infringement, unauthorized data disclosures, hallucinated errors and regulatory penalties. An option to exclude AI from companies’ general liability and other policies is spreading through the industry.
Verisk的保险服务办公室（Insurance Services Office）提供广泛使用的标准化保险单格式，今年推出了针对生成式人工智能的可选免责条款。据一位Verisk发言人称，该公司正在考虑针对其他人工智能相关风险（包括代理人工智能）推出更多可选免责条款。美国国际集团（AIG）和安盛（Chubb）等越来越多的保险公司，拥有在未来需要时使用现有Verisk免责条款的选项。
Verisk’s Insurance Services Office, which provides widely used standardized insurance policy forms, this year introduced optional exclusions for generative AI. It is weighing additional optional exclusions for other AI-related exposures, including agentic AI, according to a Verisk spokeswoman. American International Group and Chubb are among a growing band of insurers with the option to use the existing Verisk exclusions, should they want to do so in the future.
一位AIG发言人表示，该保险公司会自动采用标准化格式，这是行业内的“普遍做法”。作为代表企业与保险公司谈判的全球最大保险经纪商Marsh，本月就免责条款敲响了警报。其保险经纪业务负责人Studer在给主要保险公司的一封信中表示，排除人工智能风险将是行业的一项“倒退举措”。据《华尔街日报》审阅的信件副本显示，Studer写道：“这将增加保障的不确定性，并增加争议。”
An AIG spokesman said the insurer automatically adopts the standardized forms, which is a “common practice across the industry.”Marsh, the biggest global insurance broker, which acts on behalf of companies negotiating with insurers, this month sounded the alarm on exclusions. Studer, the head of its insurance brokerage, said in a letter to leading insurers that excluding AI risks would be a “backward step” for the industry.“It will increase coverage uncertainty and increase disputes,” Studer wrote, according to a copy of the letter reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
该信称，如果保险公司实施人工智能免责条款，Marsh将建议客户另寻保障。但该信还补充称，经纪商、保险公司和客户需要共同努力，管理“围绕代理人工智能和自主决策的真正新颖的风险”。请致函Jean Eaglesham，邮箱：Jean.Eaglesham@wsj.com
Marsh will recommend that clients seek cover elsewhere if an insurer imposes AI exclusions, the letter said. But it added that brokers, insurers and clients will need to work together to manage “genuinely novel exposures…around agentic AI and autonomous decision-making.”Write to Jean Eaglesham at Jean. Eaglesham@wsj.com