“如果这种动物逃脱并造成损害，饲养者仅凭其饲养该动物这一事实即需承担责任，”奥利弗·温德尔·霍姆斯二世在其19世纪的法律著作《普通法》中写道。霍姆斯引用了一条古老原则，即单纯饲养“老虎、熊或其他通常被认为凶猛的物种动物”，无论饲养者是否尽到了注意义务或是否存在过失，都可能使其对该动物造成的损害承担个人责任。
“If such an animal escapes and does damage, the owner is liable simply on proof that he kept it,” so wrote Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. in his 19th-century legal treatise “The Common Law.”Holmes cites the ancient principle that simply keeping “a tiger or bear or other animal of a species commonly known to be ferocious” can make a person individually responsible for the harm it causes regardless of care or negligence.
换言之，此类动物的饲养者可能建造了坚固的笼子，每天进行检查，并采取了一切合理的预防措施，但如果动物逃脱并造成人身伤害、财产损失或死亡，饲养者仍需承担责任。在法律术语中，这被称为“严格责任”。当社会在考虑如何防止失控的AI智能体关闭电网或引发战争时，这一理念可能会产生实质性的影响。
In other words, the owner of such an animal might build a strong cage, inspect it every day and take every reasonable precaution, but if the animal escapes and causes injury, damage or death, the owner is still liable. In legal terms, this is referred to as “strict liability.”As society considers how to prevent rogue AI agents from shutting down power grids or triggering war, this idea could make the real difference.
在AI安全辩论的另一方，英伟达创始人黄仁勋认为，现有的企业责任法和产品责任法足以阻止公司发布有害产品。“如果你的产品还没准备好发布，就不要发布产品，”黄仁勋在最近的一次采访中表示。
e side of the AI safety debate, Jensen Huang, founder of Nvidia, argues that existing corporate and product liability laws should be sufficient to deter companies from releasing harmful products. “If your product is not ready to ship, don’t ship the product,” said Huang in a recent interview.
然而，产品责任诉讼的被告是公司，而非高管；公司董事和高级职员通常通过保险获得赔偿，免受个人损失。简而言之，世界可能面临由少数高管造成的灾难性后果，而这些高管对其行为不承担任何个人法律责任。此外，公司的投资者受有限责任保护，其责任仅限于其投资额度。
Product liability lawsuits, however, are lodged against the firm; not executives, and corporate directors and officers are often indemnified against personal loss through insurance. In short, the world could face catastrophic harm at the hands of a few executives who bear no personal legal liability for their actions. Also, the firm’s investors are protected by limited liability, so their liability is capped at the amount of their investments.
在竞争压力下争相保持领先的公司，几乎没有理由不发布潜在的危险产品。在最大化利润和市场估值的压力下，我们预期它们会这么做。
Companies racing to stay ahead of competitors have little reason to not release potentially dangerous products. Under pressure to maximize profits and market valuations, that’s what we can expect them to do.
比尔·盖茨等人主张设立一个联邦机构，要求 AI 公司获得许可，并通过监管强制执行透明度和安全要求。毫无疑问这会有所帮助，但一个根本性的信息不对称依然存在。公司对其产品的风险和不确定性的了解将永远远超政府，甚至公司自身也并不完全理解它们正匆忙推向市场的产品。
Bill Gates and others make the case for a federal agency that would require AI firms to be licensed, and through oversight, enforce transparency and safety. No doubt this would help, but a fundamental information asymmetry remains. Firms will always know far more about the risks and uncertainties of their products than the government does, and even the firms themselves don’t fully understand the products they are rushing to release.
严格的个人责任能直接约束做出高风险决策的高管行为。国会应当通过法律，规定构建前沿 AI 模型的公司的所有个人董事和高级职员，在民事甚至刑事层面承担严格责任，对其公司产品可能造成的危害负责。
Strict personal liability directly restrains the actions of executives making risky decisions. Congress should pass a law making all individual directors and officers of companies building frontier AI models strictly liable, in civil and even criminal terms, for the harms their companies’ products might inflict.
正如霍尔姆斯所言：“巨大危险的可能性，其效果等同于较小危险的概然性，法律将冒险的风险强加于将危险引入社区的人身上。” AI 公司正将巨大的危险引入我们的社会。它们应当为由此产生的危害承担责任。
As Holmes put it: “The possibility of a great danger has the same effect as the probability of a less one, and the law throws the risk of the venture on the person who introduces the peril into the community.”AI firms are introducing great perils into our society. They should be liable for the harms that come from them.
这种做法有先例可循。2002 年，在互联网和电信泡沫破裂后不久——那场泡沫很大程度上是由大规模盈利造假推动的——时任总统乔治·W·布什签署了《萨班斯-奥克斯利法案》。他称其为“自富兰克林·罗斯福时代以来美国商业实践最深远的改革”。根据《萨班斯-奥克斯利法案》，如果高管认证虚假财务报表或存在缺陷的流程导致报告结果出现重大错误，即使他们不知情，也要承担法律责任。
There is precedence for this approach. In 2002, soon after the collapse of the dot-com and telecom bubble, much of which had been driven by massive earnings fraud, President George W. Bush signed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. He called it “the most far-reaching reforms of American business practices since the time of Franklin D. Roosevelt.”Under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, legal liability was put squarely on executives if they, even unknowingly, certified false financials or deficient processes that caused material errors in reported results.
根据该法案，CEO 和 CFO 个人最高可面临 500 万美元罚款和 20 年监禁。法案通过后，数百家公司被迫重述盈利，许多高管被指控欺诈。盈利报告的真实性大幅提高。
CEOs and CFOs can personally face fines of up to $5 million and prison sentences of up to 20 years under the act. After it passed, hundreds of companies were forced to restate their earnings, and many executives were charged with fraud. The veracity of earnings reports improved dramatically.
想象一下：如果萨姆（Sam）、达里奥（Dario）、埃隆（Elon）和马克（Mark），以及他们的董事会成员，都要为他们的公司可能对社会造成的损害承担个人责任；如果他们因此面临牢狱之灾，会怎么样？
Imagine if Sam and Dario and Elon and Mark, along with their boards of directors, bore individual liability for the damage their companies may inflict on society. Imagine if they faced possible prison time for the consequences.
目前这场“人工智能上市竞赛”可能会更加谨慎地进行。那些“失控”的人工智能系统也会被更好地控制（即不会被随意使用或滥用）。
The AI race to market now underway might proceed more cautiously. And those rogue AI agents would be kept on a leash.
汉斯·塔帕里亚（Hans Taparia）和布鲁斯·布坎南（Bruce Buchanan）是纽约大学斯特恩商学院（New York University Stern School of Business）的教授。
Hans Taparia and Bruce Buchanan are professors at New York University Stern School of Business.