科技股蒸发数万亿美元，选民拒绝了该行业的政治代言人。亿万富翁主导的繁荣正面临民主的清算。
Tech stocks have lost trillions while voters have rejected the industry’s political champions. The billionaire-led boom is facing a democratic reckoning This week’s midterms showed that the political bill for the AI boom is falling due.
本周的中期选举显示，AI繁荣的政治账单正在到期。民主党大胜加剧了对失控支出、债务攀升以及对数据中心抵制的担忧，导致科技股暴跌。周四，华尔街经历了自疫情以来最糟糕的一天，市值蒸发3.2万亿美元。Claude聊天机器人的开发商Anthropic希望在未来两周内以1.5万亿美元（约合1.1万亿英镑）的估值上市，但现在可能连1万亿美元都拿不到。全球最大的AI芯片制造商英伟达市值暴跌超过4000亿美元。世界首富埃隆·马斯克两天内损失1130亿美元。
The Democratic sweep intensified fears over runaway spending, mounting debt and resistance to datacentres, sending tech shares tumbling. On Thursday Wall Street suffered its worst day since the pandemic as $3.2tn was wiped from markets. Anthropic, developer of the Claude chatbot, is hoping to float within the next fortnight for $1.5tn (£1.1tn), but it may not now get even a trillion dollars. The dominant AI chipmaker Nvidia saw its value crash by more than $400bn. The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, lost $113bn in two days. While a few very rich people may be a little less wealthy, the sell-off may not be a bad thing.
虽然少数超级富豪可能变得稍微不那么富有，但这次抛售未必是坏事。它给一个其支出计划和估值取决于对未来利润英雄式预期的行业带来了必要的现实剂量。这一观点为许多有影响力的人物所持有——从高盛研究部门负责人到诺贝尔奖得主达龙·阿杰姆奥卢。AI可能改变经济，但这并不保证投资者能收回投入其中的巨额资金。
It brings a needed dose of reality to an industry whose spending plans and valuations depend on heroic expectations of future profits. That is a view held by many influential figures – from Goldman Sachs’ research boss to Nobel laureate Daron Acemoğlu. AI may transform the economy. That does not guarantee investors will earn back the sums being poured into it.