工程师 Venkatesh Rao：AI 精英可能像重商主义者囤积黄金一样囤积智能
AI elites might hoard intelligence like mercantilists hoarded gold
AI 导读
工程师 Venkatesh Rao 在其技术博客“Contraptions”撰文，将当下的 AI 恐惧类比为重商主义，认为许多精英把智能当作稀缺且危险的资源，应由专家管理、维持高价并拒绝向对手开放，视公开可用的 AI 模型为威胁。
摘要与补充说明
他指出，早期资本主义时期普通人自愿每年多工作 50 天以购买茶叶或糖，AI 可能引发类似变化：人们或许会思考更多而非更少，因为 AI 让此前过于困难或昂贵的项目变得可行，对创意的需求将增长，而非使人被淘汰。Rao 认为政治焦点应放在公平获取 AI 上，而不是保护传统知识岗位；他甚至提出 AI 智能体也可能开展自己的项目并创造新的智能需求，自主 AI 需要护栏，但不应只服从指令。
正文
If you only think about lost jobs when you think about AI, you're missing how much intelligence people will be able to use. That's the argument from engineer Venkatesh Rao in an essay on his tech blog "Contraptions." Rao compares AI fear to mercantilism, the economic doctrine that preceded capitalism. Mercantilists treated wealth like land and gold as finite, and ordinary people counted only as labor. Many elites now treat intelligence the same way, as a scarce, dangerous resource that experts should manage, keep expensive, and withhold from rivals. They see openly available AI models as a threat, and some AI executives exploit safety fears for political influence.
In early capitalism, people voluntarily worked 300 days a year instead of 250 to buy tea or sugar. AI could trigger something similar, Rao says. People might think more, not less, because AI makes projects feasible that were previously too hard or too costly. Demand for ideas would grow rather than making people obsolete. The political focus should be fair access to AI rather than protecting legacy knowledge jobs. Even AI agents could pursue their own projects and create new demand for intelligence, Rao argues. Autonomous AI needs guardrails, but it shouldn't just follow orders.
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