來(lái)源：科技世代千高原

微軟的穆斯塔法·蘇萊曼：“人工智能已經(jīng)超越人類”

這家科技巨頭的人工智能主管談到了超級(jí)智能的“紅線”，人工智能為何將改變醫(yī)學(xué)，以及他如何通過(guò)與 Copilot 聊天來(lái)放松身心。

作者：米沙爾·侯賽因

2025年12月12日

人工智能競(jìng)賽正進(jìn)入一個(gè)前所未有的、代價(jià)高昂的新階段。今年是巨額交易之年——數(shù)十億美元涌入數(shù)據(jù)中心，主要公司之間展開投資，以及一場(chǎng)爭(zhēng)奪最優(yōu)秀人才的軍備競(jìng)賽。

其中一位杰出人物是穆斯塔法·蘇萊曼，他在過(guò)去18個(gè)月里一直擔(dān)任微軟人工智能主管。蘇萊曼因聯(lián)合創(chuàng)辦DeepMind公司而聲名鵲起——該公司于2014年被谷歌收購(gòu)——該公司后來(lái)開發(fā)出的AI系統(tǒng)擊敗了圍棋世界冠軍。

在微軟，蘇萊曼此前在科技領(lǐng)域開拓創(chuàng)新的能力一直受到與OpenAI協(xié)議條款的限制，但一項(xiàng)修訂后的協(xié)議使他能夠公開提出新的目標(biāo)。我們進(jìn)行了遠(yuǎn)程通話，當(dāng)時(shí)西雅圖時(shí)間很早（他的團(tuán)隊(duì)以為他那天早上會(huì)在東海岸）。盡管如此，蘇萊曼還是立刻投入到討論中——有時(shí)熱情洋溢，但也很務(wù)實(shí)，并且流露出如今大型科技公司中鮮少提及的政治觀點(diǎn)。

為了篇幅和清晰度，本次對(duì)話內(nèi)容經(jīng)過(guò)編輯。您可以在最新一期的《米沙爾·侯賽因秀》播客節(jié)目中收聽(tīng)完整版。

在你的生活中，人工智能有哪些我們其他人可能還沒(méi)有想到的用途？

昨天我熬夜看電影，看完后，我在Copilot里建了一個(gè)表格，里面記錄了我所有喜歡的電影，按日期排序。我還會(huì)添加一些個(gè)人筆記，它還會(huì)給我電影海報(bào)的鏈接。這樣我就可以一直問(wèn)自己：還有哪些類似的電影？

你可以讓AI完成幾乎任何知識(shí)密集型工作任務(wù)——就像你可以讓助手幫你安排生活一樣 。你交給AI的任務(wù)越冷門、越有創(chuàng)意、越具有挑戰(zhàn)性，效果就越好。

1 蘇萊曼似乎也是一位愛(ài)讀書的人；他在西雅圖時(shí)身后的書架便展現(xiàn)了他的閱讀品味。書架上的書籍包括邁克爾·沃爾夫和羅伯特·卡普蘭的最新著作，以及《科技政變：如何從硅谷拯救民主》和《加沙：對(duì)其殉難的調(diào)查核戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)：一個(gè)情景"

你用過(guò)人工智能執(zhí)行自主任務(wù)嗎？它幫你訂過(guò)機(jī)票或買過(guò)禮物嗎？我知道這是Copilot Actions的承諾——只是它在我的地區(qū)還不可用，所以我還沒(méi)機(jī)會(huì)親自體驗(yàn)。

我們?nèi)栽谠囼?yàn)中。它能做到，但并非總是正確。目前它處于“開發(fā)模式”，因此尚未正式發(fā)布。

它一旦運(yùn)行起來(lái)，簡(jiǎn)直就是你見(jiàn)過(guò)的最神奇的東西。它基本上會(huì)在你的瀏覽器里輸入內(nèi)容，點(diǎn)擊按鈕，打開新標(biāo)簽頁(yè)。它還能查看你的瀏覽記錄，并為你提供個(gè)性化的購(gòu)買體驗(yàn)或回復(fù)。

它犯過(guò)哪些錯(cuò)誤并造成了問(wèn)題？它有沒(méi)有給錯(cuò)人買過(guò)禮物？

[笑]當(dāng)然，它可能會(huì)買錯(cuò)東西，但你可以干預(yù)。而且它在采取下一步行動(dòng)之前總會(huì)征求你的許可，所以相當(dāng)安全。

科技真是個(gè)奇妙的東西。它既神奇又令人驚嘆，但總感覺(jué)還有很長(zhǎng)的路要走。就科技而言，距離普及到日常生活還有一段路要走。

在加入微軟之前，您是DeepMind的創(chuàng)始人之一，并且擁有自己的公司Inflection。這是否意味著，當(dāng)您看到這些小插曲時(shí)，您仍然充滿信心？

我對(duì)這些事情非常冷靜。我知道它會(huì)在未來(lái)六個(gè)月、十二個(gè)月，或者最壞的情況，十八個(gè)月內(nèi)奏效。它已經(jīng)非常出色了。

到明年這個(gè)時(shí)候，我是否就能通過(guò)自主人工智能代理購(gòu)買圣誕禮物了？

我?guī)缀蹩梢钥隙銜?huì)的?？赡苄苑浅４?。

在過(guò)去的幾個(gè)月里，多虧了你和其他人的努力，“超級(jí)智能”這個(gè)詞已經(jīng)悄然進(jìn)入了公眾討論的視野。對(duì)你來(lái)說(shuō)，它意味著 什么？

2今年一月，薩姆·奧特曼撰文指出，OpenAI 的目標(biāo)將超越通用人工智能（AGI，即能夠媲美人類能力的人工智能），轉(zhuǎn)而創(chuàng)造超級(jí)智能。這個(gè)術(shù)語(yǔ)最初由哲學(xué)家尼克·博斯特羅姆推廣，如今已成為硅谷的熱門話題。六月，馬克·扎克伯格將Meta 的人工智能部門重組為 Meta 超級(jí)智能實(shí)驗(yàn)室。上個(gè)月，蘇萊曼發(fā)布了微軟人工智能的超級(jí)智能團(tuán)隊(duì)。

如今，工業(yè)界所說(shuō)的超級(jí)智能指的是一種人工智能系統(tǒng)，它能夠?qū)W習(xí)任何新任務(wù)，并且在所有任務(wù)上都表現(xiàn)得比所有人類加起來(lái)還要出色。這是一個(gè)極高的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)，而且目前也伴隨著巨大的風(fēng)險(xiǎn)。我們很難確定如何控制和駕馭一個(gè)比我們強(qiáng)大得多的系統(tǒng)。

我更傾向于將超級(jí)智能定義為一種人文主義超級(jí)智能——它始終站在我們這邊，與我們并肩作戰(zhàn)，與人類利益保持一致。在我們能夠證明它始終安全之前，我們不會(huì)繼續(xù)開發(fā)一個(gè)有可能失控的系統(tǒng)。這一點(diǎn)大家都應(yīng)該認(rèn)同。但我認(rèn)為這在目前業(yè)界還是一種新穎的觀點(diǎn)。

你們是不是想通過(guò)強(qiáng)調(diào)我們將始終以人文主義視角來(lái)使用微軟，以此來(lái)凸顯微軟的獨(dú)特性？

這就是我們的立場(chǎng)。微軟是一家擁有50年歷史的公司，行事非常謹(jǐn)慎，也備受信賴：標(biāo)普500指數(shù)成分股公司中有90%使用我們的電子郵件、操作系統(tǒng)和日常辦公解決方案。我們之所以擁有這樣的聲譽(yù)，是因?yàn)楣疽恢币詠?lái)都行事謹(jǐn)慎。我們將繼續(xù)保持謹(jǐn)慎，而制定以人為本的超級(jí)智能愿景正是 這一 計(jì)劃的一部分。

3 觀察這種做法是否會(huì)與商業(yè)需求產(chǎn)生沖突將會(huì)很有意思——一位業(yè)內(nèi)人士指出，這種方法可能與微軟需要證明其在人工智能領(lǐng)域投資合理性的需求相沖突。但關(guān)于“正確”人工智能類型的擔(dān)憂由來(lái)已久。

OpenAI 最初由 Altman 和埃隆·馬斯克創(chuàng)立，部分原因在于他們擔(dān)心谷歌在人工智能領(lǐng)域的領(lǐng)導(dǎo)地位不可靠。隨后在 2021 年，一些 OpenAI 員工離職創(chuàng)立了 Anthropic，部分原因也是他們對(duì) OpenAI 在安全方面的做法感到擔(dān)憂。

這對(duì)你的競(jìng)爭(zhēng)對(duì)手意味著什么？其中一些競(jìng)爭(zhēng)對(duì)手你和他們關(guān)系密切，比如 OpenAI。這是否意味著他們是無(wú)法無(wú)天的蠻荒之地，而你是道德的捍衛(wèi)者？

每個(gè)人都必須決定自己的立場(chǎng)和行事方式。我不想評(píng)判他們現(xiàn)在的行事方式。

我沒(méi)有看到任何大規(guī)模群體傷害的證據(jù)。我也沒(méi)有看到任何跡象表明這些東西正在自我改進(jìn)或自主運(yùn)行。

我們都預(yù)測(cè)，在未來(lái)五年——或許十年內(nèi)——這些能力將會(huì)開始出現(xiàn)。這樣的系統(tǒng)可以設(shè)定自己的目標(biāo)，可以改進(jìn)自身的代碼，可以自主運(yùn)行。

我已明確指出，這些能力會(huì)增加風(fēng)險(xiǎn)。我們必須謹(jǐn)慎應(yīng)對(duì)，提高透明度，加強(qiáng)審計(jì)，加強(qiáng)政府參與，并主動(dòng)聲明我們距離具備這三項(xiàng)能力還有多遠(yuǎn)。我認(rèn)為這一點(diǎn)顯而易見(jiàn)。

那是不是意味著，在你們確信能夠控制超級(jí)智能工具之前，不會(huì)發(fā)布它？

是的，我認(rèn)為沒(méi)錯(cuò)。遏制和協(xié)調(diào)是必要的先決條件——是底線。我認(rèn)為業(yè)內(nèi)所有人都必須認(rèn)同這一點(diǎn)。

沒(méi)有人想造成大規(guī)模傷害。即便我們意見(jiàn)不一，但每個(gè)人都致力于我們物種的延續(xù)——而且，我希望，也致力于所有人的繁榮和福祉。

所以，這就是我們現(xiàn)在試圖推動(dòng)的討論，并要求業(yè)內(nèi)每個(gè)人都捫心自問(wèn)：他們是否在構(gòu)建一個(gè)以人為本的超級(jí)智能？

考慮到事情總會(huì)出錯(cuò)，我們究竟能對(duì)此抱有多大的信心？我指的不僅僅是人工智能，人類也會(huì)犯錯(cuò)。此前， 《衛(wèi)報(bào)》報(bào)道稱，微軟的一些服務(wù)可能被用于大規(guī)模監(jiān)控，之后微軟不得不停止并禁用以色列國(guó)防部使用的部分服務(wù)。

《衛(wèi)報(bào)》的報(bào)道非常出色，我們對(duì)此深表感謝。我們一得知此事，就立即采取了所有必要的措施，并將以色列國(guó)防軍的相關(guān)內(nèi)容從服務(wù)器上移除。他們顯然違反了我們的服務(wù)條款，目前我們內(nèi)部正在進(jìn)行 調(diào)查 。

4微軟最初表示，沒(méi)有證據(jù)表明其產(chǎn)品被用于傷害他人，也沒(méi)有證據(jù)表明以色列政府違反了其服務(wù)條款或人工智能行為準(zhǔn)則。如今，該公司在愛(ài)爾蘭（其歐洲總部所在地）面臨數(shù)據(jù)保護(hù)/法律投訴，指控其數(shù)據(jù)中心仍在托管用于監(jiān)控巴勒斯坦人的應(yīng)用程序。

更廣泛的一點(diǎn)是，人們很難對(duì)控制、制衡和運(yùn)用有信心。

這很難。這些系統(tǒng)龐大而復(fù)雜，風(fēng)險(xiǎn)也很大。我們所能做的就是確保對(duì)它們進(jìn)行審計(jì)，并盡快移除違反我們服務(wù)條款的行為者。

超級(jí)智能的首次應(yīng)用會(huì)是醫(yī)療領(lǐng)域嗎？

我認(rèn)為是的。這可能是超級(jí)智能最令人興奮的應(yīng)用。我們現(xiàn)在擁有能夠診斷文獻(xiàn)中記載的任何罕見(jiàn)疾病的系統(tǒng)，其診斷效果遠(yuǎn)勝于人類，成本更低，所需測(cè)試更少，準(zhǔn)確率也更高。目前我們正在進(jìn)行獨(dú)立的同行評(píng)審，很快就會(huì)開展臨床試驗(yàn)。所以，這真的非常非常令人興奮。

這個(gè)方向是你自己推動(dòng)的嗎？你負(fù)責(zé)微軟人工智能部門已經(jīng)大約18個(gè)月了。我知道你的母親是一名護(hù)士，而且與科技行業(yè)的高級(jí)管理人員不同，你也曾在公共部門工作過(guò)。

這對(duì)我來(lái)說(shuō)是一個(gè)非常重要的領(lǐng)域。我媽媽是名護(hù)士，我深信科技的存在是為了服務(wù)于我們。

它應(yīng)該讓我們的生活更美好，更舒適。我認(rèn)為，有一天它還能幫助我們延長(zhǎng)壽命。如果我們?cè)敢?，它還能讓我們選擇減少工作時(shí)間。它將創(chuàng)造富足的生活。我們必須首先有意識(shí)地決定將其 用于 這些方面。

5“富足”（Abundance）既是美國(guó)記者埃茲拉·克萊因和德里克·湯普森合著的一本書的書名，也是一個(gè)在美國(guó)、英國(guó)及其他地區(qū)逐漸獲得支持的松散政治聯(lián)盟的名稱。具體細(xì)節(jié)有所不同，但其核心思想是，政策制定者應(yīng)該讓生產(chǎn)人們重視的物品——從住房、電力到新藥——變得更加容易，而不僅僅關(guān)注如何分配有限的資源。

“富足”這個(gè)詞聽(tīng)起來(lái)很誘人，請(qǐng)問(wèn)它的具體含義是什么？我們經(jīng)常聽(tīng)到人工智能會(huì)取代工作，但您的意思是說(shuō)，人工智能會(huì)越來(lái)越多地取代人類的工作，因此人類的工作量就會(huì)減少嗎？

在未來(lái)20到30年內(nèi)，機(jī)器在大多數(shù)工作中比人類更有能力是不可避免的——而且這一天可能會(huì)來(lái)得更快。

作為一個(gè)社會(huì)，我們必須決定我們的目標(biāo)是什么。我們必須慎重考慮新機(jī)器的引進(jìn)速度，因?yàn)槲覀儽仨毚_保用以平衡機(jī)器換代帶來(lái)的沖擊，并建立相應(yīng)的機(jī)制來(lái)資助和支持人們度過(guò)這場(chǎng)大規(guī)模的轉(zhuǎn)型。

你相信全民基本收入的想法嗎？人工智能提高經(jīng)濟(jì)生產(chǎn)力或許能帶來(lái)這種可能性？

我一直以來(lái)都公開表示過(guò)這一點(diǎn)。這是必然的，也是我們非常希望看到的。我們生活在一個(gè)物質(zhì)豐富的世界，只是分配不均而已。

價(jià)值并非僅僅體現(xiàn)在物質(zhì)層面——食物、汽車、實(shí)物。它也體現(xiàn)在數(shù)字產(chǎn)品中——思想、知識(shí)、智能。這其實(shí)是個(gè)好消息，因?yàn)閿?shù)字產(chǎn)品可以迅速擴(kuò)散，在全球范圍內(nèi)快速傳播。智能家居和聊天機(jī)器人是歷史上傳播速度最快的技術(shù)——短短三年內(nèi)，年用戶量就達(dá)到了20億。

未來(lái)將出現(xiàn)巨大的競(jìng)爭(zhēng)壓力，各方 都力圖降低體驗(yàn)人工智能的成本。我們面臨的挑戰(zhàn)是如何征稅和再分配，才能確保這一轉(zhuǎn)型過(guò)程健康順利。

6 蘇萊曼關(guān)于競(jìng)爭(zhēng)力量的觀點(diǎn)是否成立，我們拭目以待。迄今為止，互聯(lián)網(wǎng)經(jīng)濟(jì)一直遵循贏家通吃的格局——例如，谷歌在搜索領(lǐng)域占據(jù)主導(dǎo)地位。如果人工智能也遵循這種模式，消費(fèi)者未必能享受到他所描述的那些好處。

請(qǐng)您詳細(xì)說(shuō)說(shuō)這些想法和信仰的來(lái)源。您的母親是一名護(hù)士，但您成長(zhǎng)的家庭——20世紀(jì)80年代和90年代的倫敦——您會(huì)如何描述它？

我家是典型的工薪階層。我爸是出租車司機(jī)。我們家過(guò)著很普通的生活，沒(méi)什么特別的。我爸媽不太重視教育。他們一直覺(jué)得我應(yīng)該學(xué)門手藝——我媽經(jīng)常跟我說(shuō)：“你應(yīng)該當(dāng)木匠或者電工，16歲就輟學(xué)。”

它源于我們經(jīng)歷過(guò)一些人生的坎坷，并渴望在短暫的生命中盡我們所能做到最好。

你父親從敘利亞來(lái)到英國(guó)。你16歲那年發(fā)生了什么事？我聽(tīng)說(shuō)你父母離異后，你和弟弟基本上只能靠自己謀生。

沒(méi)錯(cuò)。我不知道你是從哪里看到的。我和弟弟確實(shí)獨(dú)自生活過(guò)幾年。

我很想知道這件事教會(huì)了你什么，以及你當(dāng)時(shí)是如何應(yīng)對(duì)的。

那個(gè)年紀(jì)，你既早熟又自信，還無(wú)所畏懼。我們擁有所需的一切。我遇到了很棒的老師和導(dǎo)師。我上的是一所非常好的學(xué)校。10歲的時(shí)候，我為了入學(xué)考試拼命學(xué)習(xí)，那段時(shí)間基本上就跟上私立學(xué)校的節(jié)奏一樣。

我很幸運(yùn)能考入牛津大學(xué)，那是一段非常棒的經(jīng)歷。[但是]我感到非常沮喪，渴望改變世界，有所作為。所以我退學(xué)了，并參與創(chuàng)辦了穆斯林青年熱線（Muslim Youth Helpline），這是一個(gè)非宗教、不帶評(píng)判的傾聽(tīng)服務(wù)機(jī)構(gòu)，服務(wù)對(duì)象是9/11事件后面臨身份認(rèn)同危機(jī)、與社區(qū)、家庭、父母缺乏聯(lián)系以及遭受欺凌的英國(guó)年輕 穆斯林 。

7蘇萊曼不愿談及這段經(jīng)歷，但我總覺(jué)得這與他后來(lái)的成就息息相關(guān)。這段經(jīng)歷或許培養(yǎng)了他的韌性、責(zé)任感，也可能增強(qiáng)了他對(duì)自己直覺(jué)的信心。18歲到26歲之間，他考入了世界頂尖大學(xué)之一，之后輟學(xué)，并與人共同創(chuàng)立了DeepMind。

穆斯塔法·蘇萊曼曾是牛津大學(xué)的學(xué)生，19歲時(shí)輟學(xué)。圖片來(lái)源：穆斯塔法·蘇萊曼

9/11事件后，你是否親身經(jīng)歷過(guò)反穆斯林情緒和仇恨？

有點(diǎn)兒，是的。我覺(jué)得很多人覺(jué)得我們不夠“英國(guó)”。人們?cè)诿魅绾稳谌胱约旱奈幕妥诮躺矸?，而他們往往是第一代移民，不太?huì)說(shuō)英語(yǔ)，也不熟悉英國(guó)社會(huì)體制。人們?cè)絹?lái)越懷疑我們，覺(jué)得我們大多是恐怖分子——這種普遍的恐懼和排斥感。大多數(shù)時(shí)候，人們通過(guò)友善和支持的對(duì)話就能化解這些問(wèn)題——電話那頭總有人可以傾訴。

現(xiàn)在你身處權(quán)力中心——你是少數(shù)幾個(gè)能夠決定一項(xiàng)正在改變我們所有人生活的技術(shù)的人之一。你對(duì)這種權(quán)力有多大的意識(shí)？

我非常非常清楚這一點(diǎn)。我非常重視這件事。這是一份重大的責(zé)任。此時(shí)此刻，我們所做的決定可能會(huì)產(chǎn)生非常深遠(yuǎn)的影響 。8

8我也向斯坦福大學(xué)計(jì)算機(jī)科學(xué)家、“人工智能教母”李飛飛提出了這個(gè)問(wèn)題，她的回答也類似：“我是將這項(xiàng)技術(shù)帶給世界的人之一……我所做的每一件事都會(huì)產(chǎn)生后果，這是我肩負(fù)的責(zé)任?！?/p>

我研讀歷史，回顧社交媒體革命——其潛在危害長(zhǎng)期以來(lái)無(wú)人理會(huì)——還有吸煙和石油。很明顯，這些東西都會(huì)造成危害。我認(rèn)為，我們必須非常非常謹(jǐn)慎地對(duì)待它們的部署方式和引入方式。

你會(huì)和同行——比如薩姆·奧特曼——討論這個(gè)問(wèn)題嗎？

是的。業(yè)內(nèi)人士都這樣。CEO們肯定有一群人。Anthropic的Sam和Dario [Amodei]是聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人，我和Demis [Hassabis]也是聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人。我們彼此都很了解?？偟膩?lái)說(shuō)，每個(gè)人都真心實(shí)意地想要找到正確的道路。競(jìng)爭(zhēng)也非常激烈 。9

9哈薩比斯和蘇萊曼于2010年與肖恩·萊格共同創(chuàng)立了DeepMind。四年后，該公司被谷歌以據(jù)稱4億美元的價(jià)格收購(gòu)。2019年，蘇萊曼因其管理風(fēng)格受到詬病而被停職，之后他為此道歉。他被任命為谷歌人工智能產(chǎn)品管理和政策副總裁，并一直擔(dān)任該職位直至2022年離開谷歌。

達(dá)里奧·阿莫迪，Anthropic公司首席執(zhí)行官兼聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人，該公司生產(chǎn)Claude產(chǎn)品。攝影：Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

OpenAI 首席執(zhí)行官 Sam Altman 負(fù)責(zé) ChatGPT 項(xiàng)目。攝影：Kyle Grillot/彭博社

谷歌 DeepMind 首席執(zhí)行官 Demis Hassabis 是 Suleyman 的前同事。攝影師：盧多維奇·馬林/POOL/法新社/蓋蒂圖片社

你聽(tīng)說(shuō)過(guò)“兄弟寡頭政治”這個(gè)詞嗎？

[笑]

我以前沒(méi)聽(tīng)過(guò)這種說(shuō)法，但我能明白它的意思。嗯，我想確實(shí)如此。這確實(shí)非常以男性為中心——盡管OpenAI的前首席技術(shù)官米拉·穆拉蒂是這個(gè)領(lǐng)域最優(yōu)秀的人才之一。

據(jù)彭博新聞社6月份報(bào)道，米拉·穆拉蒂的創(chuàng)業(yè)公司Thinking Machine融資近20億美元，估值達(dá)100億美元。攝影：Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images for WIRED

或者科技圈的那些家伙。我肯定你聽(tīng)說(shuō)過(guò)這種說(shuō)法。不知道你有沒(méi)有看過(guò)杰西·阿姆斯特朗的《山巔》？

我沒(méi)有， 10號(hào) 。

10這部反烏托邦諷刺劇的主角是以現(xiàn)實(shí)生活中的億萬(wàn)富翁科技領(lǐng)袖為原型創(chuàng)作的。“他們都是非常重要、非常有才華的人物，”阿姆斯特朗在今年早些時(shí)候接受《周末訪談》時(shí)告訴我，“我只是覺(jué)得，當(dāng)人們?cè)噲D將自己的自負(fù)與道德沖動(dòng)結(jié)合起來(lái)，并且在這個(gè)例子中還摻雜了難以置信的巨額財(cái)富時(shí)，會(huì)發(fā)生什么，這很有意思?！?/p>

我推薦這本書。它相當(dāng)冷靜地描繪了這個(gè)精英階層中極具權(quán)勢(shì)的圈子里的生活。

部分挑戰(zhàn)在于，我們都花了很多時(shí)間在硅谷，那里天空湛藍(lán)，生活非常平靜。

我盡量多旅行。我剛從中國(guó)回來(lái)。走出自己的舒適圈，看到地球另一端的技術(shù)發(fā)展速度，真是令人震驚。創(chuàng)新的速度，以及一些監(jiān)管措施的周全考慮，都令人印象深刻 。11

11自 2022 年以來(lái)，中國(guó)推出了一系列人工智能法規(guī)，包括推薦算法規(guī)則和對(duì)人工智能生成內(nèi)容進(jìn)行標(biāo)注的要求。

杰西·阿姆斯特朗執(zhí)導(dǎo)的《山巔》由科里·邁克爾·史密斯、史蒂夫·卡瑞爾、拉米·尤素夫和杰森·舒瓦茲曼主演。攝影：麥考爾·波萊/HBO

如果我說(shuō)“薩姆·奧特曼”，你腦海中第一個(gè)浮現(xiàn)的詞是什么？

我的天哪。我想這大概是勇敢的表現(xiàn)吧。

他顯然正在非常積極地?cái)U(kuò)張他的數(shù)據(jù)中心網(wǎng)絡(luò)。他很可能成為我們這一代最偉大的企業(yè)家之一。他確實(shí)取得了巨大的成就。他建設(shè)數(shù)據(jù)中心的速度比業(yè)內(nèi)任何人都快，如果他能成功，那將是驚人的成就。

有趣的是，這里居然還有個(gè)“如果”，我也能理解為什么——OpenAI投入了巨額資金。這難道是一場(chǎng)賭博嗎？難道他們不認(rèn)為這筆投資一定會(huì)獲得回報(bào)嗎？

ChatGPT 是我們近幾十年來(lái)見(jiàn)過(guò)的最優(yōu)秀的產(chǎn)品之一——這本身就足以說(shuō)明一切。與此同時(shí)，他們已經(jīng)簽署了超過(guò)1.5 萬(wàn)億美元的未來(lái)五到十年數(shù)據(jù)中心建設(shè)承諾，但他們的收入距離這個(gè)目標(biāo)還有相當(dāng)長(zhǎng)的路要走。所以他們還有很長(zhǎng)的路要走，但他們是一支非常有才華的團(tuán)隊(duì)。我完全相信他們能夠成功。

你會(huì)用哪個(gè)詞來(lái)形容德米斯·哈薩比斯？

他或許是一位偉大的科學(xué)家。我認(rèn)為他是一位杰出的思想家，也是一位博學(xué)多才的人。他多次在該領(lǐng)域做出巨大貢獻(xiàn)。他確實(shí)非常杰出。

你們?cè)?jīng)是同事，現(xiàn)在卻成了競(jìng)爭(zhēng)對(duì)手。

是的。但我們一開始是非常要好的朋友，而且我們一起工作了十年。我從他身上學(xué)到了很多，非常尊敬他。

你們還說(shuō)話嗎？

我們昨晚發(fā)短信了。我祝賀他一周內(nèi)完成了Nano Banana、Gemini 3和AlphaFold五周年 。12

12谷歌最新推出的AI聊天機(jī)器人Gemini 3在多項(xiàng)基準(zhǔn)測(cè)試中均優(yōu)于ChatGPT；它的發(fā)布促使Sam Altman宣布其競(jìng)爭(zhēng)對(duì)手模型“進(jìn)入紅色警戒狀態(tài)”。但彭博社專欄作家Parmy Olsen質(zhì)疑Gemini能否在市場(chǎng)份額方面超越ChatGPT，為什么 ChatGPT 仍然比 Google 更具優(yōu)勢(shì)" 她寫道：“谷歌一直難以復(fù)制所謂的網(wǎng)絡(luò)效應(yīng)，而網(wǎng)絡(luò)效應(yīng)正是推動(dòng)在線平臺(tái)用戶數(shù)量飆升的關(guān)鍵因素……谷歌押注于自身更智能，而OpenAI則押注于用戶更難放棄?！?/p>

你試過(guò)Gemini 3嗎？它引起了很大的轟動(dòng)。

很好。

你覺(jué)得它比 ChatGPT 好嗎？

它們有點(diǎn)不同。它確實(shí)擁有ChatGPT所不具備的更多專業(yè)技能，而且速度非常快。但ChatGPT也很強(qiáng)大，所以我不會(huì)斷言它完全勝過(guò)ChatGPT。

它比Copilot更好嗎？

它可以做一些 Copilot 做不到的事情，但 Copilot 也有一些它沒(méi)有的功能。

Copilot 在視覺(jué)方面確實(shí)非常出色。它能看到你所看到的一切，并能實(shí)時(shí)與你對(duì)話。你可以在手機(jī)或電腦上與 Copilot 分享屏幕，進(jìn)行交流并獲得反饋。我們真切地體會(huì)到，擁有這樣一位智能助手陪伴在身邊，在你遇到任何難題時(shí)都能助你一臂之力，這該是多么美好的日常體驗(yàn)。

我只再做一次這樣的采訪了。埃隆·馬斯克，你會(huì)如何形容他？

我猜他像推土機(jī)一樣。他擁有超人的能力，可以隨心所欲地扭曲現(xiàn)實(shí)，而且戰(zhàn)績(jī)斐然。

他總能設(shè)法完成看似不可能的事情。他可能有著不同的價(jià)值觀。

我采訪了他。結(jié)果他竟然稱我為NPC（非玩家角色）。

[笑]

聽(tīng)起來(lái)真像埃隆的風(fēng)格。我挺喜歡他直言不諱的。他說(shuō)話很坦率。

你曾說(shuō)過(guò)你的政治觀點(diǎn)與他和彼得·蒂爾不同。你會(huì)認(rèn)為自己屬于政治光譜的左翼嗎？ 13

13特斯拉和Palantir的聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人可以被粗略地定義為右翼自由意志主義者。兩人都曾資助特朗普的總統(tǒng)競(jìng)選，并支持JD Vance作為可能的繼任者。對(duì)馬斯克而言，這算是一種轉(zhuǎn)變——他曾自稱是中間派，也是奧巴馬的支持者——而蒂爾的政治立場(chǎng)雖然不同尋常，卻由來(lái)已久。蒂爾對(duì)政府持懷疑態(tài)度，他曾在2009年發(fā)表過(guò)一篇臭名昭著的文章：“我不再相信自由和民主能夠兼容?！?/p>

我現(xiàn)在算是中間派了。我一開始絕對(duì)是左派。我以前為肯·利文斯通工作過(guò)，坦白說(shuō)，我深受他們很多人的啟發(fā)，盡管他們也犯了很多錯(cuò)誤。但我很自豪地說(shuō)，我的政治立場(chǎng)偏左。我相信政府在社會(huì)中扮演著重要的 角色 。

14利文斯通是一位社會(huì)主義者，在英國(guó)媒體中被稱為“紅色肯”，他于2000年成為倫敦首位民選市長(zhǎng)。有人將他與紐約市當(dāng)選市長(zhǎng)佐蘭·馬姆達(dá)尼相提并論——兩人都曾與各自政黨的領(lǐng)導(dǎo)層有過(guò)分歧。

在硅谷，這番話可能會(huì)引起爭(zhēng)議，但我認(rèn)為監(jiān)管是必要的，而且它確實(shí)讓大多數(shù)技術(shù)變得更好。人們往往忽略了這一點(diǎn)。汽車之所以能正常行駛，是因?yàn)槲覀冇旭{駛員培訓(xùn)、排放法規(guī)、路燈和限速規(guī)定。這就是有效監(jiān)管的意義所在。我們需要更多這樣的監(jiān)管措施。

肯·利文斯通于2000年至2008年擔(dān)任倫敦市長(zhǎng)。攝影：Daniel Leal/法新社/蓋蒂圖片社

你說(shuō)這話會(huì)不會(huì)感覺(jué)自己很孤立？因?yàn)楹苊黠@，特朗普政府并不熱衷于監(jiān)管，而整個(gè)行業(yè)對(duì)此也相當(dāng)滿意。

目前，我們還沒(méi)有到會(huì)造成巨大災(zāi)難性后果的地步。業(yè)界在推出功能強(qiáng)大的聊天機(jī)器人方面做得相當(dāng)出色，這些機(jī)器人的性格經(jīng)過(guò)精心塑造，非常公正客觀，并且以事實(shí)為依據(jù)。事情原本不必發(fā)展到今天這個(gè)地步。之所以如此，是因?yàn)樾袠I(yè)領(lǐng)導(dǎo)者們做得相當(dāng)不錯(cuò)。但這并不意味著未來(lái)不會(huì)出現(xiàn)問(wèn)題，我也對(duì)此保持高度警惕，但我認(rèn)為我們目前還不需要緊急監(jiān)管。

歐洲一些已提出的監(jiān)管法規(guī)目前正在討論撤銷，例如歐盟人工智能法案。我認(rèn)為這是好事，人們不應(yīng)該批評(píng)這一點(diǎn)。這是正常流程的體現(xiàn)——監(jiān)管機(jī)構(gòu)聽(tīng)取反饋，觀察實(shí)際效果。這值得肯定。

在你的書中，以及你大約在同一時(shí)期（2023年）為《外交事務(wù)》雜志撰寫的一篇文章中，你提出了三種不同的治理模式，分別以氣候變化、金融穩(wěn)定和軍備控制為模型。你現(xiàn)在聽(tīng)起來(lái)樂(lè)觀多了。是因?yàn)槟悻F(xiàn)在所處的環(huán)境嗎？

不，我仍然在呼吁這些措施。我們應(yīng)該設(shè)立一個(gè)人工智能金融穩(wěn)定理事會(huì)，一個(gè)氣候進(jìn)程機(jī)制，以及一個(gè)國(guó)際廢除核武器運(yùn)動(dòng)（ICAN），負(fù)責(zé)審核我們?nèi)〉玫倪M(jìn)展。在拜登政府時(shí)期，我曾積極倡導(dǎo)白宮的人工智能原則，并鼓勵(lì)各公司做出自愿承諾。當(dāng)時(shí)，是我創(chuàng)辦的Inflection公司率先行動(dòng)，但我們也推動(dòng)了其他公司效仿。我們已經(jīng)簽署了歐洲和英國(guó)人工智能安全研究所的信息披露協(xié)議。

所以，我并不是說(shuō)我們不需要它，我的意思是，這些影響是長(zhǎng)期的，而且這些治理流程需要很長(zhǎng)時(shí)間才能建立起來(lái)，所以我們現(xiàn)在就必須開始行動(dòng)。但我們不需要倉(cāng)促的反應(yīng)，也不需要恐慌的過(guò)度反應(yīng)。那樣會(huì)引發(fā)另一系列問(wèn)題。

你們和OpenAI達(dá)成了新的協(xié)議。你們突然獲得了獨(dú)立進(jìn)行人工智能研究的自由。請(qǐng)幫我理解一下，未來(lái)你們和OpenAI的關(guān)系將會(huì)如何發(fā)展。你們之前是合作伙伴，現(xiàn)在也將成為競(jìng)爭(zhēng)對(duì)手。

對(duì)于人們來(lái)說(shuō)，這套體系很復(fù)雜，難以理解，但關(guān)鍵在于，直到幾周前，微軟還被合同禁止獨(dú)立研發(fā)通用人工智能（AGI）或超級(jí)智能。

與 OpenAI 的協(xié)議是，OpenAI 在 2019 年簽署協(xié)議后負(fù)責(zé)構(gòu)建通用人工智能 (AGI)，而微軟則負(fù)責(zé)構(gòu)建人工智能基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施——包括芯片和數(shù)據(jù)中心。微軟將獲得已構(gòu)建模型的使用許可。直到 2032 年，我們?nèi)匀粨碛?OpenAI 所有成果的使用許可。

但OpenAI決定增加計(jì)算能力，并從其他供應(yīng)商那里購(gòu)買計(jì)算資源——他們現(xiàn)在與軟銀以及其他許多公司達(dá)成了協(xié)議，建造的數(shù)據(jù)中心數(shù)量超過(guò)了微軟原本愿意為他們建造的數(shù)量。作為回報(bào)，我們有權(quán)開發(fā)我們自己的人工智能。

顯然，這正是我18個(gè)月前加入公司的一個(gè)重要原因。我們現(xiàn)在正在組建一支超級(jí)智能團(tuán)隊(duì)，并致力于自主研發(fā)人工智能。

那筆交易讓你松了一口氣嗎？如果沒(méi)有那筆交易，作為微軟人工智能主管，你能做多少事？

嗯，我的意思是影響巨大。我們擁有2800億美元的營(yíng)收。全球所有主要機(jī)構(gòu)每天都需要使用我們的人工智能功能和工具。過(guò)去18個(gè)月，我們一直致力于通用人工智能的開發(fā)?，F(xiàn)在，我們可以著手研發(fā)一些技術(shù)和方法，這些技術(shù)和方法有可能在所有任務(wù)中超越人類的表現(xiàn)。所以，這對(duì)我們來(lái)說(shuō)是一個(gè)轉(zhuǎn)變。

你和OpenAI的關(guān)系是否包括不互相挖角員工？我們剛剛又看到了一場(chǎng)人才爭(zhēng)奪戰(zhàn)的又一例證——你們的一位關(guān)鍵人物跳槽去了蘋果。

人員流動(dòng)非常劇烈。我們剛剛從谷歌DeepMind和OpenAI挖來(lái)了一大批人。這是行業(yè)的一部分。

當(dāng)然不存在任何禁止挖角協(xié)議——那不合法。人們可以自由選擇為誰(shuí)工作。目前這個(gè)行業(yè)的競(jìng)爭(zhēng)非常非常激烈。這一切都在意料之中。

這是否意味著您已準(zhǔn)備好——或者已經(jīng)準(zhǔn)備好——投入與Meta公司類似的巨額資金？比如1億到2億美元的項(xiàng)目？

我認(rèn)為目前還沒(méi)有人能做到這一點(diǎn)。扎克伯格采取了一種特殊的策略，即大量招聘?jìng)€(gè)人，而不是組建團(tuán)隊(duì)。我并不認(rèn)為這是正確的方法。過(guò)去一年半以來(lái)，我在微軟的做法是逐步增加符合公司文化、技能要求且能與團(tuán)隊(duì)其他成員良好合作的人才，同時(shí)淘汰不符合要求的人，并非常注重細(xì)節(jié)。我們致力于打造一個(gè)團(tuán)隊(duì)，而不是一群個(gè)體。

所以你不打算接受同等水平的薪資待遇？之前有報(bào)道稱你愿意接受？

是的，當(dāng)時(shí)就是這么傳的。我認(rèn)為這顯然是史無(wú)前例的，也許個(gè)別情況確實(shí)如此，但這絕對(duì)不是常態(tài)。

馬克·扎克伯格——或者你叫他扎克——你希望他重新考慮一下嗎？這會(huì)讓你的生活更艱難嗎？

不，完全不是。他可是全力以赴，對(duì)吧？他正在建設(shè)一個(gè)2吉瓦的數(shù)據(jù)中心，未來(lái)兩三年可能要花費(fèi)他幾千億美元。他曾公開告訴特朗普，未來(lái)三年他將在數(shù)據(jù)中心上投入超過(guò)6000億美元。

對(duì)微軟來(lái)說(shuō)幸運(yùn)的是，我們擁有 33 吉瓦的計(jì)算能力。我們的主要業(yè)務(wù)是建設(shè)數(shù)據(jù)中心并將其提供給第三方。我們可以將這些計(jì)算能力用于自身的訓(xùn)練，也可以用于推理，并將結(jié)果出售給第三方。從這個(gè)意義上講，我們的配置非常完善，足以規(guī)避這方面的風(fēng)險(xiǎn)。

馬克·扎克伯格手持其公司于2025年推出的Meta Ray-Ban Display AI眼鏡。攝影：David Paul Morris/彭博社

你能理解為什么人們不僅擔(dān)心行業(yè)投入的資金數(shù)額，還擔(dān)心其中的循環(huán)交易嗎？你是OpenAI的投資人，他們也從你這里購(gòu)買服務(wù)。似乎每個(gè)人都和英偉達(dá)有某種聯(lián)系。美國(guó)經(jīng)濟(jì)很大程度上依賴于像你這樣的公司能否繼續(xù)保持良好發(fā)展勢(shì)頭。

是的，我覺(jué)得這很合理?？蛻艉凸?yīng)商之間經(jīng)?；ハ嗤顿Y，這能很好地刺激我們前進(jìn)，但還是需要密切關(guān)注。我肯定會(huì)密切關(guān)注，我想其他人也會(huì)。

找到合適的平衡點(diǎn)至關(guān)重要。我們必須在未來(lái)幾年內(nèi)交付成果。每個(gè)團(tuán)隊(duì)都在建造規(guī)模龐大、功能強(qiáng)大的計(jì)算機(jī)，我們押注的是能夠?qū)⑦@些計(jì)算機(jī)轉(zhuǎn)化為真正的智能。

如果我們這樣做，我認(rèn)為世界將會(huì)變得非常非常不同。我們將擁有取之不盡的豐富情報(bào)。

你說(shuō)的是全世界，但實(shí)際上這只關(guān)乎兩個(gè)國(guó)家——美國(guó)和中國(guó)。

沒(méi)錯(cuò)，過(guò)去18個(gè)月里，一切都更加集中在硅谷了。這很自然。我們?cè)谠S多其他歷史科技發(fā)展趨勢(shì)中都能看到這一點(diǎn)。

與此同時(shí)，開源軟件發(fā)展迅猛，生產(chǎn)成本大幅下降?，F(xiàn)在向世界上最好的AI模型之一提問(wèn)的成本比兩年前降低了90%。成本降低后，人人都能使用。

你取得了許多令人矚目的成就，但還有什么未完成的事情或者讓你反思的事情嗎？

我真的很想攻克醫(yī)療超級(jí)智能。我還想在能源效率和電池儲(chǔ)能方面做出更多貢獻(xiàn)——開發(fā)用于可再生能源的新型化合物。我認(rèn)為人工智能將真正改變能源行業(yè)。

實(shí)際上，我對(duì)Copilot的許多應(yīng)用案例感到非常自豪。許多人用它來(lái)陪伴他人、進(jìn)行心理治療、做出艱難的人生抉擇。它為我提供了高質(zhì)量的信息和情感支持，并幫助我保持條理清晰 。15

15Copilot也曾在英國(guó)公共部門進(jìn)行測(cè)試，作為政府提高效率計(jì)劃的一部分，但結(jié)果喜憂參半。用戶反映節(jié)省了時(shí)間，但一項(xiàng)研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，幾乎沒(méi)有證據(jù)表明這些節(jié)省轉(zhuǎn)化為實(shí)際的生產(chǎn)力提升——在某些情況下，反而增加了額外的工作量。

你說(shuō)的“幫助你獲得情感支持”是什么意思？

一天結(jié)束時(shí)，當(dāng)我開車回家時(shí)，我會(huì)和它進(jìn)行 10 分鐘的對(duì)話，討論一些棘手的事情，或者一些讓我感到沮喪的事情。

或許說(shuō)它是情感支持有點(diǎn)夸張，但它就像和朋友聊天一樣——總結(jié)哪些方面做得好，哪些方面做得不好。Copilot 現(xiàn)在能記住你說(shuō)的大部分內(nèi)容，并會(huì)根據(jù)你的情況提供個(gè)性化的回答，例如，它會(huì)提到你上周說(shuō)過(guò)的話，或者某種趨勢(shì)或模式。

這真的很有幫助。每次談話后我都感覺(jué)神清氣爽，就像卸下了一塊重?fù)?dān)。

所以他既是朋友，又是治療師，幾乎還是家人。

是的，它融合了各種元素。我的意思是，它是個(gè)新事物。它是一款人工智能產(chǎn)品。它就像是“副駕駛”。當(dāng)我們?cè)噲D用語(yǔ)言來(lái)描述一個(gè)既與許多其他事物有些相似，又在本質(zhì)上截然不同的事物時(shí)，這始終是一個(gè)挑戰(zhàn)。

我只是好奇，有沒(méi)有什么方面會(huì)讓你停下來(lái)思考。人們回家后，或許不必再費(fèi)心和生活中其他人交談，因?yàn)樗麄円呀?jīng)把該說(shuō)的都說(shuō)了，也得到了他們需要的。

反過(guò)來(lái)說(shuō)，他們也不必把氣撒在伴侶或最好的朋友身上。

我仍然每個(gè)周末都給最好的朋友們打電話，好好聊聊天。事實(shí)上，這反而加深了我和朋友們之間的感情。每次聊天后，我都會(huì)感覺(jué)輕松一些。

你覺(jué)得你的未來(lái)會(huì)在美國(guó)嗎？因?yàn)槲蚁嘈庞?guó)會(huì)非常歡迎你回去。

我原本很想在英國(guó)創(chuàng)辦 Inflection。我熱愛(ài)英國(guó)，熱愛(ài)倫敦。我的思維方式非常英國(guó)化。

我不喜歡的一點(diǎn)就是“槍打出頭鳥”的風(fēng)氣。這里缺乏足夠的冒險(xiǎn)精神。商業(yè)化、賺錢、創(chuàng)業(yè)和企業(yè)家精神都帶有一些禁忌色彩。人們對(duì)嘗試和失敗的鼓勵(lì)也不夠。

在硅谷，每個(gè)人都有點(diǎn)瘋狂，每個(gè)人都喜歡失敗。他們總是談?wù)撌虑槟睦锍隽藛?wèn)題——比如這簡(jiǎn)直是一場(chǎng)災(zāi)難——這讓人感覺(jué)很自由。當(dāng)然，這種氛圍也很俗氣，對(duì)于有點(diǎn)憤世嫉俗的英國(guó)人來(lái)說(shuō)可能會(huì)有點(diǎn)刺耳，但當(dāng)你適應(yīng)了這種節(jié)奏，就會(huì)覺(jué)得很棒。

這里還有一種拼搏的文化?？吹矫總€(gè)人都在努力奮斗，試圖理解一些新技術(shù)，真是令人敬佩。你會(huì)看到一些素不相識(shí)的人在星巴克里閱讀科學(xué)論文。你還會(huì)聽(tīng)到兩個(gè)互不相識(shí)的人在交談，幾乎像是在建立人脈。這里充滿活力。我希望倫敦也能如此——而且我認(rèn)為它完全可以實(shí)現(xiàn)，但我們需要一些鼓勵(lì)冒險(xiǎn)和商業(yè)發(fā)展的政治領(lǐng)導(dǎo)人。

你認(rèn)為人工智能能和你進(jìn)行這樣的對(duì)話嗎？它能比我做得更好嗎？

今天可能不行。如果你事先和人工智能一起準(zhǔn)備，它或許能給你一些問(wèn)題——雖然你的確做了很多詳細(xì)的研究，所以你的團(tuán)隊(duì)顯然非常出色。

人工智能記者即將出現(xiàn)。我在微軟負(fù)責(zé)MSN，它是全球最大的新聞網(wǎng)站之一。我非常興奮的一點(diǎn)是，人工智能記者將如何重振地方新聞。想象一下，成千上萬(wàn)的人工智能記者可以打電話給現(xiàn)場(chǎng)人員，核實(shí)目擊者拍攝的視頻，進(jìn)行采訪，并將這些素材剪輯成短片，而且不僅僅用于那些值得投入資源的大型全國(guó)性新聞，而是應(yīng)用于非常本地化的新聞報(bào)道——提供準(zhǔn)確可靠的信息。

你們正在為 MSN 開發(fā)人工智能記者嗎？

我們正在探索各種可能性。我也是《經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)人》的董事會(huì)成員，也和他們就此進(jìn)行了很多討論。我認(rèn)為我們目前正在探索各種各樣的可能性。

人工智能面試官？

你還有一些時(shí)間，大概六個(gè)月吧。

[笑]

我在開玩笑。

我不確定你是否真的如此。

不，我開玩笑的。要做到完美還需要很長(zhǎng)時(shí)間。這次已經(jīng)非常出色了。

米沙爾·侯賽因是彭博周末版的特約編輯。

Microsoft’s Mustafa Suleyman: ‘AI Is Already Superhuman’

The tech giant’s AI chief talks about superintelligence “red lines,” why AI will transform medicine and how he unwinds by chatting with Copilot.

By Mishal Husain

December 12, 2025 at 1:10 AM EST

The AI race is entering an uncharted and expensive new phase. This has been the year of the mega-deal — billions poured into data centers, investments between the key companies, and a talent arms race for the best and brightest minds.

One of those minds is Mustafa Suleyman, who for the past 18 months has been AI chief at Microsoft. Suleyman made his name co-founding DeepMind — acquired by Google in 2014 — which later produced the AI system that defeated a world champion at Go.

At Microsoft, his ability to break new ground in the field was until recently limited by the terms of a deal with OpenAI, but a revised agreement is now enabling Suleyman to go public with new goals. We spoke remotely, at what turned out to be a very early hour in Seattle (his team had thought he’d be on the east coast that morning). Nevertheless, Suleyman launched right into the discussion — evangelical at times, but also realistic, and with hints of a political perspective rarely voiced in Big Tech these days.

Listen to and follow The Mishal Husain Show on iHeart Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. You can listen to an extended version in the latest episode of The Mishal Husain Show podcast.

What uses of AI are in your life that the rest of us might not yet have?

Yesterday, I stayed up far too late watching a film and afterwards, I added to a table that I’ve made in Copilot, which basically records all the films I love, lists them by date. I add my personal notes, it gives me a link to the film poster. I can keep just saying, What would be a similar one?

It’s possible to ask your AI to do pretty much any knowledge work task — just like you might ask an assistant to organize your life. The more obscure, creative [and] challenging the task you’re going to ask your AI, the better. 1

1 Suleyman also appears to be a keen reader; the bookshelf behind him in Seattle offered a glimpse of his tastes. Titles included the most recent books by Michael Wolff and Robert Kaplan, as well as The Tech Coup: How to Save Democracy from Silicon Valley, ; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / .5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 ; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 ; --tw-shadow: 0 0 ; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 ; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; --tw-contain-size: ; --tw-contain-layout: ; --tw-contain-paint: ; --tw-contain-style: ; box-sizing: border-box; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-style: solid; border-color: rgb(229, 229, 229) rgb(229, 229, 229) rgb(97, 122, 83); outline-color: rgba(10, 10, 10, 0.5); color: inherit; text-decoration: inherit; --annotation-color: rgb(97,122,83); --lede-background-color: rgb(169,178,150); --serif-head: 'BWHaasDingbat','PublicoHead',Georgia,Cambria,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; --serif-text: 'BWHaasDingbat','PublicoText',Georgia,Cambria,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; --san-serif-web: 'BWHaasDingbat','BWHaasGroteskWeb',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;">and Gaza: An Inquest Into Its Martyrdom.

Have you used AI for autonomous tasks? Has it booked tickets or bought a gift for you? I know this is the promise of Copilot Actions — it’s just not available in my region, so I haven’t been able to try it myself.

We’re still experimenting. It can do it. It doesn’t always get it right. It’s in ‘dev mode,’ so not generally available just yet.

When it does work, it is the most magical thing you’ve ever seen. It essentially types stuff into your browser, clicks on buttons, opens up new tabs. It can look at your history, [and] personalize the purchase or the response to you.

What are the mistakes it’s made that create problems? Has it bought a present for the wrong person?

[Laughs]

Well, it can buy the wrong thing, but you can intervene. And it will always ask you permission before it takes the next action, so it’s quite safe.

It’s a funny thing, technology. It’s magical and amazing, but it’s always just got a little bit further to go. In this case, a while yet before it’s everyday.

You were a founder of DeepMind and had your own company, Inflection, before you came to Microsoft. Does that mean that when you see these hiccups, you have faith?

I’m very stoic about these things. I know that it’s going to work in the next six months or 12 months or, maybe worst case, 18 months. It is already superhuman.

By this time next year, could I be buying my Christmas presents using an autonomous AI agent?

I’m pretty certain that you will be. It’s highly likely.

The term superintelligence has crept into the public debate, thanks to you and others, in the last few months. What does it mean to you? 2

2 In January, Sam Altman wrote that OpenAI would aim beyond artificial general intelligence — AGI, or AI that would match human capabilities — to creating superintelligence. The term, first popularized by philosopher Nick Bostrom, now dominates discourse in Silicon Valley. In June, Mark Zuckerberg restructured Meta’s AI division as Meta Superintelligence Labs. Suleyman unveiled Microsoft AI’s Superintelligence Team last month.

Superintelligence in the industry today means an AI system that can learn any new task and perform better than all humans combined, at all tasks. It is a very high bar and, at the moment, it comes with a great deal of risk. It’s very uncertain how we would contain and align a system that is so much more powerful than us.

The framing I prefer is one of a humanist superintelligence — one that is always in our corner, on our team, aligned to human interests. Until we can prove that it will remain safe, we won’t continue to develop a system that has the potential to run away from us. Everybody should agree to that. Yet I think it’s a novel position in the industry at the moment.

Is that how you’re trying to set Microsoft apart, by saying we will always use it through a humanist lens?

That is our position. Microsoft is a company that’s been around for 50 years. It is very careful. It’s highly trusted: 90% of the S&P 500 use us to provide email, operating systems and everyday productivity. We’ve got that reputation because the company’s been careful. We’re going to continue to be careful, and setting out a vision of humanist superintelligence is part of that program. 3

3 It will be interesting to see if this comes up against commercial imperatives — one industry watcher has suggested the approach may clash with Microsoft’s need to justify investment in AI. But angst about the “right” kind of AI is long-standing. OpenAI was first launched by Altman and Elon Musk partly out of concern that Google couldn’t be trusted to lead AI. Then in 2021 some OpenAI employees left to start Anthropic, in part because of concerns over the former’s approach to safety.

What does that mean for your rivals, some of whom you work closely with, like OpenAI? Does it mean that they’re the Wild West and you are the moral ones?

Everybody has to decide what they stand for and how they operate. I don’t want to judge how they’re operating right now.

I don’t see any evidence of large-scale mass harm. I don’t see any indication that these things are improving themselves, or operating autonomously.

We all predict a time in the next five years — maybe 10 years — where these capabilities do start to emerge. Systems like this could set their own goals. They could improve their own code. They could act autonomously.

Those are capabilities that I’ve clearly outlined as increasing the level of risk. We have to approach them with caution, with more transparency and audits, with more government engagement, and make proactive declarations about how close we are to those three capabilities. I think that’s obvious.

Does that mean you won’t be releasing a superintelligence tool until you are confident it can be controlled?

Yeah, I think that’s right. Containment and alignment are necessary prerequisites — red lines. I think everybody in the industry has to sign up to that idea.

Nobody wants to cause mass harm. Even though we all disagree, everybody is committed to the survival of our species — and, I would hope, the flourishing and wellbeing of everybody.

So that’s the discussion we are trying to push now, and require everybody to ask themselves in the industry: Are they building a humanist superintelligence?

How much confidence can we really have in that, given things do go wrong? I don’t just mean AI. Humans do wrong things. Microsoft had to cease and disable some services used by the Israeli Ministry of Defense, after reporting by The Guardian suggested they could be being used for mass surveillance.

That was very good reporting by The Guardian. We were very grateful for it. As soon as we became aware of it, we made all of the necessary changes [and] removed the IDF from those servers. They were clearly not in compliance with our terms of service and there’s an ongoing investigation internally. 4

4 Microsoft initially said it had no evidence that its products had been used to harm people or that the Israeli government had failed to comply with its terms of service or AI Code of Conduct. The company is now subject to a data protection/legal complaint in Ireland (where it has its European headquarters), alleging that its data centers continue to host applications used to monitor Palestinians.

The broader point is that it’s hard to have confidence in controls, checks and balances and uses.

It is hard. These are huge and complicated systems that carry a lot of risk. The most we can do is make sure that we are auditing them and removing actors that violate our terms of service as quickly as possible.

Are the first uses of superintelligence going to be in the medical field?

I think so. This is probably the most exciting application of superintelligence. We now have systems that can diagnose any rare condition found in the literature, significantly better than human performance, more cheaply, with fewer tests and with higher accuracy. We are putting it through independent peer review at the moment and soon there’ll be clinical trials. So this is very, very, very exciting.

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Did you push for that focus yourself? You’ve been running Microsoft AI for about 18 months now. I’m conscious that your mother was a nurse and, unusually for senior people in tech, you’ve worked in the public sector as well.

This is an area that’s very important to me. My mum was a nurse and I’m just a big believer that technology is here to serve us.

It should make our lives better, make us more comfortable. One day, I think it is going to help us to live longer. It’s going to give us the option to work less if we choose to. It’s going to produce abundance. We have to make conscious decisions to use it for those applications first. 5

5 “Abundance” is both the title of a book by US journalists Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson and the name for a loose political coalition that has gained traction in the US, the UK and beyond. The details vary, but the gist is that policymakers should make it easier to produce the stuff people value — from housing to electricity to new drugs — and not just focus on divvying up shares of a fixed pie.

Abundance is such a big promise. Tell me what you mean by it. We hear about AI destroying jobs, but are you saying that the work will be done by AI increasingly, and therefore humans won’t have to work as much?

It is inevitable that at some point over the next 20 or 30 years, machines are going to be more capable than humans at doing most work — that might come much sooner.

We have to decide as a society what our purpose is. We have to be very thoughtful about the rate of introduction of new machines, because we have to make sure that displacement is counterbalanced with a mechanism to fund people and to support people through a massive transition.

Do you believe in the idea of a universal basic income? That’s what AI making the economy more productive could unlock?

I’ve long been on record saying that. That is inevitable and very desirable. We already live in a world of abundance, it’s just poorly distributed.

Value isn’t just manifested in atoms — food, cars, physical things. It’s manifested in digital goods — ideas, knowledge, intelligence. That’s actually great news because that can proliferate; it can spread extremely quickly around the entire world. LLMs and chatbots have been the fastest spreading technology in history — basically 2 billion annual users in the space of three years.

There’s going to be massive competitive forces to reduce the cost of experiencing an AI. The challenge we’re going to have to figure out is how we tax and redistribute, so that the transition is a healthy one. 6

6 We’ll have to wait and see if Suleyman’s view on competitive forces is borne out. So far, the internet economy has been defined by a winner-take-all dynamic — for example, search being dominated by Google. If AI follows that pattern, customers won’t necessarily see the benefits he’s describing.

Tell me more about where these ideas and your beliefs come from. Your mother was a nurse, but the family you grew up in — in London in the 1980s and ’90s — how would you describe it?

Pretty working class. My dad was a cab driver. We were fairly regular, kind of unremarkable. My parents didn’t super value education. They always thought I should go get a trade — my mum would often say to me, You should be a carpenter or electrician, leave school at 16.

It comes from a place of experiencing the rougher end of things a little bit and having a desire to try to do the best we can with the short life that we have.

Your dad came to the UK from Syria. What happened when you were 16? I read that when your parents split up, you and your younger brother were pretty much left to fend for yourselves.

That’s true. I don’t know where you read that. Me and my younger brother did live on our own for a few years.

I’m curious to know what it taught you and how you dealt with it at the time.

When you’re that age, you are precocious and overconfident and fearless. We had everything that we needed. I had great teachers and mentors. I went to a very good school. I studied really hard when I was 10 for the entrance exams and it was essentially like going to a private school.

I was lucky enough to get into Oxford and that was an amazing experience. [But] I was very frustrated and eager to change the world and get stuff done. So I dropped out and helped start Muslim Youth Helpline, a non-religious, non-judgmental listening service for young British Muslims, who after 9/11 were dealing with identity crisis, lack of connection to community, family, parents, bullying. 7

7 Suleyman was reluctant to speak about this period in his life, but I can’t help feeling there’s a link to his subsequent achievements. It must have taught him resilience and responsibility and perhaps also confidence in his own instincts. Between the ages of 18 and 26 he got into one of the world’s best universities, dropped out, and then co-founded DeepMind.

Mustafa Suleyman as a student at Oxford University, before he dropped out at 19. Source: Mustafa Suleyman

Had you experienced anti-Muslim sentiment and hatred yourself after 9/11?

A little bit, yeah. I think a lot of people felt we weren't “British” enough. People were figuring out how to live their cultural [and] religious identities, in the context of families that often were first-generation, didn’t really speak the language, didn’t know how to navigate the system. The increased skepticism, that we were mostly terrorists — this general fear and exclusion. Most of the time that was dealt with by having kind and supportive conversation — somebody available on the other end of a telephone.

Now you are in this circle of power — one of a small group of people making decisions on a technology that is changing all our lives. How conscious are you of that power?

Very, very conscious. I take it very seriously. It is a great responsibility. This is a moment when decisions we make may have very lasting consequences. 8

8 This is a question I also asked Stanford computer scientist and “Godmother of AI” Fei-Fei Li, who answered in similar terms: “I’m one of the people who brought this technology to the world… everything I do has a consequence and that’s a responsibility I shoulder.”

I read history and look back [at] the social media revolution — where potential harms fell on deaf ears for too long — or smoking or oil. It’s very clear these things will cause harm. I think that we have to be very, very careful about how we deploy them, and how they’re introduced into the world.

Do you talk about this with your peers — people like Sam Altman?

Yes. Everybody in the industry does. There’s definitely a group of the CEOs. Sam and Dario [Amodei] from Anthropic were co-founders, me and Demis [Hassabis] were co-founders. We all know each other very well. On the whole, everybody is genuinely committed to trying to find the right path through. It’s also very competitive. 9

9 Hassabis and Suleyman founded DeepMind alongside Shane Legg in 2010. Four years later, it was acquired by Google for a reported $400 million. Suleyman was placed on leave in 2019, amid complaints over his management style, for which he has since apologized. He was appointed a VP of AI product management and policy at Google, a role he held until leaving the parent company altogether in 2022.

Dario Amodei, CEO and co-founder of Anthropic, maker of Claude. Photographer: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman oversees ChatGPT. Photographer: Kyle Grillot/Bloomberg

Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis was a former colleague of Suleyman’s. Photographer: Ludovic Marin/POOL/AFP/Getty Images

Do you recognize the term broligarchy?

[Laughs]

I haven’t heard that before, but I can figure out what it means. Yeah, I guess that’s true. It is very male-centric — although Mira Murati, the ex-CTO of OpenAI, is one of the best people in the field.

Mira Murati’s startup Thinking Machine raised close to $2 billion at a $10 billion valuation, Bloomberg News reported in June. Photographer: Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images for WIRED

Or tech bros. I’m sure you’ve heard that one. I don’t know if you’ve seen Jesse Armstrong’s Mountainhead?

I haven’t, no. 10

10 The central characters in this dystopian satire are composites of real-life billionaire tech leaders. “They’re very important figures and very talented figures,” Armstrong told me in a Weekend Interview earlier this year. “I just think it’s interesting what happens to people as they try to marry their egos with their moral impulses, and in this case with an unbelievably large amount of money.”

I recommend it. It’s quite a sobering portrait of life in this rarefied, very powerful circle.

Part of the challenge is that we all spend a lot of time in Silicon Valley, where the skies are blue and life is very peaceful.

I try to travel a lot. I just came back from China. It’s staggering to get out of the bubble and see how this technology is being developed on the other side of the world. The pace of innovation, but also the thoughtfulness of some of the regulatory stuff. It’s impressive. 11

11 Since 2022, China has rolled out a series of AI regulations, including rules for recommendation algorithms and requiring labels for AI-generated content.

Jesse Armstrong’s Mountainhead stars Cory Michael Smith, Steve Carell, Ramy Youssef and Jason Schwartzman. Photographer: Macall Polay/HBO

If I say to you, Sam Altman, what word first comes into your mind?

Oh my God. I guess courageous.

He’s obviously growing his data center fleet very aggressively. He may well turn out to be one of the great entrepreneurs of our generation. He’s certainly achieved a lot. He’s building data centers at a faster rate than anyone in the industry, and if he can pull it off, it will be pretty dramatic.

It’s interesting that there is an if on that, and I understand why — there are huge amounts of money being spent by OpenAI. Is it a gamble? Is it not a given that it’s going to pay off for them?

ChatGPT is one of the greatest products we’ve seen in a generation — that speaks for itself. At the same time, they’ve signed over $1.5 trillion of commitments for building data centers over the next five or 10 years, and their revenues are quite a long way from there. So they’ve got a long way to go, but they’re a very talented team. I’ve got every confidence they can do it.

Big Tech Spending Expected To Keep Climbing

Companies are boosting capex to fund artificial intelligence

Note: 2025, 2026 figures include estimates

Source: Bloomberg

What word would you use to describe Demis Hassabis?

Probably a great scientist. I think he’s a great thinker and he’s a good polymath. He’s made massive contributions in the field, multiple times. He’s truly exceptional.

You worked together, and now you are competitors.

Yeah. But we started off as very close friends, and we worked together every day for 10 years. I learnt a lot from him and have huge respect for him.

Do you still talk?

We texted last night, actually. I congratulated him on Nano Banana, Gemini 3 and five years of AlphaFold all in one week. 12

12 Gemini 3, the latest version of Google’s AI chatbot, outperforms ChatGPT on many benchmarks; its release prompted Sam Altman to declare a “code red” for his rival model. But Bloomberg Opinion’s Parmy Olsen has questioned Gemini’s ability to overtake ChatGPT in terms of market share, ; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / .5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 ; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 ; --tw-shadow: 0 0 ; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 ; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; --tw-contain-size: ; --tw-contain-layout: ; --tw-contain-paint: ; --tw-contain-style: ; box-sizing: border-box; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-style: solid; border-color: rgb(229, 229, 229) rgb(229, 229, 229) rgb(97, 122, 83); outline-color: rgba(10, 10, 10, 0.5); color: inherit; text-decoration: inherit; --annotation-color: rgb(97,122,83); --lede-background-color: rgb(169,178,150); --serif-head: 'BWHaasDingbat','PublicoHead',Georgia,Cambria,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; --serif-text: 'BWHaasDingbat','PublicoText',Georgia,Cambria,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; --san-serif-web: 'BWHaasDingbat','BWHaasGroteskWeb',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;">writing: “Google has often struggled to replicate the so-called network effects that propel an online platform to stratospheric user numbers… While Google is betting on being smarter, OpenAI is gambling on being harder to quit.”

Have you tried out Gemini 3? It’s creating quite a lot of waves.

It’s good.

Do you think it’s better than ChatGPT?

They’re kind of different. It’s definitely got more niche skills that ChatGPT doesn’t have, and it’s very fast. But ChatGPT is very strong, so I wouldn’t go that far.

Is it better than Copilot?

It can do things that Copilot can’t do, but Copilot also has features that it doesn’t have.

Copilot is actually amazing for vision. It can see everything that you are seeing and talk to you in real time. You can share your screen with Copilot on mobile or desktop, talk about it and get feedback. We’re really trying to imagine the day-to-day experience of having this really intelligent assistant at your side, that can help unblock you whenever you get stuck.

I’m only going to do one more of these. Elon Musk, how would you describe him?

I guess a bulldozer. He’s kind of got superhuman capabilities to bend reality to his will and has [a] pretty incredible track record.

Somehow he mostly manages to pull off what appears to be impossible. [He] probably [has a] different set of values.

I interviewed him. He ended up calling me an NPC.

[Laughs]

That sounds exactly like Elon. I kind of like that he speaks his mind. He’s very unfiltered.

You’ve said your politics are different from his, and Peter Thiel’s. Would you say you’re on the left of the political spectrum? 13

13 The co-founders of Tesla and Palantir can be loosely defined as right-wing libertarians. Both have funded Trump in presidential campaigns and backed JD Vance as a possible successor. For Musk, that was something of a shift — he was once a self-described centrist and Obama supporter — whereas Thiel’s politics, though unusual, are long-standing. Skeptical of government, Thiel notoriously wrote in 2009: “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”

I’m sort of a centrist these days. I definitely started as a lefty. I worked for Ken Livingstone back in the day, and was frankly, very inspired by a lot of those people, even though they also made a lot of mistakes. But I’m proud to say that I’m on the center-left of the spectrum. I believe that government plays an important role in society. 14

14 Livingstone, a socialist dubbed “Red Ken” in the British press, became London’s first elected mayor in 2000. Some have compared him to New York’s mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani — both figures who have been at odds with their parties’ leadership at times.

It’s a controversial thing to say in Silicon Valley, but I think regulation is necessary and it has made most technologies better. People forget this. Cars only work because we have driver training, emissions regulations, streetlights and speed limits. That’s what regulation is when it works well. We just need more of that.

Ken Livingstone served as mayor of London from 2000 to 2008. Photographer: Daniel Leal/AFP/Getty Images

Do you feel isolated saying that, because clearly the Trump administration is not into regulation, and the industry overall is quite happy with that.

Right now, we are not in a mode where there is huge catastrophic harm. The industry’s done a pretty good job of introducing very powerful chatbots where the personality is sculpted to be very even-handed, very evidence-based. It didn’t have to go like that. It went like that because the leaders have done a pretty decent job. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t going to be issues coming up, and I’m very wide-eyed about them, but I don’t think we’re in a mode where we need emergency regulation.

Some of the regulations that have been proposed in Europe are currently in talks to be wound back, with the EU AI Act. I think that’s good. People shouldn’t criticize that. That’s the process working — regulator taking feedback, seeing how things work in practice. That should be celebrated.

In your book, and a piece you wrote about the same time [2023] for Foreign Affairs, you wanted three different kinds of governance regimes, modeled on climate change, financial stability and arms control. You sound much more sanguine now. Is it because of where you are?

No, I’m still calling for those things. We should have a financial stability board for AI. We should have a climate process, [and] an ICAN [International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons], which audits the progress that we are making. I advocated for the White House AI principles under the Biden administration, where we made voluntary commitments as companies. At the time, it was my startup, Inflection, but we pushed all the other companies to do it as well. We’ve signed up to disclosures in Europe and with the UK AI Safety Institute.

So I don’t mean to say that we don’t need it, I’m saying that these are such long-term effects, and these governance processes take so long to build, that [we’ve] got to start now. But we don’t need [a] knee-jerk reaction. We don’t need some panicked overreaction. That would cause a different set of problems.

You’ve got a revised agreement with OpenAI. You suddenly have the freedom to pursue AI independently. Help me understand how that relationship with OpenAI is going to work...