A | 微软联合创始人比尔·盖茨周三（8月26日）在个人网站 Gates Notes 刊出近6000字长文，称人工智能将带来“人类历史上最动荡的时期之一”，并写下“目前没有方案”来缓冲这场转型。
With pressure mounting to avert a government shutdown, heightened by culture war demands from House conservatives burned by previous brawls, the House speaker faces a difficult decision – risk a shutdown or risk the gavel.
That was 2015. But 2023 is treading a similar course.
For former House Speaker John Boehner, it was the final chapter in a lengthy standoff with House conservatives that contributed to his resignation from Congress after 25 years and almost five in the top job. For current House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, just seven months into his tenure, the outcome remains an open question.
With a looming deadline to fund the government and much left to be accomplished upon Congress’ return from recess, McCarthy and other congressional leaders expressed willingness earlier this month to pass a stop-gap measure to keep the government funded, buying lawmakers more time to work out the 12 appropriations bills they’ve been pursuing. But demands from the House Freedom Caucus have complicated the effort and put McCarthy in yet another bind from the right that analysts say could be the one to put his leadership position on the line.
“This is now the most important fight he faces as speaker and the choice between kind of the campaigning arm, the House Freedom Caucus arm, and the actual governing arm of keeping a government running,” says Casey Burgat, the director of the Legislative Affairs Program at George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management.
McCarthy has walked a fine line with the conservatives since the speaker battle, when they took him 15 grueling rounds before granting him his win, and in turn gained the power to bring up a vote for his ouster, lowering the threshold to just a single lawmaker.
So when the House Freedom Caucus announced it would oppose a stop-gap measure to keep the government funded unless certain conservative provisions are includes – like addressing DOJ "weaponization" and ending "woke" Pentagon policies – it prompted a confrontation with McCarthy that’s been brewing and bubbling in fits and starts for months, ready to boil over.
Such legislation would lose support among House Democrats and face steep odds in the Democrat-controlled Senate, making a shutdown likely. But without the support of conservatives on a clean continuing resolution and only a few votes to spare in the GOP narrow majority, McCarthy will likely need to rely on Democrats to approve a stop-gap measure – a move sure to provoke the hard-liners in his caucus.
“This is where his choice comes in,” Burgat says. “If he takes Democratic support, which likely he'll need to do, then that opens himself up to at least a motion to vacate because it only takes one now.”
The contours of the standoff were previewed during the debate over the debt ceiling, as House conservatives demanded controversial spending cuts and policies that put McCarthy in a difficult negotiating position with Democrats and the White House. Ultimately, Democratic votes on the debt ceiling agreement outnumbered Republicans in the House in a turn of events that infuriated some members of the House Freedom Caucus.
That same small but vocal minority – numbering in the mid-30s out of 222 Republicans in the chamber, though the caucus doesn’t publicize the exact number – made their frustration known just days later, when they blocked a routine vote, sending the chamber into a week-long gridlock. At the chamber’s reunification, McCarthy told reporters they had agreed to “sit down and talk more” in future spending negotiations. And shortly after, Republican appropriators agreed to mark up the 12 spending bills well below the levels agreed to in the debt ceiling deal in what appeared to be a major concession made to the House Freedom Caucus that has colored the funding process so far.
But this time, emboldened by the shortcomings in the last fiscal battle, they may come out with a greater show of force, as McCarthy faces what political science professor Rob Mellen Jr. calls a “no win situation.”
“I think this might be the fight they're willing to go to the mat for,” says Mellen, of the University of South Florida. “That this time if he really doesn't feel like he's going to compromise with them and give them what they want, that they may be willing to just say, ‘Hey, we'll shut this down. We'll go that direction, and we'll remove you if you go to the Democrats.’”
Members of the Freedom Caucus have for months suggested that they would be willing to let the government shut down if they don’t agree with the funding package. Indeed, for the conservatives, who largely hail from safe districts, there isn’t much to lose, as analysts note that if the government shuts down and Republicans are blamed, the conservatives won’t be on the chopping block like their colleagues in swing districts.
But some have noted that for the Freedom Caucus, perhaps armed with the understanding that their demands have little chance of becoming reality, the ultimate goal may be McCarthy’s removal after all.
“It just puts McCarthy in this bind and sort of forces his hand almost to do what he did before, which is get the government funded with Democratic votes, and in so doing, they can respond by triggering a call for his removal,” says David C. Barker, professor of government and director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University. “And I think that's what they're agitating toward. That's what they want. That's kind of what they wanted from the beginning. And they've been looking for a mechanism to do it. And I think maybe all along they've planned on this being the one.”
True to form, Rep. Ronny Jackson of Texas didn’t mince words about McCarthy’s dilemma with the Freedom Caucus last week, calling a motion to oust McCarthy “inevitable” if he continues to rely on Democrats.
“McCarthy’s going to have to listen to the people on the right or else he’s going to have to rely on the Democrats to pass this,” Jackson said on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast. “But I’m telling you if that happens, I mean, it’s going to be detrimental to leadership in the House if they blow off the concerns of the people like myself and Freedom Caucus and some of the other people on the right that are making reasonable demands in this process – it’s going to be a problem.”
Whether McCarthy can rely on Democrats to back a CR is one thing. But whether they’ll protect his gavel is another matter altogether.
Some dynamics suggest at least some Democrats would come to his aid, like reports of a coalition of Democrats offering McCarthy a deal during the debt ceiling fight that they would help him keep his job should he responsibly raise the debt ceiling. Another calculation for Democrats is McCarthy’s possible replacement, who likely wouldn’t align more closely with their positions, making McCarthy’s retention arguably in Democrats' best interest.
But even if McCarthy survives a motion for his ouster with the help of Democrats or calls conservatives’ bluff and his speakership isn’t ultimately threatened, analysts say his hold on the conference will remain shaky and his ability to get things done stunted.
“He can only afford to lose four. And if there's 40 that are just mad at him all the time, then they're going to be reluctant to support him even if it's on things that they want to,” Burgat says. “They've proven willing to shut down the chamber even when it's run by their own party. And so, as much as he'll defang them on this one vote, he'll need them again for any Republican priorities to be passed out of the House heading into an election year.”
It’s a dynamic that haunted Boehner for years and ultimately contributed to his early departure. And the House Freedom Caucus has only grown bigger and more brash, releasing statements and listing demands publicly, while McCarthy’s margin is just a fraction of what the former speaker’s was in 2015.
“McCarthy is closer to being one of them than Boehner ever was,” Barker says. “Boehner really was more of a traditional Chamber of Commerce-type of Republican whereas McCarthy stylistically and policy-wise for some time now has been a MAGA-friendly flame thrower right in line with them. He certainly was during the Trump years. And so, you know, it just shows their willingness to eat their own.”
Unlike McCarthy, Boehner was already on his way out, planning to resign months later, when he made the decision to step down. Even then, he noted that had he not been planning to leave, he wouldn’t have done so when talk of a motion to vacate began swirling.
“It was never about the vote. There was never any doubt about whether I could survive a vote, but I don’t want my members to have to go through this, and I certainly don’t want the institution to go through this, especially when I knew I was thinking about walking out the door anyway,” he told reporters at the time.
When asked what advice he would give to McCarthy, then his presumed successor, he urged the California Republican to protect the institution. And when questioned by another reporter about whether the next speaker would ultimately face the same fate, he earnestly replied.
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B | 同一天，他在西雅图办公室接受采访时说，按现在的速度，“净负面结果的概率非常高”。
C | 长文标题是《我们现在对人工智能做出的选择至关重要》。盖茨写：人工智能“要么成为有史以来最大的平等器，要么成为最糟的不公来源”。他还列了三条已经同时出现的风险：大量工作岗位永久消失、作恶门槛下降、儿童成长与人际关系被替代。政府是否立法、税怎么改、哪些岗位留给人，目前都没有拍板。 盖茨改口：三年前说“可管理”，现在说岗位会少一大块 三年前，盖茨曾写过，人工智能带来的就业冲击会“颠簸”，但过渡仍“可管理”，技术会帮人把活干得更有效率。周三对 Semafor 他说，自己处在一种震惊里：“我差不多是第一个站出来说‘这太疯狂了，这太荒唐了’的人。
D | ”“我被沉默震聋了。” 他对 Axios 说，好事走得偏慢，除了机器人，“坏事已经近在眼前”。
E | 按当前路线，净负面结果的概率非常高。他同时说，自己认识的业内人士几乎都在担心；对 GeekWire，他补了一句：他所认识的人里，“基本上除了埃隆，人人都担心”。 长文把就业冲击写成结构性问题，而不是一轮经济周期里的失业。盖茨引用1933年美国大萧条时约25%的失业率作对照，写明人工智能“未必到这个水平”，但冲击“不会随着经济周期消失”。白领里，客服、软件工程、律师助理会先被替换；蓝领一侧，他写“很多美国人没意识到灵巧机器人进步有多快”，建筑和酒店业的部分体力活，到本十年末可能开始和人对打。没有干预的情况下，新创造的岗位会“远少于”今天的就业总量。
F | 转型会在大约十年里完成，而不是几代人。 他对 Semafor 说，多数职业里，人最终会“远远不如做这份工作的人工智能”。他问，岗位消失之后的反弹会有多大：“会让数据中心那档事看起来像小事。
G | ”基金会解决不了社保缺口。他说，政府规模大约是全部慈善的20倍；盖茨基金会一年约100亿美元，“远远不够”。回应不能是“行业自己搞定”。 三条风险已经并排写进同一篇长文 第一条是工作。盖茨写，最危险的是入门级和中间层级岗位，新岗位大多要求要学很多年才能掌握的技能。他特别点到年轻人：入门岗位先没，再就业的台阶跟着变窄。等待“人已经被挤走或就业不足”再动手，会太晚。 第二条是作恶能力下降。诈骗、深度伪造、虚假信息、监控，会先进入日常生活。
H | 网络攻击的资源门槛在下降，医院和电网这类基础设施被点名为薄弱点。生物一侧，他写人工智能会加快药物和疫苗，也会让设计致命新疾病变得更容易，“正面能力和危险能力很难拆开”。对 GeekWire，他把过去业内口头划过的警戒线又数了一遍：更容易做生物武器、更容易发动网络攻击、做出让人情感依赖的机器、抹掉大量岗位、技术本身失控。
r | 第三件是税。盖茨主张对人工智能代币（模型把文本和其他数据切成的计费单位）和机器人征税，用来减弱“用机器替人”的财务激励，并给再培训和安全网筹资。现行税制是：雇人要缴工资税，买机器人通常可以当作经营开支抵扣。
s | “税制在推你用机器换人。”他对 Axios 说，这等于“我这辈子见过的最大一次税制改动”，又碰上“我这辈子见过的最分裂的政治”。机器人税他九年前就提过，当时被广泛搁置，现在仍坚持。他承认这不“经济最优”，但创新加速后，社会付得起一点效率损失，用来把人留在岗位上。税率、税基、谁征、钱怎么分，长文没有给出法案文本。 盖茨基金会仍按既定的20年计划往下花剩余约2000亿美元，还剩19年，并会把人工智能用到卫生、农业和教育项目里。他同时说，慈善填不上国家层面的安全网。模型公司“不是政策的人”，对外谈自家产品的负面时“有一点回避”。行业自己解决不了这件事。 已经发出的是警告，还没有落地的是规则 盖茨把这篇长文写成系列的第一篇，后续还要单独写生物风险。70岁的他说，自己三十多岁时觉得五六十岁的人什么都不懂，现在由他来发这种警告“有点怪”，但“我非常担心。
t | 一对一谈话时，他们也是”。他对自己的就业判断愿意押声誉：“我希望有人说服我看错了就业市场，但没有。这件事对就业市场会非常糟。” 周三发出的是一份个人倡议和一组访谈口径：风险三条已经写死，减速方案他不指望出现，国内新机构、国际组织、人类保留岗位、代币税和机器人税都还停在纸上。哪些岗位划给人、税征多少、白宫对接人是谁，长文和采访都没有给出已经生效的规则。责任编辑：龙运翔。
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