[考博英語]2018考博英語閱讀經濟學人文章每日精析：人工智能_考博_旭晨教育

2018 考博英語 閱讀經濟學人文章每日精析：人工智能

考博英語閱讀大部分博士研究生招生院校都使用《經濟學人》雜志文章作為題源，旭晨教育考博頻道為考博生們將其中的文章進行深度分析，希望能提高大家的考博英語閱讀水平，讀懂長難句。

Artificial intelligence

人工智能

The algorithm kingdom

算法的王國

China’s deep pool of data means it has a chance to lead in artificial intelligence

中國數據資源豐富，有機會在人工智能領域占據領先地位

AT THE start of this year, two straws in the wind caught the attention of those who follow the development of artificial intelligence (AI) globally. First, Qi Lu, one of the bosses of Microsoft, said in January that he would not return to the world’s largest software firm after recovering from a cycling accident, but instead would become chief operating officer at Baidu, China’s leading search engine. Later that month, the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence postponed its annual meeting. The planned date for the event in January conflicted with the Chinese new year.

今年年初，關注全球人工智能(AI)發展動向的人注意到兩件小事。先是微軟高管之一陸奇在1月表示，自己從自行車事故中恢復后不會回歸這家世界最大的軟件公司，而是將加入中國領先的搜索引擎百度，擔任該公司的首席運營官。當月晚些時候，國際人工智能協會推遲了年會舉辦的時間。會議原計劃在1月舉行，但時間與中國新年發生了沖突。

These were the latest signals that China could be a close second to America—and perhaps even ahead of it—in some areas of AI, widely considered vital to everything from digital assistants to self-driving cars. China is simply the place to be, explains Mr Lu, and Baidu the country’s most important player. “We have an opportunity to lead in the future of AI,” he says.

這兩件事再度顯現了一種可能性：在人工智能的某些領域，中國將緊隨美國而位居第二，甚至可能趕超美國。人們普遍認為，從數字助手到自動駕駛汽車，人工智能對一切事物都至關重要。陸奇解釋說，中國無疑是未來的熱點所在，而百度是這個國家最重要的玩家。“我們有機會引領人工智能的未來。”他說。

Other evidence supports the claim. In October 2016 the White House noted in a report that China had overtaken America in the number of published journal articles on deep learning, a branch of AI. PwC, a consultancy, predicts that AI-related growth will boost global GDP by $16trn by 2030; nearly half of that bonanza will accrue to China, it reckons. The number of AI-related patent submissions by Chinese researchers has increased by nearly 200% in recent years, although America is still ahead in absolute numbers (see chart).

其他證據支持他的這一說法。2016年10月，白宮在一份報告中提到，中國在深度學習(人工智能的一個分支)領域的期刊論文發表數量已超過美國。咨詢公司普華永道預測，到2030年，與人工智能有關的增長將令全球GDP增長16萬億美元。它估計這筆“橫財”有將近一半都將流向中國。近年來，中國研究人員提交的與人工智能相關的專利申請數量已增加近200%，盡管美國在絕對數量上仍然領先(見圖表)。

To understand why China is so well placed, consider the inputs needed for AI. Of the two most basic, computing power and capital, it has an abundance. Chinese firms, from giants such as Alibaba and Tencent to startups such as CIB FinTech and UCloud, are building data centres as fast as they can. The market for cloud computing has been growing by more than 30% in recent years and will continue to do so, according to Gartner, a consultancy. In 2012-16 Chinese AI firms received $2.6bn in funding, according to the Wuzhen Institute, a think-tank. That is less than the $17.9bn that poured into their American peers, but the total is growing quickly.

要了解中國為何占據優勢，不妨試想一下人工智能所需的投入。其中最基本的兩種投入——計算能力和資本，在中國十分充裕。從阿里巴巴和騰訊這樣的巨頭到興業數金和UCloud等創業公司都在盡可能快地打造數據中心。咨詢公司高德納(Gartner)稱，近年中國云計算市場保持了超過30%的增速，而且這一勢頭還將繼續。據烏鎮智庫的數字，2012年至2016年，中國的人工智能公司獲得了26億美元的資金投入。這一數字少于美國同行獲得的179億美元，但總額正在迅速增長。

Yet it is two other resources that truly make China a promised land for AI. One is research talent. As well as strong skills in maths, the country has a tradition in language and translation research, says Harry Shum, who leads Microsoft’s AI efforts. Finding top-notch AI experts is harder in China than in America, says Wanli Min, who oversees 150 data scientists at Alibaba. But this will change over the next couple of years, he predicts, because most big universities have launched AI programmes. According to some estimates, China has more than two-fifths of the world’s trained AI scientists.

然而，真正讓中國成為人工智能福地的其實是另外兩大資源。一是研究人才。微軟人工智能事業部門的負責人沈向陽說，中國除了數學很強，還有語言及翻譯研究的傳統。阿里巴巴的閔萬里手下有150名數據科學家。他說，在中國，尋找頂尖的人工智能專家要比在美國難。不過他預測這種局面在兩三年里就會發生改變，因為多數大型高校都開設了人工智能項目。據一些估計數字，全世界培養的人工智能科學家中，超過五分之二在中國。

The second advantage for China is data, AI’s most important ingredient. In the past, software and digital products mostly obeyed rules laid down in code, giving an edge to those countries with the best coders. With the advent of deep-learning algorithms, such rules are increasingly based on patterns extracted from reams of data. The more data are available, the more algorithms can learn and the smarter AI offerings will be.

中國的第二個優勢是數據，這也是人工智能最重要的“原料”。過去，軟件和數字產品主要是按代碼編寫的規則行事，因而擁有最優秀的編程人員的國家占據優勢。隨著深度學習算法的出現，這些規則日益建立于從大量數據中提取的各種規律之上。供試用的數據越多，算法能學到的東西就越多，人工智能所提供的服務也就越智能。

China’s sheer size and diversity provide powerful fuel for this cycle. Just by going about their daily lives, the country’s nearly 1.4bn people generate more data than almost all other nations combined. Even in the case of a rare disease, there are enough examples to teach an algorithm how to recognise it. Because typing Chinese characters is more laborious than Western ones, people also tend to use voice-recognition services more often than in the West, so firms have more voice snippets with which to improve speech offerings.

中國的體量和多樣性為這樣的循環提供了強勁的動力。單靠開展日常生活，該國近14億人口就能產生大量數據，幾乎超過其他所有國家的總和。就算是某種罕見病，在中國也能獲得足夠的病例去訓練算法識別該疾病。由于輸入中國的漢字要比西方國家的字母費時費力，人們使用語音識別服務的頻率通常也高于西方國家，企業也就獲得了更多的語音片段來改善語音服務。

The Saudi Arabia of data

數據的沙特阿拉伯

What really sets China apart is that it has more internet users than any other country: about 730m. Almost all go online from smartphones, which generate far more valuable data than desktop computers, chiefly because they contain sensors and are carried around. In the big coastal cities, for instance, cash has all but disappeared for small purchases: people settle with their devices using services such as Alipay and WeChat Pay.

真正令中國與眾不同的一點是，它的互聯網用戶比任何國家都多：大約有7.3億人。幾乎所有網民都用智能手機上網，產生的數據比來自臺式電腦的數據有價值得多。這主要是因為智能手機包含傳感器，而且由機主隨身攜帶。以沿海大城市為例，在進行小額交易時幾乎已經沒人使用現金了，通過手機上的支付寶和微信支付等服務就可以搞定。

Chinese do not seem to be terribly concerned about privacy, which makes collecting data easier. The country’s bike-sharing services, which have taken big cities by storm, for example, not only provide cheap transport but are what is known as a “data play”. When riders hire a bicycle, some firms keep track of renters’ movements using a GPS device attached to the bike.

中國人似乎不是特別擔心隱私的問題，這就使得收集數據變得更容易了。例如，風靡該國各大城市的共享單車服務不僅提供了廉價的交通方式，而且還是個所謂的“數據游戲”。一些公司會在用戶租用自行車時利用裝在車上的GPS設備追蹤租車者的活動。