中美應共同領導AI革命

This week, industry leaders from around the world gather for the World Internet Conference in Wuzhen, China. Two important developments point to the need for renewed efforts to enhance global co-operation on artificial intelligence and remedies to tackle the challenges it poses to society.

本週，來自世界各地的科技行業領袖齊聚中國的烏鎮，參加“世界互聯網大會”(World Internet Conference)。近期的兩個重大態勢表明，我們有必要採取新的努力，在人工智能(AI)及應對其給社會帶來的挑戰方面加強全球合作。

First, China has rapidly emerged as a global leader in AI with significant combined structural advantages. These include: a vast ocean of highly valuable data (which is critical for AI applications); increasingly strong companies and research labs turning out huge numbers of top AI scientists; a well-established and explosively ambitious technology start-up ecosystem; and genuine political will to advance the AI agenda with state support and massive financial backing.

首先，中國已迅速崛起爲AI領域的一個全球領軍者，綜合而言具備相當大的結構性優勢。這些優勢包括：海量的極具價值的數據（數據對AI應用至關重要）；企業和實驗室的實力越來越雄厚，培養出大批尖端的AI科學家；由壯志凌雲的科技初創企業組成的成熟生態系統；真切的推進AI議程的政治意願，該議程得到國家支持和大規模的資金支持。

I expect China will lead the AI revolution together with the US. This in itself is a new development of considerable geopolitical importance. It will require more open-minded interactions from other players on the world stage.

我認爲中國將和美國共同領導這場AI革命。這個新趨勢本身就具有相當重大的地緣政治意義。它將需要世界舞臺的其他參與者做出更加開放的交流。

The rapid development of these technologies will enable AI to perform many analytical or quantitative tasks much better than humans. The success of DeepMind’s AlphaGo Zero was just the start. Now technology similar to that which enabled it to become the world’s best player of Go (deep learning, reinforcement learning and so on) are underwriting loans, providing customer service, optimising advertising campaigns and picking stocks significantly better than human professionals. Even for more advanced tasks, such as assembling products, recognising faces and speech, flying a drone, even driving on a highway, AI is now becoming more proficient than people.

這些技術的快速發展，將使AI能夠比人類更好地執行許多分析性和定量性的任務。DeepMind打造的AlphaGo Zero的成功只是開始。正是深度學習、強化學習之類的技術讓Zero成爲世界最頂尖的圍棋玩家，如今，與之類似的技術正在從事放貸、提供客戶服務、優化廣告效果和挑選股票的工作，而且比人類專家擅長得多。就連一些比較高深的任務——比如組裝產品、識別人臉和講話、操控無人機，甚至在公路上開車——AI如今都比人類更能勝任。

Second, the fact that these accurate AI tools will be so much more effective than humans means that a massive job displacement in the near future will be inevitable. I believe that AI and automation will be capable of replacing 50 per cent of current job tasks in the next 10 to 15 years.

其次，考慮到這些精準的AI工具將變得比人類高效得多，在不久的將來，大量工作崗位被替代將是不可避免的。我認爲，在未來10至15年內，AI和自動化將有能力取代當前一半的工作任務。

The implications for the way we live our lives with technology are enormous. One casualty of this profound shift will be a work ethic constructed around the cultivation of human virtue. AI undermines the age-old belief that it is work, and what we do with the proceeds of it, that gives our lives meaning.

這一點將對我們在生活中如何對待工作產生很大的影響。這場深刻變革的受害者之一，就是我們以培養人類價值爲核心構建起來的工作倫理。AI會破壞一個悠久的信念：工作，以及我們用工作賺的錢所做的事，使我們的人生有了意義。

In a world where most telemarketing, customer service, clerking, accountancy, financial analysis will be automated, how do we ensure that those bearing the brunt of these changes are not lost to unemployment, depression and feelings of worthlessness? How do we deal with the wealth gap becoming a chasm? The danger is that the dystopian future imagined by the Chinese writer Hao Jinfang in her science fiction short story “Folding Beijing” becomes a reality. In Ms Hao’s tale, the Chinese capital is divided into three different layers, for the upper, middle and lower classes.

如果大部分電話推銷、客戶服務、文書工作、會計和金融分析都將被自動化，在這樣的世界裏我們如何確保那些首當其衝的人不會因失業、意志消沉、覺得自己沒用而備感失意。我們如何應對變得像鴻溝似的財富差距？如果中國作家郝景芳在短篇科幻小說《北京摺疊》中構想的反烏托邦未來變成現實，那就危險了。在郝景芳的故事中，中國首都北京被劃分爲三層空間，供上層、中層和底層人口分開使用。

The very idea that such a world might come to pass should concentrate the minds of policymakers grappling with the ramifications of AI and seeking solutions to the challenges it poses.

一個類似的世界可能成爲現實的想法，應當促使政策制定者們集思廣益，思考如何應對AI的影響，探索應對挑戰的良策。

We face a series of profound questions. How can we reimagine what it means to find dignity in work and be a productive member of society? How do we redesign our education systems to meet the needs of future generations who will have to adapt to the demands of AI? How do we shift wealth and provide opportunity to those left behind by breakneck technological change? And how do we enhance the status of the service and caring jobs which will still need to be done by humans when AI is taking care of a range of other tasks?

我們面臨着一系列深刻的問題。工作和成爲對社會有用的人給我們帶來尊嚴，我們要如何重新找到其中的意義？未來幾代人將不得不適應AI的要求，我們如何重新設計我們的教育體系，使其能夠滿足後代人的需要？我們如何將財富轉移給那些被快速技術變革拋在後面的羣體併爲他們創造機會？當AI接手了各行各業多種多樣的工作後，一些服務和護理類工作仍將需要由人類來完成，我們如何提高這類職業在社會上的地位？

These questions are so hard, and the challenges we face so vast, that we cannot afford for the AI revolution to turn into a technological arms race. The US and China will have to work together to solve these common problems. They can start in Wuzhen this week.

這些問題如此艱難，我們面臨的挑戰如此巨大，假如AI革命演變成一場科技軍備競賽，後果是我們承受不起的。美國和中國將不得不合作解決這些共同的問題。他們可以從本週的烏鎮大會開始。