AI将如何改变世界？：英语精读讲义

In the coming years,

在未来的几年里，

artificial intelligence is probably going to change your life and likely the entire world. 語法

人工智能可能会改变你的生活，甚至可能改变整个世界。

But people have a hard time agreeing on exactly how. 語法

但究竟会如何改变，人们很难达成共识。

The following are excerpts from a World Economic Forum interview

以下是世界经济论坛采访的摘录，

where renowned computer science professor and AI expert Stuart Russell helps separate the sense from the nonsense. 習語

著名计算机科学教授兼人工智能专家斯图尔特·罗素在此帮助我们辨别真伪。

There's a big difference between asking a human to do something 語法

要求人类做某事

and giving that as the objective to an AI system.

与将之作为人工智能系统的目标，两者之间有很大的不同。

When you ask a human to fetch you a cup of coffee,

当你要求别人去给你买杯咖啡时，

you don't mean this should be their life's mission 表達脈絡

你的意思并不是这就是他们的人生使命，

and nothing else in the universe matters,

宇宙中其他一切都不重要了，

even if they have to kill everybody else in Starbucks to get you the coffee before it closes.

哪怕他们为了在关门前给你买到咖啡，不得不杀光星巴克里的其他人。

They should do that.

他们就应该那么做。

No, that's not what you mean, right?

不，你不是这个意思，对吧？

You mean all the other things that we mutually care about,

你的意思是，我们共同关心的所有其他事情，

they should factor into your behavior as well. 短語搭配

他们也应该考虑进自己的行为中。

And the problem with the way we build AI systems now is we give them a fixed objective, right? 用詞

而我们现在构建AI系统的方式存在的问题是，我们给了它们一个固定的目标，对吧？

The algorithms require us to specify everything in the objective.

算法要求我们在目标中具体说明一切。

And if you say,

如果你说，

you know, can we fix the acidification of the oceans? 用詞

你知道的，我们能解决海洋酸化问题吗？

Yeah, you could have a catalytic reaction that does that extremely efficiently, but,

是的，你可以进行一种效率极高的催化反应来实现，但是，

you know, it consumes a quarter of the oxygen in the atmosphere,

你知道，这会消耗大气中四分之一的氧气，

which would apparently cause us to die fairly slowly and unpleasantly over the course of several hours.

这显然会导致我们在几个小时内非常痛苦且缓慢地死去。

Um, so how do we avoid this problem, right?

嗯，那么我们该如何避免这个问题呢，对吧？

You might say, okay, well,

你可能会说，好吧，

just be more careful about specifying the objective, right?

只要在设定目标时更小心一点就行了，对吧？

Don't forget the, you know, atmospheric oxygen.

别忘了，你知道的，大气中的氧气。

And then, of course,

然后，当然，

some side effect of the reaction in the ocean poisons all the fish.

海洋中反应的某些副作用毒死了所有的鱼。

Okay, well, I meant don't kill the fish

好吧，嗯，我的意思也是别杀死鱼

either. And then, well, what about the seaweed?

。那么，嗯，海藻怎么办？

Okay, well, don't do anything that's going to cause all the seaweed to die.

好吧，嗯，别做任何会导致所有海藻死亡的事情。

And on and on and on, right? 表達脈絡

然后就这样没完没了，对吧？

And the reason that we don't have to do that with humans is that humans often know that they don't know all the things that we care about. 講解

而我们之所以不需要对人类这么做，是因为人类通常知道，他们并不知道我们关心的所有事情。

If you ask a human to get you a cup of coffee,

如果你叫一个人去给你买杯咖啡，

you know, and you happen to be in the Hotel George Sand in Paris,

你知道的，而你碰巧在巴黎的乔治·桑酒店，

where the coffee is, I think, 13 Euros a cup,

在那儿我觉得一杯咖啡要13欧元，

it's entirely reasonable to come back and say,

那么跑回来对你说，

well, it's 13 Euros.

嗯，这要13欧，

Are you sure you want it or I could go next door and you know get one? 語氣意圖

你确定要买吗，或者我可以去隔壁给你买一杯？这是完全合理的。

It's a perfectly normal thing for a person to do, right?

对于一个人来说，这是非常正常的行为，对吧？

To ask,

去问，

you know, I'm going to repaint your house.

你知道的，我要重新粉刷你的房子。

Is it okay if I take off the drainpipes and then put them back? 語氣意圖

我可以把排水管拆下来再装回去吗？

We don't think of this as a terribly sophisticated capability, 用詞

我们不认为这是一种极其复杂的能力，

but AI systems don't have it because the way we build them now,

但AI系统不具备这种能力，因为以我们现在的构建方式，

they have to know the full objective.

它们必须知道完整的目标。

If we build systems that know that they don't know what the objective is,

如果我们构建的系统知道自己不知道目标是什么，

then they start to exhibit these behaviors like asking for permission

那么它们就会开始表现出这类行为，比如在请求许可

before getting rid of all the oxygen in the atmosphere. 短語動詞

之后再消除大气中所有的氧气。

In all these senses,

在所有这些意义上，

control over the AI system comes from the machine's uncertainty about what the true objective is. 表達脈絡

对AI系统的控制来源于机器对真正目标是什么的不确定性。

It's when you build machines that believe with certainty that they have the objective, 語法

当你构建的机器确信它们拥有目标时，

that's when you get this sort of psychopathic behavior. 用詞

那时你就会看到这种精神病态的行为。

And I think we see the same thing in humans.

而且我认为我们在人类身上也看到了同样的情况。

What happens when general purpose AI hits the real economy? 用詞

当通用人工智能冲击实体经济时会发生什么？

How do things change?

事情会如何改变？

Can we adapt?

我们能适应吗？

You know, this is a very old point.

你知道，这是一个非常古老的观点。

Amazingly,

令人惊奇的是，

Aristotle actually has a passage where he says,

亚里士多德其实有一段话说，

look,

看吧，

if we had fully automated weaving machines and plectrums that could pluck the lyre and produce music without any humans, 文化背景

如果我们有全自动的织布机，以及无需人类就能拨动里拉琴并演奏音乐的拨子，

then we wouldn't need any workers.

那么我们就不需要任何工人了。

That idea,

这个想法，

which I think it was Keynes who called it technological unemployment in 1930,

我想是凯恩斯在1930年将之称为“技术性失业”的，

is very obvious to people, right?

对人们来说是非常显而易见的，对吧？

They think,

他们认为，

yeah, of course,

是的，当然，

if the machine does the work,

如果机器干了活，

then I'm going to be unemployed.

那么我就会失业。

If you think about the warehouses that companies like Amazon are operating for e-commerce,

如果你想想亚马逊等公司为电子商务运营的仓库，

they are half automated.

它们是半自动化的。

The way it works is that on an old warehouse where you've got tons of stuff piled up all over the place 表達脈絡

它的运作方式是，在一个旧仓库里，到处都堆满了成吨的货物，

and the humans go and rummage around and then bring it back and send it off, 短語動詞

人类进去到处翻找，然后把它带回来并发送出去，

there's a robot who goes and gets the shelving unit that contains the thing that you need,

现在则是机器人去把包含你需要物品的货架拿过来，

but the human has to pick the object out of the bin or the off the shelf because that's still too difficult. 短語動詞

但人类必须从箱子或架子上挑选物品，因为那仍然太难了。

But, you know, at the same time,

但是，你知道，与此同时，

would you make a robot that is accurate enough to be able to pick pretty much any object 語法

你会制造一个精度足够高的机器人，能够挑选几乎任何

within a very wide variety of objects that you can buy?

你能买到的各种各样的物品吗？

And that would at a stroke eliminate three or four million jobs. 習語

那将一举消除三四百万个工作岗位。

There's an interesting story that E.M. Forster wrote where everyone is entirely machine dependent. 文化背景

E·M·福斯特写过一个有趣的故事，在那里每个人都完全依赖机器。

The story is really about the fact that if you hand over the management of your civilization to machines, 短語動詞

这个故事真正讲的是，如果你把文明的管理权交给了机器，

you then lose the incentive to understand it yourself or to teach the next generation how to understand it. 短語搭配

你就失去了自己去理解它、或者教导下一代如何理解它的动力。

And you can see WALL-E actually as a modern version where everyone is enfeebled and infantilized by the machine. 用詞

你其实可以把WALL-E看作一个现代版本，里面每个人都被机器变得衰弱且幼稚化。

And that hasn't been possible up to now,

而到目前为止，这还是不可能的，

right?

对吧？

We put a lot of our civilization into books,

我们把文明的很大一部分放进了书本里，

but the books can't run it for us. 用詞

但书本不能替我们运转文明。

And so we always have to teach the next generation.

因此我们总是必须教导下一代。

If you work it out,

如果你计算一下，

it's about a trillion person years of teaching and learning in an unbroken chain 表達脈絡

大约是一万亿人年的教与学，在一条不间断的链条中

that goes back tens of thousands of generations.

追溯到成千上万代人之前。

What happens if that chain breaks?

如果这条链断了会发生什么？

And I think that's something we have to understand as AI moves forward.

我认为这是我们在AI向前发展时必须理解的事情。

The actual date of arrival of general purpose AI you're not going to be able to pinpoint, right? 用詞

通用人工智能到来的确切日期你是无法准确预测的，对吧？

It isn't a single day.

它不是特定的某一天。

It's also not the case that it's all or nothing. 習語

情况也不是全有或全无。

The impact is going to be increasing.

它的影响将不断增加。

So with every advance in AI,

因此，随着AI的每一次进步，

it significantly expands the range of tasks. 短語搭配

它极大地扩展了任务的范围。

So in that sense,

所以在那种意义上，

I think most experts say by the end of the century,

我想大多数专家都说，到本世纪末，

we're very very likely to have general purpose AI. 語法

我们非常非常有可能拥有通用人工智能。

The median is something around 2045. 用詞

中位数大概是在2045年左右。

I'm a little more on the conservative side. 用詞

我偏向于更保守一点。

I think the problem is harder than we think.

我认为这个问题比我们想象的要难。

I like what John McCarthy,

我很喜欢约翰·麦卡锡说的话，

who was sort of one of the founders of AI,

他算是人工智能的创始人之一，

when he was asked this question,

当他被问到这个问题时，

he said,

他说，

well, somewhere between 5 and 500 years. 習語

嗯，大概在5年到500年之间吧。

And we're going to need,

而且我们将需要，

I think,

我认为，

several Einsteins to make it happen.

好几个爱因斯坦才能实现它。

But how will the economy change in the meantime?

但在此期间经济将如何变化？

Will it be able to keep growing?

它能够继续增长吗？

Watch this video to hear economist Kate Raworth explain why growth is not always a good thing.

观看本视频，听经济学家凯特·拉沃斯解释为什么经济增长并不总是件好事。

Or continue to expand your understanding of economics

或者继续拓展你对经济学的理解，

on the World Economic Forum's YouTube channel.

在世界经济论坛的YouTube频道上。