中美应共同领导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.

本周，来自世界各地的科技行业领袖齐聚中国的乌镇，参加“世界互联网大会”(World Internet Conference)。近期的两个重大态势表明，我们有必要采取新的努力，在人工智能(AI)及应对其给社会带来的挑战方面加强全球合作。

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，中国已迅速崛起为AI领域的一个全球领军者，综合而言具备相当大的结构性优势。这些优势包括：海量的极具价值的数据（数据对AI应用至关重要）；企业和实验室的实力越来越雄厚，培养出大批尖端的AI科学家；由壮志凌云的科技初创企业组成的成熟生态系统；真切的推进AI议程的政治意愿，该议程得到国家支持和大规模的资金支持。

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.

我认为中国将和美国共同领导这场AI革命。这个新趋势本身就具有相当重大的地缘政治意义。它将需要世界舞台的其他参与者做出更加开放的交流。

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.

这些技术的快速发展，将使AI能够比人类更好地执行许多分析性和定量性的任务。DeepMind打造的AlphaGo Zero的成功只是开始。正是深度学习、强化学习之类的技术让Zero成为世界最顶尖的围棋玩家，如今，与之类似的技术正在从事放贷、提供客户服务、优化广告效果和挑选股票的工作，而且比人类专家擅长得多。就连一些比较高深的任务——比如组装产品、识别人脸和讲话、操控无人机，甚至在公路上开车——AI如今都比人类更能胜任。

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，考虑到这些精准的AI工具将变得比人类高效得多，在不久的将来，大量工作岗位被替代将是不可避免的。我认为，在未来10至15年内，AI和自动化将有能力取代当前一半的工作任务。

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.

这一点将对我们在生活中如何对待工作产生很大的影响。这场深刻变革的受害者之一，就是我们以培养人类价值为核心构建起来的工作伦理。AI会破坏一个悠久的信念：工作，以及我们用工作赚的钱所做的事，使我们的人生有了意义。

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.

如果大部分电话推销、客户服务、文书工作、会计和金融分析都将被自动化，在这样的世界里我们如何确保那些首当其冲的人不会因失业、意志消沉、觉得自己没用而备感失意。我们如何应对变得像鸿沟似的财富差距？如果中国作家郝景芳在短篇科幻小说《北京折叠》中构想的反乌托邦未来变成现实，那就危险了。在郝景芳的故事中，中国首都北京被划分为三层空间，供上层、中层和底层人口分开使用。

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.

一个类似的世界可能成为现实的想法，应当促使政策制定者们集思广益，思考如何应对AI的影响，探索应对挑战的良策。

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?

我们面临着一系列深刻的问题。工作和成为对社会有用的人给我们带来尊严，我们要如何重新找到其中的意义？未来几代人将不得不适应AI的要求，我们如何重新设计我们的教育体系，使其能够满足后代人的需要？我们如何将财富转移给那些被快速技术变革抛在后面的群体并为他们创造机会？当AI接手了各行各业多种多样的工作后，一些服务和护理类工作仍将需要由人类来完成，我们如何提高这类职业在社会上的地位？

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.

这些问题如此艰难，我们面临的挑战如此巨大，假如AI革命演变成一场科技军备竞赛，后果是我们承受不起的。美国和中国将不得不合作解决这些共同的问题。他们可以从本周的乌镇大会开始。