The Real Threat of Artificial Intelligence
人工智能對人類社會的真正威脅
By KAI-FU LEEJune 25, 2017
李開復(fù)2017年6月25日
BEIJING — What worries you about the coming world of artificial intelligence?
北京——你對即將到來的人工智能世界有何擔(dān)憂？
Too often the answer to this question resembles the plot of a sci-fi thriller. People worry that developments in A.I. will bring about the “singularity” — that point in history when A.I. surpasses human intelligence, leading to an unimaginable revolution in human affairs. Or they wonder whether instead of our controlling artificial intelligence, it will control us, turning us, in effect, into cyborgs.
這一問題的答案常常像是科幻驚悚片的情節(jié)。人們擔(dān)心，人工智能的發(fā)展將催生技術(shù)史上的“奇點(diǎn)”——也就是人工智能超越人類智力極限，在人類事務(wù)領(lǐng)域引發(fā)無法想象的革命的時刻。他們想知道，為我們所控制的人工智能，是否會反過來控制我們，實(shí)際上把我們變成了賽博人。
These are interesting issues to contemplate, but they are not pressing. They concern situations that may not arise for hundreds of years, if ever. At the moment, there is no known path from our best A.I. tools (like the Google computer program that recently beat the world’s best player of the game of Go) to “general” A.I. — self-aware computer programs that can engage in common-sense reasoning, attain knowledge in multiple domains, feel, express and understand emotions and so on.
這些問題琢磨起來很有意思，但并不緊迫。人們擔(dān)心的情況即便會發(fā)生，也要在千百年之后。我們目前還不知道，如何從我們最優(yōu)秀的人工智能工具（例如最近擊敗了世界上最好的圍棋手的谷歌計(jì)算機(jī)程序），走向“通用”人工智能，即擁有自我意識的計(jì)算機(jī)程序，可以進(jìn)行常感推理，獲取多個領(lǐng)域的知識，感知、表達(dá)和理解情緒等等。
This doesn’t mean we have nothing to worry about. On the contrary, the A.I. products that now exist are improving faster than most people realize and promise to radically transform our world, not always for the better. They are only tools, not a competing form of intelligence. But they will reshape what work means and how wealth is created, leading to unprecedented economic inequalities and even altering the global balance of power.
這并不意味著我們就沒什么可擔(dān)心的了。相反，現(xiàn)有的人工智能產(chǎn)品正以超出大多數(shù)人想象的速度得到改進(jìn)，很有可能讓我們的世界發(fā)生根本性改變——不一定就是變得更好。它們只是工具，而非某種與人類競爭的智慧形式。但它們將重塑工作的含義和財(cái)富的創(chuàng)造方式，引發(fā)前所未有的經(jīng)濟(jì)不平等，甚至改變?nèi)蛄α烤鶆荨?/p>
It is imperative that we turn our attention to these imminent challenges.
我們必須把目光轉(zhuǎn)向這些迫在眉睫的挑戰(zhàn)。
What is artificial intelligence today? Roughly speaking, it’s technology that takes in huge amounts of information from a specific domain (say, loan repayment histories) and uses it to make a decision in a specific case (whether to give an individual a loan) in the service of a specified goal (maximizing profits for the lender). Think of a spreadsheet on steroids, trained on big data. These tools can outperform human beings at a given task.
今天的人工智能是什么？大致來說，它是一種從特定領(lǐng)域（例如貸款償還記錄）獲取大量信息，并利用這些信息在特定情況下作出決定（是否貸款給某人），服務(wù)于特定目標(biāo)（讓貸方實(shí)現(xiàn)利潤最大化）的技術(shù)。它就好比是打了雞血——接受了大數(shù)據(jù)訓(xùn)練——的電子表格程序。執(zhí)行特定任務(wù)時，這些工具的表現(xiàn)可以好于人類。
This kind of A.I. is spreading to thousands of domains (not just loans), and as it does, it will eliminate many jobs. Bank tellers, customer service representatives, telemarketers, stock and bond traders, even paralegals and radiologists will gradually be replaced by such software. Over time this technology will come to control semiautonomous and autonomous hardware like self-driving cars and robots, displacing factory workers, construction workers, drivers, delivery workers and many others.
這種人工智能正拓展至成千上萬個領(lǐng)域（不只是貸款），在此過程中，它會讓很多工作崗位消失。銀行出納員、客服代表、電話推銷員、股票和債券交易員，甚至律師助理和放射科醫(yī)師，都將逐漸被此類軟件取而代之。假以時日，這種技術(shù)將會控制自動駕駛汽車、機(jī)器人等半自動化和自動化硬件，取代工廠工人、建筑工人、司機(jī)、快遞員以及其他很多職業(yè)的從業(yè)者。
Unlike the Industrial Revolution and the computer revolution, the A.I. revolution is not taking certain jobs (artisans, personal assistants who use paper and typewriters) and replacing them with other jobs (assembly-line workers, personal assistants conversant with computers). Instead, it is poised to bring about a wide-scale decimation of jobs — mostly lower-paying jobs, but some higher-paying ones, too.
不同于工業(yè)革命和計(jì)算機(jī)革命，人工智能革命并不是讓特定工作（工匠、使用紙筆和打字機(jī)的個人助理）消失，并代之以其他工作（裝配線工人、熟練使用計(jì)算機(jī)的個人助理）。相反，它有可能造成工作崗位的大規(guī)模減少——其中大多是低薪崗位，但也會有一些高薪崗位。
This transformation will result in enormous profits for the companies that develop A.I., as well as for the companies that adopt it. Imagine how much money a company like Uber would make if it used only robot drivers. Imagine the profits if Apple could manufacture its products without human labor. Imagine the gains to a loan company that could issue 30 million loans a year with virtually no human involvement. (As it happens, my venture capital firm has invested in just such a loan company.)
這種轉(zhuǎn)變將為開發(fā)人工智能以及運(yùn)用人工智能的企業(yè)帶來大量利潤。想象一下，如果優(yōu)步(Uber)之類的公司只使用機(jī)器人司機(jī)，會賺多少錢。想象一下，如果蘋果(Apple)不使用人力就把產(chǎn)品生產(chǎn)出來，會有多少盈利。想象一下，如果一家貸款公司無需人力介入便可一年發(fā)放3000萬筆貸款，會獲得多少收益。（碰巧，我的風(fēng)險投資公司已經(jīng)投了這樣一家貸款公司。）
We are thus facing two developments that do not sit easily together: enormous wealth concentrated in relatively few hands and enormous numbers of people out of work. What is to be done?
我們由此將面臨兩種無法和諧共存的新情況：大量財(cái)富集中到極少數(shù)人手中，大批人員失業(yè)。該做些什么？
Part of the answer will involve educating or retraining people in tasks A.I. tools aren’t good at. Artificial intelligence is poorly suited for jobs involving creativity, planning and “cross-domain” thinking — for example, the work of a trial lawyer. But these skills are typically required by high-paying jobs that may be hard to retrain displaced workers to do. More promising are lower-paying jobs involving the “people skills” that A.I. lacks: social workers, bartenders, concierges — professions requiring nuanced human interaction. But here, too, there is a problem: How many bartenders does a society really need?
其中一種對策是就人工智能并不擅長的任務(wù)，對人員進(jìn)行教育和再培訓(xùn)。人工智能非常不適于從事涉及創(chuàng)造性、規(guī)劃性和“跨域”思維的工作——比如庭審律師做的事情。但需要這些技能的通常是高薪工作，可能很難讓經(jīng)過再培訓(xùn)的失業(yè)工人去做。承載更多希望的是涉及人工智能所缺乏的“人際技能”的工作，比如社會工作者、調(diào)酒師、看門人——從事這些職業(yè)需要進(jìn)行細(xì)微的人際互動。但這里也有一個問題：一個社會真正需要多少調(diào)酒師？
The solution to the problem of mass unemployment, I suspect, will involve “service jobs of love.” These are jobs that A.I. cannot do, that society needs and that give people a sense of purpose. Examples include accompanying an older person to visit a doctor, mentoring at an orphanage and serving as a sponsor at Alcoholics Anonymous — or, potentially soon, Virtual Reality Anonymous (for those addicted to their parallel lives in computer-generated simulations). The volunteer service jobs of today, in other words, may turn into the real jobs of the future.
我猜想，大規(guī)模失業(yè)問題的解決方案會牽涉到“愛心服務(wù)工作”。這些工作人工智能做不了，社會需要，又能給人以使命感。例如陪伴老年人去看醫(yī)生，在孤兒院教書，以及在匿名戒酒會——或者很快就可能出現(xiàn)的匿名戒斷虛擬現(xiàn)實(shí)會（Virtual Reality Anonymous，面向的是那些沉湎于由計(jì)算機(jī)生成的模擬世界，對平行世界生活成癮的人）——當(dāng)一名協(xié)助人。換句話說，今天的志愿者服務(wù)工作或許可以在未來變成真正的工作。
Other volunteer jobs may be higher-paying and professional, such as compassionate medical service providers who serve as the “human interface” for A.I. programs that diagnose cancer. In all cases, people will be able to choose to work fewer hours than they do now.
其他一些志愿者工作或許薪水更高，也更具專業(yè)性，比如富于愛心的醫(yī)療服務(wù)提供者——充當(dāng)診斷癌癥的人工智能程序的“人機(jī)界面”。不管怎樣，人們都將可以選擇讓自己的工作時間比現(xiàn)在短。
Who will pay for these jobs? Here is where the enormous wealth concentrated in relatively few hands comes in. It strikes me as unavoidable that large chunks of the money created by A.I. will have to be transferred to those whose jobs have been displaced. This seems feasible only through Keynesian policies of increased government spending, presumably raised through taxation on wealthy companies.
誰會為這些工作支付薪水？這時候那些有大量財(cái)富集中在少數(shù)人手中的領(lǐng)域就該起作用了。在我看來，由人工智能創(chuàng)造的財(cái)富有一大部分要不可避免地被轉(zhuǎn)移給那些因之失去工作的人。看起來，這一點(diǎn)似乎只有通過實(shí)行增加政府開支的凱恩斯經(jīng)濟(jì)政策才能做到，而政府開支的增加或許可以通過對有錢的公司征稅實(shí)現(xiàn)。
As for what form that social welfare would take, I would argue for a conditional universal basic income: welfare offered to those who have a financial need, on the condition they either show an effort to receive training that would make them employable or commit to a certain number of hours of “service of love” voluntarism.
至于這種社會福利將是什么形態(tài)，我會贊成提供一種有條件的普遍基本收入：也就是給有財(cái)務(wù)需求的人提供的福利，條件是他們要么顯示出接受培訓(xùn)、以便讓自己有受雇資格的努力，要么承諾做一定時長的志愿“愛心服務(wù)”。
To fund this, tax rates will have to be high. The government will not only have to subsidize most people’s lives and work; it will also have to compensate for the loss of individual tax revenue previously collected from employed individuals.
要給這些福利提供資金，勢必要提高稅率。政府不僅必須給大多數(shù)人的生活和工作提供補(bǔ)貼；還必須填補(bǔ)此前從受雇個體那里征收的個人稅收的損失。
This leads to the final and perhaps most consequential challenge of A.I. The Keynesian approach I have sketched out may be feasible in the United States and China, which will have enough successful A.I. businesses to fund welfare initiatives via taxes. But what about other countries?
這會給人工智能帶來最終、或許也是最重大的挑戰(zhàn)。我設(shè)想的凱恩斯政策方案在美國和中國或許是可行的，這兩個國家會有足夠多成功的人工智能企業(yè)來通過稅收資助福利措施。但其他國家呢？
They face two insurmountable problems. First, most of the money being made from artificial intelligence will go to the United States and China. A.I. is an industry in which strength begets strength: The more data you have, the better your product; the better your product, the more data you can collect; the more data you can collect, the more talent you can attract; the more talent you can attract, the better your product. It’s a virtuous circle, and the United States and China have already amassed the talent, market share and data to set it in motion.
它們將面臨兩個難以克服的問題。第一，由人工智能創(chuàng)造的大部分財(cái)富將流向美國和中國。人工智能是一個強(qiáng)者更強(qiáng)的行業(yè)：你獲得的數(shù)據(jù)越多，產(chǎn)品就會越好；產(chǎn)品越好，收集的數(shù)據(jù)越多；數(shù)據(jù)越多，就能吸引更多人才；人才越多，產(chǎn)品也會越好。這是一個良性循環(huán)，美國和中國已經(jīng)積聚了足夠多的人才、市場份額和數(shù)據(jù)來啟動這個循環(huán)。
For example, the Chinese speech-recognition company iFlytek and several Chinese face-recognition companies such as Megvii and SenseTime have become industry leaders, as measured by market capitalization. The United States is spearheading the development of autonomous vehicles, led by companies like Google, Tesla and Uber. As for the consumer internet market, seven American or Chinese companies — Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent — are making extensive use of A.I. and expanding operations to other countries, essentially owning those A.I. markets. It seems American businesses will dominate in developed markets and some developing markets, while Chinese companies will win in most developing markets.
比如，以市值論，中國語音識別公司科大訊飛，以及曠視科技和商湯科技等幾家中國面部識別公司已經(jīng)成為所在行業(yè)的領(lǐng)導(dǎo)者。美國則引領(lǐng)著自駕車的發(fā)展，由谷歌、特斯拉(Tesla)和優(yōu)步等公司占據(jù)領(lǐng)先地位。至于消費(fèi)者互聯(lián)網(wǎng)市場，有七家美國或中國公司——谷歌、Facebook、微軟(Microsoft)、亞馬遜(Amazon)、百度、阿里巴巴和騰訊——在大量運(yùn)用人工智能，并擴(kuò)展它們在其他國家的業(yè)務(wù)，基本已經(jīng)占領(lǐng)了這些人工智能市場?？雌饋?，美國的公司將主導(dǎo)發(fā)達(dá)國家市場和一些發(fā)展中國家市場，而中國企業(yè)將在大多數(shù)發(fā)展中國家市場獲勝。
The other challenge for many countries that are not China or the United States is that their populations are increasing, especially in the developing world. While a large, growing population can be an economic asset (as in China and India in recent decades), in the age of A.I. it will be an economic liability because it will comprise mostly displaced workers, not productive ones.
中國和美國之外的許多國家面臨的另一個挑戰(zhàn)是，人口在增加，尤其是發(fā)展中世界。盡管不斷增長的龐大人口也可以成為經(jīng)濟(jì)資本（就像中國和印度最近幾十年的情況），但在人工智能時代，它會成為一個經(jīng)濟(jì)責(zé)任，因?yàn)檫@些人口會構(gòu)成大多數(shù)的失業(yè)工人，而不是多產(chǎn)的員工。
So if most countries will not be able to tax ultra-profitable A.I. companies to subsidize their workers, what options will they have? I foresee only one: Unless they wish to plunge their people into poverty, they will be forced to negotiate with whichever country supplies most of their A.I. software — China or the United States — to essentially become that country’s economic dependent, taking in welfare subsidies in exchange for letting the “parent” nation’s A.I. companies continue to profit from the dependent country’s users. Such economic arrangements would reshape today’s geopolitical alliances.
所以如果大多數(shù)國家無法從利潤極高的人工智能企業(yè)征稅來補(bǔ)貼自己的工人，它們還有什么選擇呢？我能想到的只有一個：除非它們愿意讓民眾陷入貧困，否則就必須與供應(yīng)最多人工智能軟件的國家——中國或美國——談判，最終成為這個國家的經(jīng)濟(jì)依賴者，以允許“母”國的人工智能企業(yè)繼續(xù)從依賴國的用戶身上獲利，來換取福利補(bǔ)貼。這樣的經(jīng)濟(jì)安排將重塑現(xiàn)有的地緣政治聯(lián)盟。
One way or another, we are going to have to start thinking about how to minimize the looming A.I.-fueled gap between the haves and the have-nots, both within and between nations. Or to put the matter more optimistically: A.I. is presenting us with an opportunity to rethink economic inequality on a global scale. These challenges are too far-ranging in their effects for any nation to isolate itself from the rest of the world.
無論如何，我們都必須開始考慮如何將日漸臨近的、由人工智能加大的貧富差距最小化，不管是國內(nèi)的，還是國與國之間的。要么就得把這件事看得更樂觀一些：人工智能給我們提供一個在全球范圍內(nèi)重新思考經(jīng)濟(jì)不平等的機(jī)會。這些挑戰(zhàn)太過廣泛，任何國家都無法將自己孤立起來，獨(dú)自解決。
