科技行業聯手提高人工智能研究可控性

A handful of the most powerful US tech companies have promised to bring more control and openness to the development of artificial intelligence, in an attempt to stem growing worries about a technology seen as destroying jobs, increasing income inequality and even threatening the future of humanity.

幾家最具影響力的美國高科技企業已經承諾，要令人工智能(AI)技術的開發更加可控和透明，試圖藉此遏制人們對該技術日益增加的擔憂。人們擔心，人工智能技術會導致工作崗位流失，加劇收入不平等，甚至威脅到人類的未來。

The plans by the companies, including Google, Microsoft and Facebook, amounted to what one member of the group said was the first time an industry had ever banded together to shape the impact of a technology that had such a broad effect on the future of humanity.

實施這一計劃的公司包括谷歌(Google)、微軟(Microsoft)和Facebook。該組織一名成員表示，這一計劃等於是一個行業首次聯合起來，約束一種廣泛影響人類未來的技術。

AI is on the cusp of transforming society and the consequences of this have to be studied in the open, said Yann LeCun, head of AI at Facebook and one of the pioneers of deep learning, the technique that has propelled recent breakthroughs in the field.

Facebook人工智能主管揚•萊庫(Yann LeCun)表示：人工智能即將改變整個社會，必須公開研究這種改變的後果。

It will transform the way we connect with each other, the way we get information, medicine, transport, the way cities are organised.

這種技術將改變我們彼此聯絡的方式，改變我們獲取信息、獲得藥品、開展交通運輸的方式，改變城市的組織結構。

The companies, which also include Amazon and IBM, announced a non-profit, called the Partnership on Artificial Intelligence to Benefit People and Society, to carry out the work.

這些企業還包括了亞馬遜(Amazon)和IBM。它們宣佈成立一個名爲人工智能造福人類和社會合作組織(Partnership on Artificial Intelligence to Benefit People and Society)的非盈利機構，以開展這項工作。

It will conduct research into ethical questions about how AI affects society at large, and develop ways to make the new technology more transparent and understandable.

該組織將對有關人工智能具體如何影響社會的倫理問題開展研究，並找到提高這種新技術透明度、降低其理解難度的辦法。

However, the biggest impetus behind the initiative has been the growing public and government worries about how such a powerful new technology will affect many aspects of life.

該倡議背後的最大動機，源於公衆和政府對這種威力巨大的技術將如何影響生活方方面面越來越擔心。

Eric Horvitz, an AI researcher at Microsoft, said the technology was at an inflection point, and that challenges were becoming clear.

微軟人工智能研究人員埃裏克•霍維茨(Eric Horvitz)表示，該技術是個轉折點，相關挑戰正浮出水面。

These include the hidden biases in algorithms that make implicit assumptions after being trained with specific sets of data; questions about the safety and trustworthiness of systems that often take decisions for reasons even their own programmers cannot understand; and ethical judgments that are embedded in systems to influence how they interact with humans in given situations.

這些挑戰包括：程序中的隱形偏見，即用特定數據集訓練後，程序會帶上隱含假定前提；一些系統往往會以其開發人員也不能理解的邏輯做出決策，這些系統的安全性和可信任程度問題；如何設計人工智能系統中嵌入的倫理判斷，這些倫理判斷會在特定場合影響系統與人類的互動。

The Microsoft researcher said the group had looked back through the history of science, to the introduction of sweeping new technologies such as electricity and human flight, and not found any precedents for the industry-wide effort.

這位微軟研究人員表示，該組織回顧了科學史，考察了電氣技術和航空技術等當時全新技術的引入，沒有發現這種全行業努力的先例。

He also denied that there was an explicit attempt in the notion of self-regulation to repel government intrusion in the field.

他還否認該領域存在名爲自律、實爲抵制政府侵犯的明確企圖。

Instead, he said the industry research should be welcomed by governments, which often find it hard to understand the impact of such technologies.

相反，他表示政府會歡迎這一全行業開展的研究，因爲政府往往很難理解此類技術的影響。