Artificial Intelligence—Can We Keep It in the Box?我們能管控人工智能之威脅嗎？

譯/杜焱

我們都知道如何處理可疑包裹——那就是要多小心就有多小心！現在我們讓機器人替我們去冒險。但是，如果機器人本身就是危險呢？一些評論員指出：我們應該像對待可疑包裹一樣去看待人工智能，因為可能有一天它會給我們造成威脅。我們真該為此擔憂嗎？

爆發的智能？

[2]當被問及未來是否會和人一樣聰明時，美國數學家、科幻小說作家瓦爾·溫格回答道：“會的，可是這樣的計算機只會短暫地出現一段時間?！?/p>

[3]他的意思是：一旦計算機發展到這個水平，勢將在短時間內取得飛速發展。溫格將智能這一井噴式的發展勢頭命名為“技術奇點”，同時他認為，從人類的角度來看，這可能不是一個好消息。

We know how to deal with suspicious packages—as carefully as possible!These days, we let robots take the risk.But what if the robots are the risk? Some commentators argue we should be treating AI (artificial intelligence) as a suspicious package, because it might eventually blow up in our faces. Should we be worried?

Exploding intelligence?

[2] Asked whether there will ever be computers as smart as people, the US mathematician and sci-f i author Vernor Vinge replied: “Yes, but only brief l y.”

[3] He meant that once computers get to this level, there’s nothing to prevent them getting a lot further very rapidly.Vinge christened this sudden explosion of intelligence the “technological singularity”, and thought that it was unlikely to be good news, from a human point of view.

[4] Was Vinge right, and if so what should we do about it? Unlike typical suspicious parcels, after all, what the future of AI holds is up to us, at least to some extent. Are there things we can do now to make sure it’s not a bomb (or a good bomb rather than a bad bomb,perhaps)?

AI as a low achiever

[5] Optimists sometimes take comfort from the fact the field of AI has very chequered past. Periods of exuberance and hype have been mixed with socalled “AI winters”—times of reduced funding and interest, after promised capabilities fail to materialise.

[6] Some people point to this as evidence machines are never likely to reach human levels of intelligence,let alone to exceed them. Others point out that the same could have been said about heavier-than-air flight.

[7] The history of that technology,too, is littered with naysayers (some of whom refused to believe reports of the Wright brothers’ success, apparently).

[4]溫格的觀點是否正確？如果正確，我們該如何應對？畢竟，人工智能產品不同于一般的可疑包裹，至少從某種程度上來說，人工智能的未來是由我們決定的?，F在，我們能做點什么來確保人工智能產品不是一個“炸彈”（或者，如果可能的話，是一個殺傷力較小的炸彈，而不是一個危害性極強的炸彈。）？

人工智能成就平平

[5]人工智能的發展歷經曲折，樂觀主義者有時可從中得到安慰。人工智能的發展有過繁榮期和炒作大熱期，但在這過程中，也曾多次遭遇所謂的“人工智能的冬天”，即由于預先承諾實現的功能無法兌現，導致投入資金削減，研究熱度降低的階段。

[6]有人以此為證據，指出機器永遠不可能達到人類同等的智力水平，更不用說超越。也有人指出，曾有人說過飛機重于空氣，不可能起飛的話。

[7]飛行技術發展的過程中，也充斥著否定者的聲音（顯然，其中有些人不愿相信萊特兄弟已經獲得成功的新聞報道。）和飛機重于空氣一樣，對人工智能持否定觀點的人必須正視一個事實，即：自然已經設定好規則：不要將人類的腦力與鳥類的飛行力混為一談。

[8]想要令人信服地否定人工智能，需要一個理由證明人類技術永遠達不到人工智能的水平。

[9]秉持悲觀論調更容易。但需要提醒的是，所有人都知道人類的大腦存儲智慧，而一部分人會致力于了解更多關于人類智慧的原理。這很難支撐人類技術永遠達不到人工智能水平的說法，恰恰相反，人們正在不斷增進對其的了解。

摩爾定律和弱人工智能

[10]不管是在硬件還是軟件方面，我們在技術層面上似乎越來越接近人工智能的核心原理。在硬件領域，摩爾定律預測的一塊芯片所負載的計算能力每兩年翻一番沒有絲毫減緩的跡象。

[11]在軟件領域，“強人工智能”（即與人類智力相當甚至超越人類智力的人工智能）是否有可能出現，人們對此爭論不休。但是，“弱人工智能”（即僅限于完成某些特定任務的人工智能）正穩步向前發展。計算機占領了一個又一個過去人們認為只有人的智力和直覺力才能夠勝任的工作領域。

For human-level intelligence, as for heavier-than-air flight, naysayers need to confront the fact nature has managed the trick: think brains and birds,respectively.

[8] A good naysaying argument needs a reason for thinking that human technology can never reach the bar in terms of AI.

[9] Pessimism is much easier. For one thing, we know nature managed to put human-level intelligence in skullsized boxes, and that some of those skull-sized boxes are making progress in figuring out how nature does it. This makes it hard to maintain that the bar is permanently out of reach of artificial intelligence—on the contrary, we seem to be improving our understanding of what it would take to get there.

Moore’s law and narrow AI

[10] On the technological side of the fence, we seem to be making progress towards the bar, both in hardware and in software terms. In the hardware arena, Moore’s law, which predicts that the amount of computing power we can fit on a chip doubles every two years,shows little sign of slowing down.

[11] In the software arena, people debate the possibility of “strong AI”(artificial intelligence that matches or exceeds human intelligence) but the caravan of “narrow AI” (AI that’s limited to particular tasks) moves steadily forward. One by one, computers take over domains that were previously considered off-limits to anything but human intellect and intuition.

[12] We now have machines that have trumped human performance in such domains as chess, trivia games, flying,driving, financial trading, face, speech and handwriting recognition—the list goes on.

[13] Along with the continuing progress in hardware, these developments in narrow AI make it harder to defend the view that computers will never reach the level of the human brain. A steeply rising curve and a horizontal line seem destined to intersect!

[12]現在，機器的性能在很多領域都遠遠超過了人類的表現，比如國際象棋、益智游戲、飛行、汽車駕駛、金融貿易、人臉識別、語音識別、字跡識別等，這樣的例子不勝枚舉。

[13]在硬件不斷發展的同時，弱人工智能的這些發展讓人們更難相信“計算機永遠不會達到人腦的智力水平”這一說法。畢竟，人工智能一直在快速向前發展，如同一條急劇上升的曲線；而人類智能處于穩定狀態，是一條水平線，這兩條線似乎注定要相交。

智能幫手，有什么不好？

[14]如果計算機變得跟人一樣聰明，這難道不是一件好事嗎？看看弱人工智能目前取得的一系列成功，這也許正好說明有些人態度消極是毫無根據的。歸根到底，這些應用程序不是非常實用嗎？也許國際象棋大師的自尊心會遭到一點打擊，金融市場會出現些許動蕩，但在上述領域中，我們并沒有看到任何災難性事件即將發生的跡象。

[15]事實確實如此，悲觀主義者如是說?？墒蔷腿祟愇磥戆l展而言，弱人工智能所滲透的各個領域對人類生活所造成的影響可大可小。有些領域人工智能的影響大于其他領域。（比如，在未來十年左右，如果機器人代替人類駕駛汽車，那我們的經濟將會發生翻天覆地的變化。）

What’s so bad about intelligent helpers?

[14] Would it be a bad thing if computers were as smart as humans?The list of current successes in narrow AI might suggest pessimism is unwarranted. Aren’t these applications mostly useful, after all? A little damage to Grandmasters’ egos, perhaps, and a few glitches on financial markets, but it’s hard to see any sign of impending catastrophe on the list above.

[15] That’s true, say the pessimists,but as far as our future is concerned, the narrow domains we yield to computers are not all created equal. Some areas are likely to have a much bigger impact than others. (Having robots drive our cars may completely rewire our economies in the next decade or so, for example.)

[16] The greatest concerns stem from the possibility that computers might take over domains that are critical to controlling the speed and direction of technological progress itself.

[16]一些至關重要的領域，其本身就掌控著技術進步的速度和方向，它們也有可能被計算機接管，這才是人們最擔心的問題。

不僅像人，而且比人聰明！

[17]超過人類自身能力的任何智能都可以像人類一樣，在一些重要領域，甚至比人腦聰明得多，這讓人深感欣慰。但是，再一次，那些悲觀的人看到了一些壞消息。他們說，幾乎人類所珍視的一切（愛、幸福，甚至生存）對我們而言都是無比重要的，因為我們人類擁有自己專屬的進化史——這是我們與高等動物共同享有的歷史，與人工智能這樣的計算機程序并無關系。

[18]于是，似乎沒有什么理由可以讓我們默認智能機器可以和我們人類擁有同樣的價值觀。好消息是，這樣可能我們也找不到任何理由認為智能機器會充滿敵意，畢竟敵意也是動物才會有的情感。

Not just like us, but smarter!

[17] It would be comforting to think that any intelligence that surpassed our own capabilities would be like us, in important respects—just a lot cleverer.But here, too, the pessimists see bad news: they point out that almost all the things we humans value (love,happiness, even survival) are important to us because we have particular evolutionary history—a history we share with higher animals, but not with computer programs, such as artificial intelligences.

[18] By default, then, we seem to have no reason to think that intelligent machines would share our values. The good news is that we probably have no reason to think they would be hostile,as such: hostility, too, is an animal emotion.

[19] The bad news is that they might simply be indifferent to us—they might care about us as much as we care about the bugs on the windscreen.

[20] People sometimes complain that corporations are psychopaths, if they are not sufficiently reined in by human control. The pessimistic prospect here is that artificial intelligence might be similar, except much much cleverer and much much faster.

[19]壞消息是：它們可能也只會用冷漠的態度對待我們——我們有多不在意爬在擋風玻璃上的小蟲子，它們就會有多不在意我們。

[20]人們有時會抱怨，如果管理者不能有效管理，企業會陷入混亂。悲觀者認為，人工智能和企業一樣，只不過人工智能智商更高，反應也更迅速。

發展阻礙

[21]現在，透過這些悲觀的想法，我們可以看到人工智能的未來發展方向。問題是：設計出與人類智能相當的計算機（至少是在影響技術進步的重要領域），就意味著我們冒著將地球交到智能機器手里的風險，而這些智能機器對我們漠不關心，對生命、可持續發展的環境等我們所珍視的一切漠不關心。

[22]悲觀者如是說，如果這聽上去有些牽強附會，就去問問大猩猩的感受吧，問問它們與最聰明的物種——人類——爭奪資源時感受如何。基本上可以這樣認為，大猩猩會滅絕不是因為人類對它們惡意滿滿，而是因為受人類控制的自然環境已經不適合它們繼續存活下去。

Getting in the way

[21] By now you see where this is going, according to this pessimistic view. The concern is that by creating computers that are as intelligent as humans (at least domains that matter to technological progress), we risk yielding control over the planet to intelligences that are simply indifferent to us, and to things that we consider valuable—things such as life and a sustainable environment.

[22] If that sounds far-fetched, the pessimists say, just ask gorillas how it feels to compete for resources with the most intelligent species—the reason they are going extinct is not (on the whole) because humans are actively hostile towards them, but because we control the environment in ways that are detrimental to their continuing survival.

“也許，這些消極的觀點都是不對的！”

[23]正如悲觀主義者所說，不可否認，人們很難做出預測，尤其是預測未來！但是我們在日常生活中也非常認真地對待各種不確定性，尤其是在危如累卵的時刻。

[24]歸根到底，這也是為什么我們會使用價格昂貴的機器人去檢查那些可疑包裹。（盡管我們明白只有極少數的包裹中有炸彈。）

[25]如本文所述，人工智能未來也會“爆炸”，那將會是人類碰到的最后一顆炸彈，因為自此人類將不復存在。這樣看來，即使我們有充分的理由相信人工智能爆炸的風險很小，人們心懷疑慮的態度也很合理。

[26]就目前而言，即使是這種程度的寬慰似乎也無法實現，因為我們對人工智能不夠了解，因此無法信心滿滿地進行風險評估。（畢竟，自我感覺樂觀和有充足的理由保持樂觀不是一回事。）

“The pessimists might be wrong!”

[23] Of course—making predictions is difficult, as they say, especially about the future! But in ordinary life we take uncertainties very seriously, when a lot is at stake.

[24] That’s why we use expensive robots to investigate suspicious packages, after all (even when we know that only a very tiny proportion of them will turn out to be bombs).

[25] If the future of AI is “explosive”in the way described here, it could be the last bomb the human species ever encounters. A suspicious attitude would seem more than sensible, then, even if we had good reason to think the risks are very small.

[26] At the moment, even that degree of reassurance seems out of our reach—we don’t know enough about the issues to estimate the risks with any high degree of confidence. (Feeling optimistic is not the same as having good reason to be optimistic, after all.)

What to do?

[27] A good first step, we think, would be to stop treating intelligent machines as the stuff of science fiction, and start thinking of them as a part of the reality that we or our descendants may actually confront, sooner or later.

[28] Once we put such a future on the agenda we can begin some serious research about ways to ensure outsourcing intelligence to machines would be safe and beneficial, from our point of view.

[29] Perhaps the best cause for optimism is that, unlike ordinary ticking parcels, the future of AI is still being assembled, piece by piece, by hundreds of developers and scientists throughout the world.

[30] The future isn’t yet fixed, and there may well be things we can do now to make it safer. But this is only a reason for optimism if we take the trouble to make it one, by investigating the issues and thinking hard about the safest strategies.

[31] We owe it to our grandchildren—not to mention our ancestors, who worked so hard for so long to get us this far!—to make that effort. ■

接下來怎么辦？

[27]我們認為，不能再把智能機器當作科幻小說的素材，要開始把它們看作是我們這一代或我們的后代可能遲早要面對的現實中的一部分，這是我們首先要做的事。

[28]一旦把這樣的未來放在議事日程上，我們就可以開始認真地研究一些方法，確保將智能賦予機器安全且有益。

[29]也許，可以讓我們保持樂觀的最好理由是，與普通的包裹不同，人工智能的未來仍需要世界各地成百上千的開發者和科學家一塊一塊去組裝。

[30]未來變數滿滿，而現在我們能做的就是讓未來更安全。但是，如果我們認真對待問題，深入了解并認真思考最安全的策略，上面所述也只是我們樂觀的理由。

[31]我們做這一切都是為了我們的子孫后代，更不用說我們的祖先為我們現有的成就而做出的努力。 □