经济学人科技篇(2014.3-11).docx

Artificial intelligence and psychology人工智能和心理学The computer will see you now现在电脑能给你看病了A virtual shrink may sometimes be better than the real thing有时候，虚拟缩小版反而比实际事物更好ELLIE is a psychologist, and a damned good one at that. Smile in a certain way, and she knows precisely what your smile means. Develop a nervous tic or tension in an eye, and she instantly picks up on it. She listens to what you say, processes every word, works out the meaning of your pitch, your tone, your posture, everything. She is at the top of her game but, according to a new study, her greatest asset is that she is not human.Ellie是一名心理学家，而且长于此道。面带职业化微笑的她，清楚滴知道你每个笑容的含义。即便是简单的神经抽搐或者眼神紧张，她也能立刻注意到这个细节。她仔细聆听你的表达，分辨每一个字词，研究你每个音调、口音、手势等所有小动作的含义。最新研究认为，她处在行业顶端的最大优势在于，她不是人类。When faced with tough or potentially embarrassing questions, people often do not tell doctors what they need to hear. Yet the researchers behind Ellie, led by Jonathan Gratch at the Institute for Creative Technologies, in Los Angeles, suspected from their years of monitoring human interactions with computers that people might be more willing to talk if presented with an avatar. To test this idea, they put 239 people in front of Ellie to have a chat with her about their lives. Half were told they would be interacting with an artificially intelligent virtual human; the others were told that Ellie was a bit like a puppet, and was having her strings pulled remotely by a person.当面临艰难决定，或可能尴尬的问题的时候，人们一般并不会告诉医生他需要听到的内容。然而来自洛杉矶的创新技术研究所的研究人员，在Jonathan Gratch的领导下，根据多年使用电脑监控人际交流的结果，认为人们更愿意对着虚拟头像吐露真心。为测试这一想法，他们请了239人同Ellie当面交流他们的生活。其中一半被告知实情，即他们同人工智能在互动；同时误导另外一半，告诉他们Ellie就像是一个傀儡，被某个人远程操控。Designed to search for psychological problems, Ellie worked with each participant in the study in the same manner. She started every interview with rapport-building questions, such as, “Where are you from?” She followed these with more clinical ones, like, “How easy is it for you to get a good nights sleep?” She finished with questions intended to boost the participants mood, for instance, “What are you most proud of?” Throughout the experience she asked relevant follow-up questions“Can you tell me more about that?” for examplewhile providing the appropriate nods and facial expressions.为研究心理问题而设计的Ellie以相同的方式同每个参与者互动。每次会谈她都以拉家常的问题开始，比如“你从哪儿来？”然后继以更医学性的问题，比如“你晚上睡眠质量如何？”最后她的问题会刺激参与者的情绪，比如“你最骄傲的事是什么？”在整个过程中，她会问到相关的后继问题，比如“能不能多聊聊这个？”同时还会适时地点头，做出恰当地面部表情。Lie on the couch, please请躺在沙发上During their time with Ellie, all participants had their faces scanned for signs of sadness, and were given a score ranging from zero to one.Also, three real, human psychologists, who were ignorant of the purpose of the study, analysed transcripts of the sessions, to rate how willingly the participants disclosed personal information.在同Ellie共处的时候，所有的参与者的面部都会被扫描，以寻找悲伤的特征，并评以0到10分。同时，三位真正的人类心理学家，在对此研究的目的一无所知的情况下，分析会谈的视频，并排出参与人员披露个人信息的意愿。These observers were asked to look at responses to sensitive and intimate questions, such as, “How close are you to your family?” and, “Tell me about the last time you felt really happy.” They rated the responses to these on a seven-point scale ranging from -3 to +3. All participants were also asked to fill out questionnaires intended to probe how they felt about the interview.这些观察人员要注意对敏感而亲密的问题的回答，比如“你同你家庭有多亲密？”和“告诉我你上次觉得真的高兴是什么时候。”他们根据七分制对这些回答进行排序，-3表明完全不愿意表露信息，+3表示非常愿意。所有的参与人员也要填写调查问卷，以说明他们对此次会谈的感觉。Dr Gratch and his colleagues report in Computers in Human Behaviour that, though everyone interacted with the same avatar, their experiences differed markedly based on what they believed they were dealing with. Those who thought Ellie was under the control of a human operator reported greater fear of disclosing personal information, and said they managed more carefully what they expressed during the session, than did those who believed they were simply interacting with a computer.Gratch博士及其同事在人类行为同电脑上报道称，尽管每个人都与同一个头像进行互动，他们的体验却显著地取决于他们认为自己所交流的对象。同认为仅仅是同电脑互动的人相比，那些认为Ellie是在人类控制下的参与者更担心揭露个人信息，并认为在会谈期间，他们对表达的内容更细心在意。Crucially, the psychologists observing the subjects found that those who thought they were dealing with a human were indeed less forthcoming, averaging 0.56 compared with the other groups average score of 1.11. The first group also betrayed fewer signs of sadness, averaging 0.08 compared with the other groups 0.12 sadness score.重要的是，监测这一过程的心理学家发现，那些认为是在同人类交流的参与者，确实更内向。相比于另一组的1.11的平均值，他们的平均值仅为0.56。第一组同样泄露出了较少的悲伤特征，平均0.08，而另一组的悲伤得分为0.12。This quality of encouraging openness and honesty, Dr Gratch believes, will be of particular value in assessing the psychological problems of soldiersa view shared by Americas Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency, which is helping to pay for the project.Gratch博士认为，鼓励开放和诚实的质量将在评估军人的心理学问题过程中起到重要作用。这一观点得到了美国国防高级研究计划局的认同。后者同时也是此项目的赞助方。Soldiers place a premium on being tough, and many avoid seeing psychologists at all costs. That means conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder, to which military men and women are particularly prone, often get dangerous before they are caught. Ellie could change things for the better by confidentially informing soldiers with PTSD that she feels they could be a risk to themselves and others, and advising them about how to seek treatment.军人对表现坚强尤其看重，而且许多人竭力避免去看心理医生。然而许多军人都很容易产生创伤后应激障碍的问题。这意味着在发现的时候，往往这一问题已经变得危险。Ellie能够改变这一现状，秘密通知她认为患有创伤后应激障碍的军人可能对患者自身及其他人构成威胁，并建议他们如何寻求治疗。If, that is, a cynical trooper can be persuaded that Ellie really isnt a human psychologist in disguise. Because if Ellie can pass for human, presumably a human can pass for Ellie.这一切的前提是，玩世不恭的兵哥哥要相信Ellie真的不是伪装了的人类心理学家。毕竟如果Ellie能够欺骗人类，那人类也能欺骗他。 本文来自:可可英语 /menu/201408/321924.shtmlRoboCup机器人世界杯Humans 1, Machines 7人机对战1:7When will robots do to football what computers did to chess?当机器人踢足球能和电脑下象棋一样好的时候MESSI v the Machine was how some commentators touted the World Cup final, inspired by the disciplined way the German team dismantled Brazil in the semi-finals. But despite such caricatures of Teutonic precision, German players are only human. So as the latest edition of RoboCup, a competition for robot soccer players rather than flesh-and-blood ones, kicks off on July 19th in Jo?o Pessoa, Brazils easternmost city, a question that will be on many minds is: when will real machines conquer the sport?世界杯半决赛中，德国干掉了巴西。受这种一板一眼的踢法的刺激，一些评论人员戏称世界杯决赛为“梅西对战机器”。但是尽管我们这样讽刺条顿式精密，德国队员也仍是人类。而机器人世界杯则是机器足球运动员的赛事，无关有血有肉的人类。因此，今年7月19日，当机器人世界杯在巴西最东端的城市圣保罗开赛的时候，许多人开始考虑：真的机器，什么时候会统治足球运动？When the first RoboCup was held, in 1997, those who launched it set a target of 2050 for engineers to produce a humanoid robot team that would rival the champions of the older competition. Judged by the plodding clumsiness of some of the RoboCup players, that goal might seem far-fetched. But it is easy to underestimate how quickly robotics is improving. Self-driving cars and delivery drones, which seemed hopelessly futuristic just a decade ago, are now topics of serious business interest.1997年，第一届机器人世界杯举行的时候，创始者们设定的目标是2050年，工程师能开发出类人的机器队伍，媲美旧有比赛的冠军。通过一些机器人世界杯队员的沉重步伐来看， 这个目标还遥遥无期。但是人们往往会低估机器人发展的速度。无人驾驶汽车和无人运输机十年前看上去也是遥不可及的，如今已成为严肃的商业兴趣点。By comparison with the corporate investments of the likes of Google in electric cars, the teams competing in this years RoboCupmore than 150 of themhave shoestring budgets. But the tournament includes features that the organisers hope will accelerate innovation without the incentive of cash.对比谷歌因对电动汽车的偏好而进行的合作投资，今年机器人世界杯的150多支队伍的预算不过是毛毛雨。但是比赛有这样一个特点，组织方希望在没有资本刺激的情况下加速创新。One is a clever combination of competition and co-operation. Leading up to the playoffs, teams prepare new strategies and fine-tune their hardware and software in secret. Immediately after the finals have been played, however, all must publish their methods, thus raising the bar for everyone the following year. Another feature is that there are limits to how far teams can push their hardware, to encourage them to develop smart routes to victory, rather than using mere brute force.这项赛事是对竞争和合作的良好结合。进入了季后赛，各队都会秘密准备新战术，调整软硬件。然而，决赛一旦结束，所有人都要公开他们的方法，由此给其他人在明年的比赛提供参照。另一项特质是对于队伍对硬件做的改进是有上限的，以鼓励他们开发智能方案赢得胜利，而不是仅仅通过粗鲁的物理性能。A further twist is that RoboCup is not one competition but many. These range from a little league of miniature cylinders on wheels, like the “Star Wars” character R2-D2, in which each entire team is controlled by one computer using input from overhead cameras, to a fully limbed humanoid league, akin to R2-D2s faithful companion, C-3PO (see picture above). In the humanoid league, which is further divided into three sizes of robotkid, teen and adulteach android has its own independent on-board sensors and artificial-intelligence software.更深一步的是，机器人世界杯不是一项比赛，而是一系列比赛。其范围包括微型有轮缸式的小联赛，到完全类人化的队伍。前者类似“星球大战”中的R2D2，整个队伍由一台电脑控制，输入端为上空的摄像头。后者好比R2D2的忠实队友C3PO（见上图）。在类人队伍中，根据其不同的尺寸又分为小孩，青少年和成人，每个机器人都有其独立的自带传感器，以及拟人智能软件。Moreover, for those who cannot be bothered to get out the spanners and the soldering iron, there is a virtual league as well. Competition there can focus on improving the software needed for the rapid planning of the best move at each step of the game, without having to worry about the vagaries of the hardware. And there is also a junior league for school-aged geeks, some of whom will no doubt join the RoboCup major leagues when they go to college, their skills already finely honed.更有甚者，对于那些不善于使用扳手和焊接工具的人，也有虚拟队伍。此处的比赛主要专注于能在比赛中快速规划出最佳行动的软件，而不在意硬件的搭配。还有校园极客的初级队伍，他们在进入大学后无疑会加入机器人世界杯，毕竟他们的技巧已经经过考验。To sense the state-of-the-art in robot football, you need to go behind the scenes. Last week, hidden in a windowless office, Joydeep Biswas of Carnegie Mellon University and his colleagues were making final adjustments to their team, which competes in the little league. While robots in the humanoid league are still lumbering and prone to error, the speed and accuracy of those in the little league are stunning. Their electromechanical kickers can fire the leagues orange golf balls at eight metres per second. In fact, they could easily shoot harder if it were not for hardware-control regulations that set a maximum speed.为了体验机器人足球的先进性，你要走近荧幕背后。上周，躲在一件无窗办公室中，卡内基梅隆大学的Joydeep Biswas和他的伙伴对队伍进行最后的调整。他们将在小联赛中出现。尽管类人组机器人依然胡拼乱造而且容易出故障，其在小联赛中的速度和精确性都有大幅提高。他们的电力学球员能够以每秒八米的速度将比赛用橙色高尔夫球踢出去。实际上，如果不是硬件控制限制了最大速度的话，他们能够踢得更狠。The state of play踢球的状态Mr Biswas, a graduate student, works for Manuela Veloso. She helped found RoboCup and her group has won the most finals titles in the little league. In 2009 Dr Veloso and her colleagues decided to share with their competitors the vision software that had let their team win a streak of RoboCups. This helped establish the now-mandatory open-source approach that has rapidly raised the quality of the competition.研究生Biswas先生为Manuela Veloso工作。她帮助成立了机器人世界杯，而她的团队已经赢得了小联赛中的多数头衔。2009年Veloso博士及她的团队决定同他们的竞争对手分享帮助他们赢得了一系列机器人世界杯的视觉软件。这引导建立了如今的强制开源规则，并快速提升了比赛的质量。“In the past couple of years,” Dr Veloso opines, “one of the big changes is that we are starting to analyse real football tactics and strategy, to devise our own.” A paper her group published earlier this year lays out how their CMDragons team observed and exploited the defence tactics of opponents, luring them away from positions where they could prevent goals. This approach, dubbed “coerce and attack”, has parallels in professional playbooks.Veloso博士说，“在过去的几年，一项巨大的改变是我们开始分析实际足球技巧和策略，并衍生出我们自己的。”今年早些时候，她的团队发表的一篇文章，说明了他们这个CMDragons团队如何观测并利用选手的防守战略，引诱他们远离能阻止球的防守位置。这个方法被叫做“威逼后攻击”，已经出现在专业玩家手册中。Other research groups are getting equally sophisticated, and teams from Australia, China, Iran and Thailand, among other countries, are regularly placed high in several leagues of the competitionin contrast to their national reputations on real pitches. In the early years of RoboCup, there were huge differences in quality between the teams. No longer. The best of the little league routinely finish their ten-minute-long games with the low scores characteristic of well-matched human teams. Indeed, Dr Velosos squad came in second last year, after a penalty shoot-out following a 2-2 game.其他的研究团队也变得同样的厉害。在所有国家中，来自澳大利亚，中国，伊朗和泰国的队伍，同该国在实际比赛中的名声相比，处在比赛的领头羊地位。在机器人世界杯早些时候，各队在质量上大有不同。这一幕已成为历史。小联赛的佼佼者一般在10分钟的比赛中以小比分结束，同人类队伍间的比赛相仿。实际上，去年一场2-2的比赛结束后，Veloso的小队在点球大战中憾负中国队，屈居第二。Nor need only the players be robots. In a step that many of FIFAs critics may admire, Dr Veloso and her team are developing automated referees. That will not stop some teams from exploiting decidedly human traits, such as fouling by forcefully bumping into another robot. But it may result in more effective enforcement of things like the maximum kick-speed rule.而且不仅仅运动员是机器人。许多世界杯批评人士可能会羡慕的是，Veloso博士及其团队正在开发自动裁判。这不会阻止一些队伍触犯人类比赛中的规则，比如有力地碰撞另一个机器人。但其可能导致更有效的强化诸如最大踢球速度限制这样的规定。What fascinates Dr Veloso most about RoboCup is the execution, during the game, of moves that had not been deliberately inserted into the algorithms controlling the robots. She is ebullient about an unexpected three-way pass and chip, worthy of a minor Messi and his Argentine teammates. Such unanticipated plays are examples of emergent behaviour, a hallmark of artificial intelligence at its highest level, and something she reckons RoboCup teams in all leagues will produce a lot more of with each passing year.机器世界杯最吸引Veloso博士的的地方在于，比赛期间，对运动的执行不是事先设定在控制机器人的算法中。她乐于见到三角传球过人，就像参照梅西和他的阿根廷队友。这种意外的踢法是紧急处理中的例子，标志着人工智能的最高水平。她认为，每年机器世界杯各项比赛的队伍会产生越来越多的闪光点。So is 2050 an unrealistic deadline for robots to beat the best humans at football? Half a century is roughly the time that separates ENIAC, Americas first electronic computer, from Deep Blue, the IBM machine that beat chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov in 1997. Judged in that light, RoboCups goal does not seem absurd. Indeed, the question may be whether, come 2050, there are still any human football players around who have not been prosthetically enhanced in some way, making them cyborgs. RoboCup v RoboCop, anyone?2050年是不是虚拟的截止日期，那时候机器人会在足球方面打败人类？从美国第一台电子计算机ENIAC到1997年IBM生产出打败世界象棋大师Garry Kasparov的深蓝，大概过去了一个世纪。由此判断，机器人世界杯看上去并不荒唐。事实上，问题可能是到了2050年的时候，还有没有足球运动员在某方面没有进行强化，变成半机械人？机器人世界杯，还是半机器人世界杯？ 本文来自:可可英语 /menu/201407/314860.shtmlDriverless cars无人驾驶汽车In the self-driving seat坐在无人驾驶汽车的座位上Google is miles ahead of its rivals in the race for autonomous motoring谷歌在无人驾驶领域研发的竞争中已甩开对手几条街Not quite as glamorous as “Knight Rider”不如“霹雳游侠”有魅力TO GOOGLE is now in broad usage as a verb for retrieving information from the internet. If the tech giant has its way, “I Googled” will become a standard reply to the question, “How did you get here?” On May 28th Google said it would build 100 prototype driverless cars devoid of pedals, steering wheel or controls save an on/off switch. It is the next stage in its apparent quest to be as ubiquitous on the road as on computer screens.如今，“谷歌”常被广泛用于互联网信息检索，因而“谷歌”常被用作动词。如果这一科技巨头独行其道，对于“你是怎么过来的？”这种问题，它的标准答案将会是“我谷歌来的”。5月28日，谷歌表示，其将制造100辆无人驾驶原型车，它们没有踏板，没有方向盘，也没有其他各类控制表盘，只留下一个开关键。谷歌希望在无人车的市场能够做到与搜索市场一样，给人们提供生活中必不可少的服务，这显然是下一阶段追求。People have dreamed about driverless motoring since at least the 1930s, but only in recent years have carmakers such as Mercedes-Benz and Volvo given the matter more thought, kitting out test cars with the sensors and sophisticated software required to negotiate busy roads. Google has roared ahead by designing a driverless car from the ground up.至少从19世纪30年代起，人们就已经开始设想无人驾驶汽车，但只有一些汽车制造商，如奔驰、沃尔沃，在近些年尝试把这一想法付诸实践。一辆装备着传感器和复杂软件的测试车需要在繁忙的道路上权衡最佳行车方案。谷歌公司从零起步，设计无人驾驶汽车，已经鹤立鸡群。But bringing autonomous motoring to the world is proving harder than Google had envisaged. It once promised it by 2017. Now it does not see production models coming out before 2020. The technology is far advanced, but needs shrinking in size and costGoogles current test cars, retrofittedToyotaand Lexus models, are said to be packed with $80,000-worth of equipment.但是现实证明，无人驾驶汽车的面世比谷歌预想的要难。它曾承诺到2017年就能面世。而今预计产品模型不会在2020年前被制造出来。这项技术十分超前，但需要缩减产品尺寸及成本，谷歌现阶段的测试车改装自丰田和雷克萨斯的车型，据说测试车里塞满了价值8万美元的设备。Googles latest efforts may have as much to do with convincing the public and lawmakers as refining the technology. The firm stresses the safety advantages of computers being more likely than humans to avoid accidents. The cars will have a top speed of just 25mph and a front end made of soft foam to cushion unwary pedestrians. The benefits could indeed be huge. Driving time could be given over to working, snoozing or browsing the web. Rather than suffer all the costs of owning a car, some people may prefer to summon a rented one on their smartphones whenever they need it. However, the issue of liability in the event of a driverless car crashing has yet to be resolved.谷歌最近不仅要努力的完善这项技术，还要同样努力的说服公众及立法者。谷歌强调此产品的优势是安全性，在避免车祸方面，电脑比人类表现更佳。无人驾驶汽车最高车速仅为25英里每小时，其前端由软泡沫材料制造而成，可缓冲粗心的行人。这样确有很大好处。开车的时间可以用于工作，打盹或上网冲浪。比起自己承担拥有一辆车的开销，一些人可能更喜欢在需要车的时候，用他们的智能手机叫辆出租车。然而，无人驾驶汽车发生车祸时的责任认定问题还有待解决。Turning cars into commodities may not be good news for traditional carmakers. But reinventing motoring as a service fits neatly with Googles plans to become as big in hardware as in software. And unlike car firms, which talk vaguely of becoming “mobility providers”, Google has pots of cash to make that a reality and no worries about disrupting its current business. Google admits it still has “lots of work to do”. But one day Googling to the shops may be a common activity.对传统汽车制造商来说，把无人驾驶汽车转化成为商品，也许不是什么好消息。但是把汽车彻底转变成一种服务，正好契合了谷歌想在硬件领域发展的和在软件领域一样强大的计划。普通汽车公司模糊的表达着成为“移动供应商”的想法，和这些汽车公司不同，谷歌拥有大量资金来实现无人驾驶的设想，并不担心这一项目会扰乱目前公司业务。谷歌承认这一项目还有很多工作要做。但是，有一天，乘坐谷歌无人驾驶汽车去商店购物，也许会变成寻常事。 Science and technology科学技术Solar energy太阳能Flower power花朵的能量In matters of clever design, nature has often got there first若论巧夺天工，自然常常更胜一筹A virtuous spiral上面的螺纹看似简单，实际有效SOLAR-POWER stations take up a lot of room.太阳能发电站占地面积巨大，They need either vast arrays