中國技術(shù)熱潮：不能上餐的機器人服務(wù)員也受追捧

SHANGHAI — The mind-reading headsets won’t read minds. The fire-detecting machine has been declared a safety hazard. The robot waiter can’t be trusted with the soup.

上海——能讀人想法的耳機什么都沒讀出來。檢測火災(zāi)的機器人已被宣布為安全隱患。機器人服務(wù)員端湯讓人不放心。

China is ready for the future, even if the future hasn’t quite arrived.

中國已為未來做好了準(zhǔn)備，盡管未來尚未到來。

China has become a global technological force in just a few years. It is shaping the future of the internet. Its technology ambitions helped prompt the Trump administration to start a trade war. Hundreds of millions of people in China now use smartphones to shop online, pay their bills and invest their money, sometimes in ways more advanced than in the United States.

短短幾年里，中國已成為全球技術(shù)主力，正在塑造著互聯(lián)網(wǎng)的未來。中國的技術(shù)野心是促使特朗普政府發(fā)動貿(mào)易戰(zhàn)的其中一個原因。中國目前有數(shù)億人使用智能手機在網(wǎng)上購物、支付賬單、做投資，其中一些方式要比美國更先進(jìn)。

That has led many people in China to embrace technology full tilt, no matter how questionable. Robots wait on restaurant diners. Artificial intelligence marks up schoolwork. Facial recognition technology helps dole out everything from Kentucky Fried Chicken orders to toilet paper. China is in a competition with itself for the world record for dancing robots

這促使許多中國人全面擁抱了技術(shù)，不管某些技術(shù)還多么不成熟。機器人在餐廳為就餐者服務(wù)。人工智能給學(xué)生的作業(yè)打分。人臉識別技術(shù)在幫助分發(fā)從肯德基餐到衛(wèi)生紙的各種東西。中國正在一次又一次地打破自己創(chuàng)下的跳舞機器人世界紀(jì)錄。

That embrace of tech for tech’s sake — and the sometimes dubious results it leads to — were on display at the Global Intelligence and World Business Summit, held last month in Shanghai, which several luminaries in Chinese tech and academia were supposed to kick off with their minds.

這種為技術(shù)而接受技術(shù)——有時還包括接受它們帶來的可疑結(jié)果——上個月在上海舉行的“2018全球智能+新商業(yè)峰會”上有所展現(xiàn)，峰會邀請了中國技術(shù)界和學(xué)術(shù)界的幾位名人，按照計劃，他們將用意識來為峰會揭幕。

Donning black headbands that looked like implements of electroshock therapy, the seven men and two women onstage were told to envision themselves pressing a button. The headbands would transmit their brain activity to the robotic hand sharing the stage, which would then push a button to officially start the conference.

臺上七男兩女九個人戴著黑色頭帶，看上去像是要做電擊治療，他們被告知用腦子想象按按鈕的動作。他們戴的頭帶會把他們的大腦活動傳遞給同在臺上的機械手，然后，這個機械手會按一個標(biāo)志著會議正式開始的按鈕。

A countdown began. A camera put the robotic hand onto a huge screen above the stage. The people onstage seemed to concentrate. And then, nothing happened. The hand remained motionless. The camera panned away.

倒計時開始了。攝像機將拍攝的機械手投影到舞臺上方一個巨大的屏幕上。臺上的人似乎在聚精會神地想。接下來，什么都沒發(fā)生。機械手毫無動靜。攝像機轉(zhuǎn)向了別的畫面。

A spokesman for Yiou, the tech consultant that hosted the event, declined to comment except for: .

主辦此次活動的技術(shù)咨詢公司億歐的發(fā)言人拒絕發(fā)表評論，只表示：(兩個笑哭表情)。

All of this embarrasses some people in the Chinese tech scene. They warn that the excess exuberance is one sign of a venture capital bubble, which may be about to burst. Rather than show China’s newfound tech might, they argue, spectacles like dancing robots and ineffective mind readers cover up the country’s lack of progress in other areas.

這一切讓中國技術(shù)界的一些人感到尷尬。他們警告說，技術(shù)市場的過度繁榮是風(fēng)險投資泡沫的一個跡象，這個泡沫可能將要破滅。他們認(rèn)為，機器人跳舞和不管用的讀心技術(shù)之類的表演，并不是中國新取得的技術(shù)威力的展示，而是掩蓋了中國在其他領(lǐng)域缺乏進(jìn)展的事實。

Those deficiencies were made clear in April when the United States forbade American companies to sell chips, software and other technology to ZTE, a Chinese telecom company. ZTE was found to have violated American sanctions by selling products to Iran and North Korea. The ban brought the company to a virtual standstill.

中國的短處在今年4月顯露無疑，當(dāng)時，由于發(fā)現(xiàn)中國電信公司中興通訊(ZTE)違反了美國的制裁，向伊朗和朝鮮出售產(chǎn)品，美國政府下令禁止美國公司向其出售芯片、軟件和其他技術(shù)。該禁令讓中興實際上進(jìn)入了停頓狀態(tài)。

Chinese people shouldn’t lose touch with reality, warned Liu Yadong, chief editor of the state-run Science and Technology Daily. In a recent speech, he said that China still lagged the United States in tech, and that those who argued otherwise ran the risk of “tricking leaders, fooling the public and even fooling themselves.”

官方媒體《科技日報》總編輯劉亞東警告說，中國人不應(yīng)該無視現(xiàn)實。劉亞東在最近的一篇演講中說，中國在科學(xué)技術(shù)上仍落后于美國，那些不承認(rèn)差距的人“忽悠了領(lǐng)導(dǎo)，忽悠了公眾，甚至忽悠了自己”。

China isn’t the first country to get ahead of itself in tech. Japan at the height of its economic powers had robots that prepared sushi. More recently, Silicon Valley has gone gaga over more than a few pointless products, like Yo — the app that said only “yo” — and Juicero, the $700 juicer. Ultimately the exuberance could be a good thing for China, as useful products find their place and bad ones disappear when the boom matures.

中國并不是第一個夸大本國技術(shù)能力的國家。日本在其經(jīng)濟鼎盛時代曾推出過制作壽司的機器人。近年的硅谷也對一些毫無意義的產(chǎn)品著迷不已，比如只會說“Yo”的應(yīng)用Yo，還有售價700美元的榨汁機Juicero。不過，這種繁榮對中國來說，可能最終是一件好事，因為在從快速增長到成熟的過程中，有用的產(chǎn)品會脫穎而出，壞的產(chǎn)品則會消失。

And China has come a long way. What was an agrarian backwater 40 years ago is home to the world’s single largest group of internet users and some of its most valuable internet companies.

中國已取得了很大的進(jìn)步。40年前，中國曾是一個以農(nóng)業(yè)為主的落后國家，如今這里有全球獨一無二的、最大的互聯(lián)網(wǎng)用戶群，以及一些全球最有價值的互聯(lián)網(wǎng)公司。

Now it’s pushing ahead into emerging tech. In 2017, Chinese start-ups took up nearly half the dollars raised globally for artificial intelligence, according to CB Insights, a research firm that follows venture capital. By 2020, China is expected to account for more than 30 percent of worldwide spending on robotics, according to technology research firm IDC.

現(xiàn)在，中國正在向新興技術(shù)產(chǎn)業(yè)推進(jìn)。據(jù)追蹤風(fēng)險投資的研究公司CB Insights的數(shù)據(jù)，2017年，中國初創(chuàng)企業(yè)拿到了全球人工智能方面集資的近一半。據(jù)從事技術(shù)研究的國際數(shù)據(jù)公司(IDC)的數(shù)據(jù)，預(yù)計到2020年，中國在機器人研發(fā)上的支出將占全球的30%以上。

Many in China see the country’s supremacy over the United States in tech as inevitable, and they are eager to get to that day.

中國有不少人認(rèn)為，該國在技術(shù)領(lǐng)域超過美國是不可避免的，他們迫不及待地期待著這個日子的到來。

“Chinese are much more willing to try something new just because it looks cool,” said Andy Tian, chief executive of Beijing-based Asia Innovations Group, which runs mobile apps. “It sounds superficial. It is superficial. But that’s the driver of progress in a lot of cases.”

“中國人更愿意嘗試新東西，只是因為這些東西看起來很酷，”總部設(shè)在北京的亞洲創(chuàng)新集團首席執(zhí)行官田行智說，該公司從事移動應(yīng)用業(yè)務(wù)。“這聽起來淺薄，是表面的東西。但在許多情況下，這也在推動進(jìn)步。”

The E-Patrol Robotic Sheriff could fill that bill. It is among several security robots that have shown up at train stations and airports around China in recent months. The E-Patrol Robotic Sheriff — which looks like the camera lens from the HAL 9000 computer in “2001: A Space Odyssey” mounted on a white trash tub — patrols the high-speed rail station in the central Chinese city Zhengzhou, tasked with using facial recognition to find and follow suspicious characters, as well as to measure air quality and detect fires.

電子巡邏機器人警察(E-Patrol Robotic Sheriff)可能就是這樣的例子。它是近幾個月來出現(xiàn)在中國各地火車站和機場的保安機器人之一。電子巡邏機器人警察的樣子看起來像是把影片《2001太空漫遊》(2001: A Space Odyssey)中的計算機HAL 9000的攝像鏡頭安裝在了一個白色垃圾箱上。中國中部城市鄭州的高鐵火車站用過電子巡邏機器人警察巡邏，其任務(wù)包括通過人臉識別尋找和跟蹤可疑人員，以及測量空氣質(zhì)量和探測火災(zāi)。

During a winter visit to the station, the robot was nowhere to be found. First, it had missed a fire, officials said. It also had a tendency to collect so many selfie-seeking fans that it became a safety hazard. A spokesman for the train station said it was getting an upgrade and would eventually return.

記者冬天去這個火車站訪問時沒有找到這種機器人。官員說，第一個原因是，這個機器人未能檢測到一次火災(zāi)。第二，機器人警察吸引了太多想與之自拍的人，以至于它本身已成為安全隱患?；疖囌镜囊晃话l(fā)言人說，正在對機器人警察進(jìn)行升級改造，它最終會回來。