AlphaGo輕松擊敗圍棋世界冠軍柯潔

Google is turning to its prowess in artificial intelligence in its latest charm offensive in China, seeking to appeal to fans of the complex board game Go and party officials in the country where its search engine remains blocked.

谷歌(Google)借助其在人工智能領域的強大實力在中國發(fā)起最新魅力攻勢，試圖吸引圍棋這種復雜棋類游戲的粉絲及中國共產黨的官員。在中國，谷歌的搜索引擎依然處于被封禁狀態(tài)。

The US group’s AlphaGo computer program beat Ke Jie, 19, the world champion player of the complicated ancient game developed in China, in the surprisingly short first match of a three-game series.

這家美國集團的AlphaGo電腦程序，在三局比賽的第一局以短得令人吃驚的時間擊敗了圍棋世界冠軍、19歲的柯潔。圍棋是中國發(fā)明的一種復雜古老游戲。

Last year, AlphaGo, a program developed by DeepMind, a London start-up acquired by Google in 2014, sealed a landmark achievement for AI when it defeated Lee Se-dol of South Korea. The victory was the first time a computer had beaten the world champion.

去年，由DeepMind開發(fā)的AlphaGo為人工智能取得了里程碑式的成就，擊敗了韓國的李世石(Lee Se-dol)。那次勝利是電腦首次擊敗圍棋世界冠軍。DeepMind是一家倫敦初創(chuàng)企業(yè)，2014年被谷歌收購。

Eric Schmidt, chairman of Alphabet, Google’s parent, kicked off the five-day Go tournament and AI summit in Wuzhen, near Shanghai, on Tuesday alongside officials from the Communist party and central government. The tournament is Google’s biggest public event in partnership with the government since its search engine was frozen out of the country seven years ago.

周二，谷歌母公司Alphabet董事長埃里克•施密特(Eric Schmidt)，與中國的黨政官員一起，在上海附近的烏鎮(zhèn)啟動了為期五天的圍棋錦標賽和人工智能峰會。這次錦標賽是谷歌自其搜索引擎七年前被中國封堵以來，與中國政府合作舉行的最大公共活動。

Over the past year, AlphaGo has become one of Google’s best-known brands in China, where Go was invented 3,000 years ago. The country has hundreds of millions of Go fans and a “big interest in AI at a grassroots level”, notes Demis Hassabis, co-founder of DeepMind.

過去一年里，在3000年前發(fā)明圍棋的中國，AlphaGo已成為谷歌最具知名度的品牌之一。DeepMind聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人杰米斯•哈薩比斯(Demis Hassabis)指出，中國擁有數(shù)億圍棋粉絲以及“基層對人工智能的巨大興趣”。

“We were told everyone in China knows about AlphaGo,” he said. “When we go out to Korea or China [the level of interest in us] is pretty crazy.”

他說：“我們被告知，中國每個人都知道AlphaGo。當我們去韓國或中國時，(人們對我們的興趣)極為瘋狂。”

Mr Hassabis plans to visit Chinese companies and institutes to discuss ways of using AI commercially and in scientific research. The government considers AI research crucial for upgrading its slowing economy.

哈薩比斯計劃訪問中國的企業(yè)和科研院所，圍繞在商業(yè)和科研中應用人工智能的方法開展討論。中國政府認為，人工智能研究對于升級中國放緩的經濟至關重要。

Despite the fervour of Chinese fans — more than 1m of whom watched the live streaming of last year’s games in South Korea — the authorities banned live streaming of AlphaGo’s first match against Mr Ke on Tuesday, although it was unclear why.

盡管中國的粉絲熱情高漲——超過100萬粉絲觀看了去年在韓國的賽況的直播，當局周二卻禁止直播AlphaGo與柯潔的首場比賽，原因無從得知。

“It’s disgusting, I need to use a VPN to watch a world-famous event which features a Chinese master playing the game that Chinese invented,” wrote one disappointed fan on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like social media platform.

在中國類似Twitter的社交平臺新浪微博(Weibo)上，一名失望的粉絲寫道：“真惡心，中國大師下中國人發(fā)明的圍棋，我卻要用VPN才能看這場全球聞名的賽事。”

“Ke Jie versus AlphaGo” was one of the top trending topics on Weibo on Tuesday morning, with 17.3m views.

周二早上，“柯潔大戰(zhàn)AlphaGo”是微博上的熱門話題之一，有1730萬人查看。

Chinese media livestreamed Google’s Developer Day conference in Beijing last year without running into any restrictions.

去年，中國媒體曾直播在北京舉行的谷歌開發(fā)者日技術大會(Google Developer Day)，并未受到任何限制。

Google pulled its search engine from China in 2010 after several years of conflict with the government over the censoring of politically sensitive keywords.

2010年，在與中國政府圍繞對政治敏感關鍵詞的審查發(fā)生多年沖突之后，谷歌將其搜索引擎撤出了中國。

A senior official involved in discussions with the company told the Financial Times that the country’s relationship with the US business is improving.

一位曾參與同谷歌磋商的高級官員向英國《金融時報》表示，中國與這家美國企業(yè)的關系正在好轉。

China is the biggest market missing from Google’s empire, particularly in the growing area of mobile revenue. Although a third of the world’s users of Google’s Android smartphone operating system are in China, none can access the Google Play app store, meaning the company loses out on the world’s biggest source of mobile app sales.

中國是谷歌帝國缺失的最大市場——尤其是在不斷增長的移動營收領域。盡管谷歌的Android智能手機操作系統(tǒng)在全球的用戶有三分之一在中國，但這些用戶無法訪問Google Play應用商店，這意味著谷歌喪失了全球最大的移動應用銷售來源。