終生學習，是我們在人工智能時代的宿命

Artificial intelligence and automation technologies are already starting to affect our work and daily lives. AI is present in everyday objects and processes such as virtual assistants, supermarket checkouts, driverless cars and detecting fraud in credit card transactions.

人工智能(AI)和自動化技術已經(jīng)開始影響我們的工作和日常生活。人工智能出現(xiàn)在日常物品和過程中，比如虛擬助理、超市結賬、無人駕駛汽車和探測信用卡交易欺詐。

Disruption is inevitable but it is often deeply feared. The current wave of change, fuelled by technological advancement, is no different. However, like generations before us, we must learn to transcend the disruption and thrive in new times. Changing how we view education is essential to humanity’s ability to achieve the best from new technologies.

人工智能帶來擾亂是不可避免的，這種擾亂往往引發(fā)深切恐懼。當前這股由技術進步推動的變革潮流沒有什么不同之處。不過，就像之前的世代那樣，我們必須學會超越這種擾亂，在新的時代蓬勃發(fā)展。就人類從新技術挖掘最佳效益的能力而言，改變我們的教育觀念至關重要。

I recently spoke to graduating students at the University of Queensland in Australia and their excitement was tinged with trepidation about the future. I made three points to them: first, AI — and the resulting automation of industrial and business processes — will affect us all and is here to stay; second, it is in its infancy and there is an immense opportunity to transcend the disruption; third, as AI develops, this disruption will be repeated again and again. The only certain strategy in our world is for us all to become life-long learners.

我最近在澳大利亞與昆士蘭大學(University of Queensland)的研究生進行交談，他們的興奮里夾雜著一些對未來的恐慌。我對他們提出了三點：首先，人工智能以及由此產(chǎn)生的工業(yè)自動化和業(yè)務流程將影響我們所有人，而且是永久性的;第二，人工智能尚處于起步階段，有巨大的機會去超越它帶來的擾亂;第三，隨著人工智能的發(fā)展，這種擾亂將一次又一次重演。在我們所處的世界，唯一靠譜的策略是我們所有人都變成終身學習者。

We are still far from the “society of mind” that Marvin Minsky wrote about in the 1980s, in which many sophisticated instruments of intelligence possessed with faculties of deduction and learning — as well as different ways of representing knowledge and reasoning about it — combine to deliver systems capable of complex, autonomous behaviours. Yet many business leaders already consider AI integral to the future. A recent survey of 1,600 global enterprises by Infosys found that 71 per cent of their leaders feel the adoption of AI in business and society is inevitable; more than three quarters feel AI adoption will deliver positive, wider economic change; a quarter have already fully deployed at least one AI technology.

我們距離馬文•閔斯基(Marvin Minsky)上世紀80年代寫的“心智社會”(society of mind)還很遙遠——那個社會有許多復雜的智能工具，它們不但具備推理和學習功能，還能以不同方式來表達和論述知識，這些工具可以結合起來，構成能夠進行復雜、自主行為的系統(tǒng)。不過許多商業(yè)領袖已視人工智能為未來不可或缺的一部分。印孚瑟斯公司(Infosys)最近對1600家全球企業(yè)進行的一項調(diào)查發(fā)現(xiàn)，71%的受訪企業(yè)領導認為，人工智能在商業(yè)和社會中的應用是不可避免的;逾四分之三受訪對象認為人工智能的采用將帶來積極的、全局性的經(jīng)濟變化;四分之一的企業(yè)已經(jīng)全面部署了至少一項人工智能技術。

But I believe humans will not do well if they merely endure such disruptions. Rather, we can play an active part in shaping our collective future and changing our world in a meaningful and purposeful way. Technology can be a great enabling force that amplifies and empowers people, improves the quality of life for all and opens up opportunities for the underprivileged.

但我相信，人類只是忍受人工智能帶來的擾亂還不夠好。相反，我們可以積極地塑造我們共同的未來，以有意義、有目的的方式改變我們的世界。科技可以成為一種偉大的推動力，讓人們變得強大，賦予他們力量，提高所有人的生活質量，并為弱勢群體創(chuàng)造機會。

For example, at the start of the 20th century 38 per cent of Americans worked on farms. Since then, mechanisation has increased production while reducing the number of employees. Today hired farm workers constitute less than 1 per cent of the US workforce and yet overall employment has soared. Farming jobs have been replaced with new industries — telecoms, health, manufacturing, financial services and more. We work in areas unimaginable to a farmer in the 1900s.

舉例來說，20世紀初時有38%的美國人在農(nóng)場工作，隨后機械化提高了產(chǎn)量，同時減少了雇員人數(shù)?，F(xiàn)在農(nóng)場雇傭工人占美國勞動力不足1%，但整體就業(yè)崗位已大幅增加。農(nóng)場工作被電信、醫(yī)療、制造業(yè)、金融服務等新行業(yè)工作取代?，F(xiàn)在有些行業(yè)是1900年代的農(nóng)民無法想象的。

In the same way, AI will affect how we work, the jobs we do and the activities we take part in, both for work and in our free time. It will provide humans with opportunities to create new kinds of experiences and jobs that are unimaginable today, but that have the potential to create trillions of dollars of new value. While intelligent systems may eventually surpass humans in performing well-defined cognitive tasks (such as problem solving), it takes human creativity and ingenuity to “see” the opportunity (such as recognising a problem technology can solve in the first place).

同樣，人工智能也會影響我們的工作方式，我們從事的職業(yè)，以及我們參與的活動——無論是工作還是業(yè)余生活都是如此。人工智能將為人類提供機會，創(chuàng)造新的體驗和職業(yè)，這些體驗和職業(yè)在今天還難以想象，但有望創(chuàng)造數(shù)萬億美元的新價值。雖然智能系統(tǒng)最終可能在執(zhí)行明確定義的認知任務(如解決問題)方面超越人類，但是“發(fā)現(xiàn)”機會(比如認識到一個可以用技術解決的問題)需要人類的創(chuàng)造力和聰明才智。

AI can enable us to overcome the limitations of our minds and senses. As my co-chair at the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on AI and Robotics, Professor Missy Cummings of Duke University, says, we are still in the early stages of understanding how intelligent systems can work with people more seamlessly. This would enable both the sharing of work and achieving shared meaning and perspectives. It is not a question of man or machine, but of man and machine. Such collaboration is critical to establishing shared meaning as we have seen in human collaboration for generations.

人工智能可以幫助我們克服思維和感官局限。正如我在世界經(jīng)濟論壇(World Economic Forum)人工智能和機器人全球未來理事會(Global Future Council on AI and Robotics)的聯(lián)名主席、杜克大學(Duke University)的米西•卡明斯(Missy Cummings)教授所說，我們?nèi)蕴幱诿魅绾文茏屩悄芟到y(tǒng)與人類無縫合作的早期階段。這將促進人類與智能系統(tǒng)實現(xiàn)工作共享，以及意義和視角上的共享。這不是人類或機器的問題，而是人類與機器的問題。這種合作對于建立意義共享至關重要，就像世世代代的人類之間開展的合作。

Breakthroughs can only be achieved if man and machine work together on a set of shared goals. When we achieve such a symbiosis, the potential for our species will be immense.

只有人類和機器基于共同的目標進行合作，才能實現(xiàn)突破。當我們達到這樣的共生境界，人類將釋放巨大潛能。

This story of disruption and transcendence has played out over millennia. But the pace of change is accelerating, necessitating an ever-faster rate of adaptation.

擾亂與超越的故事已上演了數(shù)千年。但變革的步伐在加快，因此需要更快的適應速度。

The time has come to rethink education and to recast it as a life-long process. That means we need to move away from rewarding memorisation and instead prize curiosity and experimentation — the building blocks of discovering and understanding the things we do not yet know. Curriculums should be modernised to encourage creative problem finding and solving, and learning through doing, with mandatory computer science learning as the bedrock for enabling digital literacy. Organisations also need to make life-long learning resources available for employees to enhance skills development. Indeed, they should be required to dedicate a percentage of their annual revenue to reskilling staff.

是時候重新思考教育，將其視為一個終身過程。這意味著我們不能再獎勵死記硬背，而應該獎勵好奇心和實驗，它們是發(fā)現(xiàn)和理解未知事物的基石。教學大綱應當現(xiàn)代化，鼓勵以創(chuàng)造性思維發(fā)現(xiàn)和解決問題，在實踐中學習，通過強制性的計算機科學課程實現(xiàn)數(shù)字掃盲。組織還需要為雇員提供終生學習的資源，以促進技能發(fā)展。的確，企業(yè)應該被要求將年度收入的一定百分比用于員工的再培訓。

Humans have adapted in part because we have evolved our education systems alongside our technologies: we advanced our capacities to understand our tools. As with reading and writing, being digitally literate is a fundamental need and every child should study computer science.

從古至今，人類能夠適應，部分原因就是我們緊跟技術演變的步伐，調(diào)整發(fā)展了我們的教育系統(tǒng)：我們升級了理解我們的工具的能力。與閱讀和寫作一樣，數(shù)字素養(yǎng)也成了一項根本需要，每個孩子都應該學習計算機科學。

Today’s rapid changes call for a new perspective on education by states and companies. Infosys is rethinking its training infrastructure and augmenting it with, for example, short courses (or “nanodegrees”) to help drive the rapid acquisition of new skills, including AI techniques, at scale. We are also introducing company-wide training to help employees reassess the way they approach challenges and identify problems, and to be more creative and bring innovation to everything we do.

當今的快速變化要求國家和企業(yè)從一個新視角來看待教育。印孚瑟斯公司正重新考慮自己的培訓基礎設施，例如用短期課程(即所謂“納米學位”)來加強培訓，規(guī)模化幫助員工迅速掌握新技能，包括人工智能方法。我們還推出全公司范圍的培訓，幫助員工重新評估自己應對挑戰(zhàn)、識別問題的方式，并且變得更有創(chuàng)意，為我們從事的一切工作帶來創(chuàng)新。

These are small starts and governments and businesses need to help develop an approach to life-long learning that will create a more level playing field for people everywhere.

這些只是小小的開端，政府和企業(yè)需要幫助發(fā)展終身學習的途徑，為全世界的人們創(chuàng)建一個更加平等的環(huán)境。

If we can do this, I believe the only limit to our human potential will be the capacity of our imaginations. The AIs of our creation will help us to become more human.

如果我們能做到這一點，我相信人類潛力面臨的唯一局限將是我們的想象力。我們創(chuàng)造的各種人工智能將幫助我們變得更具人性。

The writer is chief executive of Infosys

史維學(Vishal Sikka)是印孚瑟斯公司(Infosys)首席執(zhí)行官