日本的机器人痴迷症之忧

    过去的几十年中，美国的人工智能研究员在金融、军用和语音识别等专业领域都开设了研究项目。另一方面，日本的科学家则对日常问题更感兴趣。比如如何让人形机器人泡茶，或解开一个纵横填字谜题。新井纪子说：“这种类似于科学狂人的梦想……吸引了许多日本人和一些欧洲人前去追寻。”

    日本整体对机器人持放任态度。劳动人口老龄化导致大量职位空缺，日本也迫切地想在不借助外来移民的情况下解决这个问题。以上两点使得日本似乎成了为人工智能量身打造的乐土。前不久，日产公司（Nissan）的自动驾驶汽车在日本获得了上路牌照，而美国仍然在谷歌（Google）自动驾驶汽车的立法问题上犹豫不决。日本可能很快就能看到机器人汽车和自动化的卡车。

    新井纪子表示，拥有可以通过日本大学入学考试的软件可以告诉大家，人工智能究竟能够干什么，也可以当作一次警钟。“媒体可能已经提出了类似的问题，但是政治家和经济学家还不打算认真思考。他们没有考虑人工智能可能带来多大的风险，只注意到人工智能可以解决更多工作问题。”

    新井纪子声称，到2016年，日本就能研发出软件，能够轻松通过相对简单的大学入学考试。每年都有大约50万考生参加由全日本的大学考试委员会命题的选择题考试。达到60%的正确率就能通过考试。而要参加东京大学的入学考试，学生们在这份试卷中至少需要达到80%的正确率。

    IBM的日本分公司也在尝试用超级电脑参加东京大学的测试，不过国立情报学研究所目前处于领先。新井纪子说：“我们的人工智能现在能做对50%的题目，这已经足够通过考试了。去年，我们让它做对了六道题中的四道。10年之内，它就能和东京大学的19岁学生一较高低了。”(财富中文网)

    译者：严匡正

    Over the past few decades, American AI researchers have pursued specialized projects involving finance, military applications, and speech recognition. Scientists in Japan, on the other hand, have been more interested in solving general problems such as how to get a humanoid robot to make tea or solve a crossword puzzle. "It's a sort of mad scientist dream ... pursued mostly by many in Japan and some Europeans," Arai says.

    With its laissez-faire attitude to robots and a dire need to fill jobs without resorting to immigration as the working population ages, Japan seems tailor-made for AI. Nissan's autonomous self-drive vehicle has just been granted a drivers license in Japan while the U.S. is still wondering how to legislate for the self-driving Google (GOOG) car. Japan may soon see its first robot taxis and automated trucks.

    Having software that can pass Japanese university entrance exams will show just what AI is capable of doing and should serve as a wake-up-call, says Arai. "Such problems may be raised by the media but politicians and economists don't want to think seriously about it. They don't anticipate the qualitative risks AI may cause. They tend to think AI may create more jobs."

    Arai claims Japan will develop software that will easily pass the less difficult standard Japanese university entrance exam by 2016. This multiple-choice test, taken by half a million students every year, is given by university exam boards all over Japan. The threshold to pass this test is 60%. Students must attain at least an 80% score on this test to qualify to take the Todai exam.

    IBM Japan (IBM) is also trying out its supercomputer on Todai test questions, but NII is leading the charge so far. "Our AI now gets 50% correct, which is good enough to pass. Last year, we got four out of six questions right. In 10 years, it will compete well with Todai 19-year-old students," says Arai.