????新井紀(jì)子不是第一位呼吁公眾關(guān)注日本男孩和他們的玩具可能帶來危害的女性，她也不會(huì)是最后一位。她的擔(dān)心似乎不無道理。這位數(shù)學(xué)家表示，日本，甚至可能是所有的工業(yè)化社會(huì)，都會(huì)因?yàn)槿毡灸行詫?duì)創(chuàng)造人工智能生命的沉迷而招致無法預(yù)料的后果。

????她認(rèn)為，在美國于20世紀(jì)80年代減少這個(gè)領(lǐng)域的研究工作之后，日本取得了領(lǐng)先地位。新井紀(jì)子是日本國立情報(bào)學(xué)研究所（National Institute of Informatics, NII）的數(shù)學(xué)教授，她說：“因?yàn)閷?duì)人形機(jī)器人的執(zhí)著夢想，日本無法放棄人工智能。在這里，許多聰明的年輕人都對(duì)人工智能感興趣。與歐洲或美國不同，人工智能科學(xué)家在日本非常受人尊敬。”

????日本人對(duì)機(jī)器人的親密情誼由來已久。是的，日本文化中的想象力在《終結(jié)者》風(fēng)格的、冷酷無情的科幻機(jī)器人身上得到了體現(xiàn)，但是還有許多機(jī)器人與人類相似，而且是人類的好朋友和好幫手，就像漫畫中的哆啦A夢一樣。日本還在機(jī)器人技術(shù)的研究與開發(fā)上保持著全球領(lǐng)先的地位。最近英國駐日本大使館的首席科學(xué)官就這個(gè)主題發(fā)布了一份報(bào)告，其中寫道：“日本成功地保持了很高的專利率，而且在語音識(shí)別領(lǐng)域得到了迅速發(fā)展。”

????新井紀(jì)子花了一年時(shí)間來研究人工智能的經(jīng)濟(jì)效益。2010年，她出版了一本書，闡述人工智能對(duì)辦公室工作的影響。書名很簡單：《電腦如何代替我們工作》（How Computers Can Take Our Jobs）。“我想知道人工智能能否創(chuàng)造更多的工作機(jī)會(huì)，又有多少白領(lǐng)的工作會(huì)在未來10年或者20年內(nèi)被機(jī)器取代。就算這個(gè)比例只有10%，那也將會(huì)是一場大災(zāi)難。”言下之意，她認(rèn)為人工智能在就業(yè)方面產(chǎn)生的經(jīng)濟(jì)影響將遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)超出這個(gè)數(shù)字。新井紀(jì)子還思考了讓機(jī)器和算法在工作場所取代人類（就像它們?cè)诮灰讏鏊〈祟愐粯樱?huì)產(chǎn)生什么樣的倫理后果。畢竟它們并不能真正明白自己到底在做什么。

????新井紀(jì)子表示，根據(jù)股市暴跌體現(xiàn)的情況來看，人工智能的機(jī)器學(xué)習(xí)能力超過了人類所能理解和推理的范圍。“股市暴跌時(shí)，我們總會(huì)有20%的錯(cuò)誤率，這會(huì)危害我們的社會(huì)。我們不能理解機(jī)器，它們也不能理解我們。”她補(bǔ)充說，相信這樣的機(jī)器會(huì)像人類一樣思考是非常愚蠢的事。最后我們沒法搞清楚為什么它們會(huì)給出正確或錯(cuò)誤的答案。

????這是因?yàn)椋覀兪褂眠壿媮斫o機(jī)器編程，但卻并不意味著機(jī)器總能遵循邏輯規(guī)則來輸出結(jié)果。她指出：“人工智能的機(jī)器與工廠的機(jī)器人是不同的。后者的行為可以通過物理和科學(xué)原理簡單地解釋。這是個(gè)嚴(yán)重的倫理問題。”

????新井紀(jì)子在國立情報(bào)學(xué)研究所開展了一個(gè)項(xiàng)目，研究在不遠(yuǎn)的未來，人工智能和機(jī)器學(xué)習(xí)能發(fā)展到什么程度。眾所周知，東京大學(xué)（Tokyo University）的入學(xué)考試難度很高。這個(gè)項(xiàng)目的目的就是制造一個(gè)能夠通過這項(xiàng)考試的機(jī)器人。這個(gè)項(xiàng)目如今被稱作“Todai機(jī)器人”（日語把東京大學(xué)稱作Todai）。兩年前，新井紀(jì)子啟動(dòng)了第一輪試驗(yàn)，將最新的人工智能技術(shù)植入機(jī)器人來破解似乎難以解決的題目。與日本一般的入學(xué)考試不同，東京大學(xué)的考試非常嚴(yán)格，還包含短文寫作。她表示，由于人工智能在日本很受尊敬，她的任務(wù)避免了不少麻煩。

????Noriko Arai is not the first woman to spotlight the hazard that boys and their toys can present, and she won't be the last. Her concerns may well be merited. Japan, and possibly all industrialized societies, says this mathematician, is about to reap the unintended consequences of a mostly, but not exclusively, Japanese male obsession with creating artificial intelligent life.

????She claims Japan obtained a lead in the field after the U.S. pulled back on research efforts in the 1980s. "The Japanese couldn't give up the dream of AI because of this persistent dream of humanoid robots," says Arai, who works as a professor of mathematics at Japan's National Institute of Informatics (NII). "There are lots of intelligent youngsters interested in AI here, and AI scientists, unlike in Europe or the U.S., are highly esteemed."

????Japan has a long of history of friendliness towards robots. Yes, the Japanese cultural imagination has yielded its fair share of ruthless Terminator-style sci-fi robots, but many of them are human-like, friendly helpers like the comic character Doraemon. Japan also maintains a global lead in R&D on robotics. "Japan has successfully maintained its high patents rate and achieved rapid growth in the areas of speech recognition," says a report published recently on the subject by the British-Embassy-in-Japan's chief science officer.

????Arai devoted a year to study the economic impact of artificial intelligence. She published a book in Japan in 2010 on AI's effects on office jobs titled simply "How Computers Can Take Our Jobs." "I wanted to know if we can get more jobs from AI [and] how much white-collar jobs will be replaced by machines in the next 10 to 20 years. If it is just 10% of such jobs, it will be a catastrophe," hinting that she expects the economic impact of AI on employment to be much larger than that. Arai also considered the ethical consequences of having machines and algorithms replace humans in the workplace -- as they have on the trading floor -- without really understanding how they work.

????As market flash crashes have shown, Arai says AI machine learning is beyond human understanding and reasoning. "As with flash crashes, we will always have 20% incorrectness, which will harm our society. We can't understand machines and they don't understand us," she says. It is foolish to believe such machines will think like humans, she adds. Ultimately, we can't work out why they come up with correct answers or wrong answers.

????Just because we program a machine using logic, that doesn't mean a machine will always follow logical rules to reach their outcomes. "In the case of AI machines, they are not like factory robots whose actions can be precisely explained by physics and science. This is a serious ethical problem," she points out.

????Arai launched a project within NII to see just how far AI and machine learning could go in the near future. The aim is to build a robot that could pass the notoriously hard Tokyo University entrance exam. Known now as the Todai Robot project -- Tokyo University goes by the name "Todai" in Japanese -- Arai kicked off the first experiments two years ago, integrating the latest AI know-how to crack seemingly insurmountable problems. Unlike the general entrance exam in Japan, the rigorous Todai exam includes written essays. Her task has been eased, she says, by the respect AI receives in Japan.