谷歌計劃開展一個大型研究項目，從而讓人工智能變得更加有用。

這家搜索引擎巨頭于本周一提出了倡議，要聯合谷歌眾多研究人員之力，探索人類如何與機器學習等人工智能技術支持的軟件進行互動。

Facebook和谷歌已經在使用人工智能提高任務效率，例如迅速翻譯語言，或識別圖片中的物體。不過這項技術有潛力做更多事情。

對谷歌這類公司而言，在單純地改善現有的人工智能產品和推出全新產品之外，他們要解決的難題是想出人工智能的更多用途。

谷歌的研究人員馬丁·沃登伯格和費爾南達·維埃加斯在博客上表示，公司希望這個名為PAIR（人類加人工智能研究，People plus AI Research的簡稱）的項目能夠讓人工智能在“專注于人性方面”擁有更多引人注目的用途。他們想要搞清從人類的角度來看，在哪些地方可以如何最好地利用人工智能技術，而不單純是開發人工智能軟件。

兩位研究者寫道：“我們還不知道所有的答案，這就是這項研究的有趣之處，不過我們對于探究的方向有了一些想法。”

PAIR的目標包括研究怎樣讓醫生、設計師、農民、音樂家等專業人士使用人工智能來“協助和增強”他們的工作。研究人員在周一的通告中，沒有明確提到PAIR將如何做到這一點，但是谷歌已經在研究人工智能如何通過其DeepMind來協助醫療等特定行業了。

這項倡議還希望研究“確保機器學習的包容性，從而使每個人都能從人工智能的突破中獲益”的辦法。而沒有說明的是，谷歌和Facebook等大型公司正在招聘深化學習等領域的頂尖領導者，這導致一些學者質疑這些大公司是否在囤積人工智能的人才，卻為了自身利潤而不將人工智能領域的突破成果拿出來共享。

研究人員還寫道，PAIR將會為開發商創造人工智能工具和指南，讓他們更易于開發人工智能軟件，一旦出現錯誤也更容易解決。人工智能軟件與傳統軟件的差別之一，在于常規測試和故障調試對它們都不適用，因為根據它們獲取的數據不同，軟件也會不斷發生變化。（財富中文網）

譯者：嚴匡正

Google’s plans a big research project aimed at making artificial intelligence more useful.

The search giant debuted an initiative on Monday that brings together various Google researchers to study how people interact with software powered by AI technologies like machine learning.

Companies like Facebook (fb) and Google (goog) have been using AI to improve tasks like quickly translating languages and recognizing objects in pictures. But the technology has the potential to be able to do more.

The problem for companies like Google is to figure out more uses for AI beyond simply improving existing products and create entirely new products based on AI.

One way Google hopes the project, called PAIR (short for People plus AI Research), will lead to more compelling uses of AI is to “focus on the ‘human side,’” Google researchers Martin Wattenberg and Fernanda Viégas wrote in a blog post. They want to figure out how and where to best use it from a human standpoint—and not just simply create AI-powered software for its own sake.

“We don't have all the answers—that's what makes this interesting research—but we have some ideas about where to look,” the two researchers wrote.

Some of PAIR’s goals include looking at how professionals like doctors, designers, farmers, and musicians could use AI to “aid and augment” their work. The researchers did not mention how exactly PAIR will do accomplish this in the Monday announcement, but Google has been already looking at how AI can aid specific industries like healthcare through its DeepMind business unit, for example.

The initiative also hopes to discover ways to “ensure machine learning is inclusive, so everyone can benefit from breakthroughs in AI.” Left unsaid is the fact that big companies like Google and Facebook are hiring many of the top leaders in areas like deep learning, which has led to some academics questioning whether big companies are hoarding AI talent and failing to share breakthroughs in AI to increase their own profits.

The researchers also wrote that PAIR would create AI tools and guidelines for developers that would make it easier to build AI-powered software that’s easier of troubleshooting if something goes wrong. One of the ways AI-powered software is different from traditional varieties is that conventional testing and debugging methods fail to work on AI software that constantly changes based on the data it ingests.