用好人工智能的關鍵不僅僅在于軟件。很多企業很快意識到，人工智能程序運行和訓練所依靠的硬件也是至關重要的。

以人工智能領域的領軍者谷歌為例，5月初，谷歌在加州山景城召開的年度開發者大會上發布了一系列聯網家居產品，它們都與谷歌的語音控制助手Google Assistant相連。

谷歌高管在發布會上介紹道，它的一款新型聯網設備Nest Hub Max可以利用攝像頭迅速識別出家庭成員中的每個人。這樣一來，它就可以對各個用戶的要求更好地做出回應，比如按照他的偏好播放歌單或者展示照片等等。

以前，谷歌對人工智能的營銷策略是一視同仁地兼容所有安卓（Android）設備。現在，谷歌則越來越多地對自家硬件進行定制，以使人工智能程序運行得更加流暢。

在向《財富》雜志解釋谷歌的戰略轉變時，谷歌智能家居和Nest產品負責人瑞希·錢德拉表示：“我們在軟件和硬件上都在發力。”

Facebook和亞馬遜也采取了類似戰略，他們越來越重視針對自家硬件對人工智能程序進行定制。Facebook和亞馬遜都在設計自家的聯網設備和數據中心芯片，以滿足各自的機器學習任務。

谷歌、Facebook和亞馬遜的策略，對那些試圖將人工智能整合到業務中的企業有何借鑒意義？人工智能的使用，不僅僅是簡單地將數字輸入一個花哨的軟件，然后坐等天上掉錢。實際上，那些行業領先的人工智能公司不僅部署了大量員工開發軟件，同時也在打造人工智能程序所基于的硬件。有些公司還構建了自己的數據中心來承擔部分任務。比如沃爾瑪最近就在紐約州萊維敦的一家充滿未來感的門店里構建了自己的數據中心，而不是使用云服務。

人工智能是一項龐大而昂貴的工程，如果有人說只搞搞軟件就好了，千萬別信他的忽悠。

人工智能新聞速覽

蘋果與SAP在人工智能領域開展合作。根據一項擴大合作協議，德國商業軟件巨頭SAP正在對iPhone和iPad的應用開發工具進行升級，以添加對蘋果Core ML人工智能工具的支持。這項協議似乎與2018年蘋果跟IBM的協議大同小異，根據去年的協議，IBM將它的Watson數據處理服務與蘋果的Core ML技術進行了連接。

感受思科的聲音。思科已經將其MindMeld數字助手和語音控制技術放在了開源平臺上，使其他公司和開發者可以對其進行修改和改進。思科在2017年以1.25億美元收購了MindMeld，以加強它的工作協作產品。

愛立信在加拿大設立人工智能研究中心。網絡巨頭愛立信在加拿大蒙特利爾建立了一個人工智能研究中心，計劃聘請30名數據科學家、機器學習工程師和軟件開發人員從事人工智能研發。蒙特利爾培養了許多優秀的人工智能領域的人才，因此，谷歌、Facebook、微軟等其他幾家大型科技公司也在蒙特利爾設有人工智能研究實驗室。

Facebook“標記”用戶個人數據。據路透社報道，Facebook通過來自IT公司Wipro以及其他一些咨詢機構的印度合同工人，用手工方式給用戶照片等內容打上了標簽，以訓練該公司的人工智能系統。Facebook對路透社表示，公司會告訴用戶，根據它的數據政策，公司之所以使用用戶的數據，是為了“改進用戶體驗”。不過路透社的報道也指出，用戶“并沒有選擇不讓他們的個人數據被標記的機會”。

你真的懂你的數據嗎？

據科技新聞網站TechRepublic報道，如果企業不能正確理解或追蹤公司的所有數據，就不可能搞好機器學習。教育科技公司GoGuardian的數據科學負責人瑞恩·約翰遜對《紐約時報》表示，在數據處理上，“很多公司的做法都是本末倒置。”

人工智能招聘速覽

無人駕駛創業公司Ghost Locomotion近日任命大衛·珀迪為該公司首席科學家。珀迪曾任Uber安全數據科學團隊的高級數據科學經理。

數據分析公司Altery近日任命艾倫·雅各布森擔任首席數據與分析官。雅各布森曾任福特公司全球分析總監。

英國皇家郵政任命凱特·詹姆斯為其數據科學部門的新負責人。他的前任本·迪亞斯現為易捷航空公司的數據科學總監。

人工智能研究速覽

人工智能成為人口普查工具。來自于斯坦福大學、達特茅斯學院和世界銀行的研究人員近日發表了一篇關于利用深度學習技術估算印度農村人口的論文。研究人員利用在印度農村地區上空拍攝的衛星圖像對他們的神經網絡進行訓練，并表示他們的系統要比傳統的人口普查方式表現得更好。而且“如果有更高分辨率的圖像可用，它可能還有進一步提升的空間。”

人工智能的隱私問題。來自于加州大學伯克利分校、杜克大學和中國零售業巨頭京東集團的研究人員發表了一篇論文，探討了強化學習技術可能帶來的隱私方面的風險。所謂強化學習，是指計算機通過反復試驗和試錯進行學習的過程。研究人員發現，在所謂的模擬“訓練環境”中（比如在一個機器人可以自主認路和行走的倉庫中），人工智能程序可以學習到某些對強化學習至關重要的細節。

燒腦新聞

人工智能成了與“氣候變化”相提并論的大問題。英國《金融時報》撰文稱，在各國為成為全球人工智能領域的領導者激烈競爭的過程中，各國政府及企業很可能會忽視人工智能的某些道德困境，從而導致嚴重后果，比如加重現有的社會偏見。對此，深度學習技術的“教父”喬舒亞·本吉奧建議，人工智能也應該有一個“國際秩序”，包括由政府來制定行業規范。他表示：“就像應對氣候變化問題一樣，我們必須要讓那些不按規則辦事、忽視全球利益的國家蒙羞。”（財富中文網）

譯者：樸成奎

Using artificial intelligence isn’t just about software. Companies are quickly realizing that the hardware it runs on and is trained on is also critical.

Take the example of Google, a leader in A.I. At the beginning of May, during its annual developer conference in Mountain View, Calif., the company debuted its new line of Internet-connected home products that are all linked to its voice-controlled Google Assistant.

Executives bragged on stage about how one of the new devices, the Nest Hub Max, can use its camera to immediately recognize individual family members. In that way, the technology can better respond to requests like playing music from someone’s song lists or showing photos that they are more likely to be interested in.

In the past, Google marketed its A.I. as equally compatible with any Android device. But increasingly, it’s tailoring its A.I. to its own hardware so that it operates more smoothly.

“The pendulum swings both ways,” Rishi Chandra, Google’s head of Home and Nest products told Fortune, explaining Google’s philosophical shift.

Facebook and Amazon are following a similar strategy to Google in their growing focus on customizing A.I to their hardware. They’re designing their own Internet-connected devices and data center chips tailored for their own machine-learning tasks.

What’s the lesson here for businesses that are trying to incorporate A.I. into their operations? Using A.I. isn’t as simple as feeding numbers into fancy software and waiting for a result that will lead to lots of profits. In fact, leading A.I. companies have deployed legions of employees to work on complex software while also fine tuning the hardware that runs and trains it. Some companies are also building their own data centers to handle some of the work, as Walmart recently did inside its futuristic store in Levittown, N.Y., rather than using a cloud service.

It’s all a huge and expensive undertaking. Don’t believe anyone who says differently.

EYE ON A.I. NEWS

Apple and SAP are A.I. buddies. Under an expanded partnership, German business software giant SAP is updating its software development toolkit for building iPhone and iPad apps to include support for Apple’s Core ML A.I. tools. The agreement appears to be similar to 2018 deal between Apple and IBM that linked IBM’s Watson data crunching service with Apple’s Core ML technology.

Come play with Cisco’s voice. Cisco has made its MindMeld digital assistant and voice technology available in open source so other companies and developers can modify and improve it. Cisco bought MindMeld in 2017 for $125 million to enhance its work-collaboration products.

Ericsson plants A.I. flag in Canada. Networking giant Ericsson debuted an A.I. research hub in Montreal and plans to hire 30 data scientists, machine learning engineers, and other software developers to work in the new unit. Several other big tech companies like Google, Facebook, and Microsoft also have A.I. research labs in Montreal, a leading city for deep learning talent.

Facebook has to “label” data somehow. Facebook uses Indian contract workers from IT firm Wipro, among other consulting groups, to hand-label people’s photos and other content in order to train its A.I. systems, Reuters reported. Facebook told the news service that it tells its users in its data policy that the company uses people’s information to “improve their experience.” But, the report noted that users are “not offered the chance to opt out of their data being labeled.”

DO YOU REALLY KNOW YOUR DATA?

Companies can’t do machine learning well if they don’t understand or properly track all of their corporate data, according to tech news site TechRepublic. Ryan Johnson, the data science head of education tech company GoGuardian, told the publication that when it comes to data crunching, “A lot of companies are putting the cart before the horse there.”

EYE ON A.I. HIRES

Ghost Locomotion, a startup specializing in self-driving car technology, has named David Purdy as chief scientist. Purdy was previously a senior data science manager for Uber’s safety data science team.

Data analytics company Alteryx hired Alan Jacobson as chief data and analytics officer. Jacobson was formerly the director of global analytics for Ford.

United Kingdom postal-service company Royal Mail has chosen Kat James as its new head of data science. James replaces Ben Dias, who is now the data science director of airline company EasyJet.

EYE ON A.I. RESEARCH

A.I. as a census tool. Researchers from Stanford University, Dartmouth College, and the World Bank published a paper about using deep learning to estimate the population in rural areas of India. The researchers trained their neural networks on satellite imagery taken from above rural villages and said that their systems performed better than traditional efforts, and that there “may still have room for improvement if images with higher resolution are available.”

A.I.’s privacy problems. Researchers from organizations like U.C. Berkeley, Duke University, and Chinese retail giant JD.com, Inc. published a paper exploring potential privacy problems that can occur with reinforcement learning—in which computers learn through trial and error. The researchers discovered that they could learn certain details within so-called simulated “training environments” (like a warehouse floor where a robot learned to navigate around) that are crucial for reinforcement learning.

BRAIN FOOD

A.I. as a “climate change” issue. The Financial Times looks at how countries racing to be the world’s leader in A.I. could result in governments and companies failing to consider some of A.I.’s ethical dilemmas, such as increasing existing societal biases. Deep learning “godfather” Yoshua Bengio suggests an “international order” for A.I. that would involve governments creating the norms. “Just like with climate change, we have to stigmatise (sic) countries which don’t want to play by the rules necessary for the benefit of the whole planet,” he told the publication.