（下）《降臨》原著作者：ChatGPT的局限與受捧原因、人工智能定義、科幻與寫作意義
6月2日，《降臨》原著（《你一生的故事》）作者、科幻作家特德·姜接受了《金融時報》記? 者專訪，談到了ChatGPT的局限與受捧的原因、人工智能的定義、 科幻與寫作的意義。?
他如此著迷與語言與智能的關系，讓我不禁好奇他對AI寫作的看法，比如利用類似ChatGPT那樣的AI工具生成文本。我問他，機器生成的文字將如何改變我們所做的寫作的類型？在我們的對話中，我第一次看到他閃現(xiàn)出一絲不悅的情緒。“它們的回答是在回應對方嗎？我的意思是，是否有任何ChatGPT生成的文章，是發(fā)自內(nèi)心在回應對方？”他說道。
Chiang’s view is that large language models (or LLMs), the technology underlying chatbots such as ChatGPT and Google’s Bard, are useful mostly for producing filler text that no one necessarily wants to read or write, tasks that anthropologist David Graeber called “bullshit jobs”. AI-generated text is not delightful, but it could perhaps be useful in those certain areas, he concedes.
姜認為，像ChatGPT和谷歌的Bard這樣的聊天機器人，它們背后的大語言模型（LLM）主要用于生成那些，沒有真正想讀或想寫的填充文本，這些任務被人類學家大衛(wèi)·格雷伯稱為“bullshit jobs”。他承認，AI生成的文本并不令人愉悅，但在某些特定領域可能是有用的。
“But the fact that LLMs are able to do some of that — that’s not exactly a resounding endorsement of their abilities,” he says. “That’s more a statement about how much bullshit we are required to generate and deal with in our daily lives.”
“但事實上，大語言模型就算能夠?qū)崿F(xiàn)一些任務，也不能完全肯定它們的能力，”他說?！八鼈兏袷亲C明了，我們在日常生活中被要求產(chǎn)生和應對的任務，有多少屬于bullshit jobs?！?/span>
Chiang outlined his thoughts in a viral essay in The New Yorker, published in February, titled “ChatGPT Is a Blurry JPEG of the Web”. He describes language models as blurred imitations of the text they were trained on, rearrangements of word sequences that obey the rules of grammar. Because the technology is reconstructing material that is slightly different to what already exists, it gives the impression of comprehension.
Chiang在今年2月發(fā)表在《紐約客》上的一篇名為《ChatGPT是網(wǎng)上所有文本的模糊圖像》的熱門文章中概述了他的思考。他將語言模型描述為對其訓練數(shù)據(jù)中的文本的模糊模仿，是按照語法規(guī)則，對文本詞句的重新排列。由于這項技術對與現(xiàn)有文本略有不同的材料進行了重構，它給人一種已理解文本含義的印象。
As he compares this to children learning language, I tell him about how my five-year-old has taken to inventing little one-line jokes, mostly puns, and testing them out on us. The anecdote makes him animated.
“Your daughter has heard jokes and found them funny. ChatGPT doesn’t find anything funny and it is not trying to be funny. There is a huge social component to what your daughter is doing,” he says.
當他將ChatGPT的運作方式與孩子的語言學習進行對比時，我告訴他，我五歲的女兒喜歡編造一些一句話的小笑話，大多是雙關語，并在我們身上試驗它們。這個故事讓他活躍了起來。
“你的女兒聽到笑話覺得好笑。但ChatGPT不會覺得任何東西好笑，它也不會嘗試去搞笑。你女兒所做的事情具有很強的社交屬性，”他說。
Meanwhile ChatGPT isn’t “mentally rehearsing things in order to see if it can get a laugh out of you the next time you hang out together”. Chiang believes that language without the intention, emotion and purpose that humans bring to it becomes meaningless. “Language is a way of facilitating interactions with other beings. That is entirely different than the sort of next-token prediction, which is what we have [with AI tools] now.”
與此同時，ChatGPT并沒有「在心理上對某些事情進行預演，以便看看下次和你在一起時能否把你逗笑」。姜認為，語言如果沒有被人類賦予意圖、情感和目的，那么就毫無意義?！罢Z言是促進與他人互動的一種方式。這與現(xiàn)在我們目前（利用AI工具）做的，所謂對下一個token的預測完全不同?！?/span>
It’s a glorious day for a walk in the park, especially this verdant space with bright pink hydrangea bushes and expansive water features. We start off at a brisk pace, discussing why science fiction matters. Although he doesn’t write in order to incite, he sees how sci-fi could be a radicalising force. “Science fiction is about change, and helping people imagine the world is different than it is now,” he says.
訪談當天的天氣很好，適合在公園散步，特別是在這片翠綠的空間中，繡球花叢鮮艷粉紅，湖景開闊。我們開始快步前行，討論科幻小說的重要性。盡管他寫作的目的并非為了激發(fā)什么東西，但他認識到科幻小說可能成為一種推進變革的力量。他說：“科幻小說關乎變革，它幫助人們想象世界與現(xiàn)在的不同?！?/span>
It’s like what Mark Fisher, the British cultural critic and political theorist, once said. Chiang paraphrases: the role of emancipatory politics is to reveal that the things we are told are inevitable are in fact contingent. And the things that we are told are impossible are in fact achievable. “I think the same thing could be said about science fiction.”
正如英國文化評論家和政治理論家馬克·費舍（Mark Fisher）所說，姜引述：解放政治的作用是為我們揭示，那些所謂的無法避免之事，實際都是歷史的偶然。而所謂的不可能之事，其實都能夠?qū)崿F(xiàn)。“我認為同樣的話也可以用來形容科幻小說。”
Although Chiang doesn’t mix politics with his fiction, he does worry that AI is a “force multiplier” for capitalism. In an essay for BuzzFeed in 2017, he compared technologists to their supposedly superintelligent AI creations: entities that “[pursue] their goals with monomaniacal focus, oblivious to the possibility of negative consequences”.
盡管姜的小說不談政治，但他仍會擔心人工智能會成為資本主義的“力量增幅器”。在2017年為 BuzzFeed 寫的一篇文章中，他將技術人員與他們所創(chuàng)造的被認為是超級智能的人工智能進行了比較，他說，這些人工智能“以狂熱的專注追求自己的目標，以至于對可能產(chǎn)生的負面后果毫不在意”。
His fear isn’t about a doomsday scenario, like researchers predict, where AI takes over the world. He is far more worried about increasing inequality, exacerbated by technologies such as AI, which concentrates power in the hands of a few.
他擔憂的并非是像研究人員預測的那種末日情景，即人工智能接管世界。他更擔心的是由人工智能等技術加劇的不平等問題，這使得權力集中在少數(shù)人手中。
By now, we’ve done a few laps of the park, and I begin to recognise some of the other walkers: a mother-and-daughter duo, a lady with a two-legged dog, and people sitting on benches, with books, magazines and ice-creams. I turn to Chiang, asking how he imagines the world will change when people routinely communicate with machines.
現(xiàn)在，我們已經(jīng)在公園里走了幾圈，我開始認出了一些其他的散步者：一對母女，一位帶著只有兩條腿的狗散步的女士，手拿書本、雜志和冰淇淋，坐在長椅上的人。我轉(zhuǎn)向姜，問他，如果有一天，人們與機器交流成為一種日常，那么世界將會發(fā)生什么的變化。
We walk in silence for a few minutes and then suddenly he asks me if I remember the Tom Hanks film Cast Away. On his island, Hanks has a volleyball called Wilson, his only companion, whom he loves. “I think that that is a more useful way to think about these systems,” he tells me. “It doesn’t diminish what Tom Hanks’ character feels about Wilson, because Wilson provided genuine comfort to him. But the thing is that?.?.?.?he is projecting on to a volleyball. There’s no one else in there.”
我們?nèi)绱遂o默地走了幾分鐘，之后他突然問我，是否記得湯姆·漢克斯主演的電影《荒島余生》。他去的荒島上，漢克斯有一個名叫威爾遜的排球，是他唯一的伴侶，他深愛著威爾遜?！拔艺J為從這一角度出發(fā)，更適合思考這些事，”他告訴我?！芭徘虻膶傩圆]有削弱湯姆·漢克斯扮演的那個角色對威爾遜的感情，因為威爾遜給他帶來了真正的安慰。但問題是……他把自己的情感投射到一個排球上，是因為荒島沒有其他人。”
He acknowledges why people may start to prefer speaking to AI systems rather than to one another. “I get it, interacting with people, it’s hard. It’s tough. It demands a lot, it is often unrewarding,” he says. But he feels that modern life has left people stranded on their own desert islands, leaving them yearning for companionship. “So now because of this, there is a market opportunity for volleyballs,” he says. “Social chatbots, they could provide comfort, real solace to people in the same way that Wilson provides.”
他理解大家為什么可能會更喜歡與人工智能交談，而不是與彼此交流。“我明白，人際交往并非易事，往往要求苛刻，卻毫無回報，”他說。但他覺得現(xiàn)代生活讓人們感到被困在自己的孤島上，渴望著陪伴。“因此，出現(xiàn)了排球的市場需求，”他說?！吧缃涣奶鞕C器人可以像威爾遜一樣為人們提供真正的慰藉?！?/span>
But ultimately, what makes our lives meaningful is the empathy and intent we get from human interactions — people responding to one another. With AI, he says: “It feels like there’s someone on the other end. But there isn’t.”
然而，最終為生活賦予意義的，是我們在人際互動中得到的共情和對彼此的溝通回應。而人工智能，他說：“它讓你感覺有人在另一端，而實際上并沒有?！?/span>
source:?https://www.ft.com/content/c1f6d948-3dde-405f-924c-09cc0dcf8c84
