原文標題：
The battle for search
What do AI chatbots mean for the lucrative business of searching the internet?
搜索之戰(zhàn)
人工智能聊天機器人對互聯(lián)網(wǎng)搜索行業(yè)意味著什么？

Will the AI chatbots eat Google’s lunch?
AI聊天機器人會吞掉谷歌的市場嗎？

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ChatGPT often gets things wrong. It has been likened to a mansplainer: supremely confident in its answers, regardless of their accuracy.

ChatGPT經(jīng)常出錯。它像是一個好為人師的大男子：無論答案準確與否，都對自己的回答迷之自信。

Unlike search engines, which mostly direct people to other pages and make no claims for their veracity, chatbots present their answers as gospel truth.

搜索引擎主要將人們引導到其他頁面，而不擔保內(nèi)容的真實性。與之不同的是，聊天機器人會將自己的回答作為絕對真理呈現(xiàn)出來。

Chatbots must also grapple with bias, prejudice and misinformation as they scan the internet. There are sure to be controversies as they produce incorrect or offensive replies.
聊天機器人還必須處理互聯(lián)網(wǎng)上各種偏見和虛假信息。如果它們提供錯誤或冒犯性的回答，勢必引發(fā)爭議。

(Google is thought to have held back the release of its chatbot over such concerns, but Microsoft has now forced its hand.)
（實際上，谷歌正是出于這些考慮而遲遲不愿發(fā)布自己的聊天機器人，但現(xiàn)在被微軟搶先一步了。）

ChatGPT already gives answers that Ron DeSantis, Florida’s governor, would consider unacceptably woke.
ChatGPT已經(jīng)給出了佛羅里達州州長羅恩·德桑蒂斯無法接受的答案。

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Chatbots must also tread carefully around some tricky topics.
聊天機器人也要格外謹慎處理一些敏感話題。

Ask ChatGPT for medical advice, and it prefaces its reply with a disclaimer that it “cannot diagnose specific medical conditions”;
如果問ChatGPT醫(yī)療建議，它會聲明“不能作為診斷具體疾病的依據(jù)”。

it also refuses to give advice on, say, how to build a bomb.But its guardrails have proved easy to circumvent (for example, by asking for a story about a bombmaker, with plenty of technical detail).

它還拒絕對“如何制造炸彈”等問題給出答案。但事實證明，人們很容易繞開這樣的“護欄”（例如，把“如何制造炸彈”改成“炸彈制造者的故事”，它就能提供大量技術(shù)細節(jié)）。

As tech firms decide which topics are too sensitive, they will have to choose where to draw the line. All this will raise questions about censorship, objectivity and the nature of truth.

當科技公司思考哪些話題屬于敏感話題時，必須嚴格劃定清晰的界限。稍有不慎，就會在內(nèi)容審查、客觀性和真實性方面遭到質(zhì)疑。

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Can tech firms make money from this?

聊天機器人能為科技公司盈利嗎？

OpenAI is launching a premium version of ChatGPT, which costs $20 a month for speedy access even at peak times.

OpenAI正在推出ChatGPT的付費服務(wù)，每月20美元即可享有高峰期快速訪問的權(quán)益。

Google and Microsoft, which already sell ads on their search engines, will show ads alongside chatbot responses—ask for travel advice, say, and related ads will pop up.

谷歌和微軟已經(jīng)在各自的搜索引擎中出售廣告，他們也可能在聊天機器人的答案旁顯示廣告——例如，當你詢問旅行建議時，相關(guān)的廣告就會彈出來。

But that business model may not be sustainable. Running a chatbot requires more processing power than serving up search results, and therefore costs more, reducing margins.
但這種商業(yè)模式恐怕難以持久。因為聊天機器人所需的處理能力遠超搜索引擎，成本越高，利潤也就越少。

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Other models will surely emerge: charging advertisers more for the ability to influence the answers that chatbots provide, perhaps, or to have links to their websites embedded in responses.

其他變現(xiàn)模式也肯定會陸續(xù)出現(xiàn)：例如，向廣告商多收點費用，允許廣告商影響聊天機器人所提供的答案，或者在回答中嵌入廣告商的網(wǎng)站鏈接。

Ask ChatGPT to recommend a car, and it will reply that there are lots of good brands, and it depends on your needs. Future chatbots may be more willing to make a recommendation.

現(xiàn)在你問ChatGPT購車建議的話，它會列出許多好車品牌，最終由你自行決定。而未來的聊天機器人可能更愿意給你提供最終建議。

But will people use them if their objectivity has been compromised by advertisers? Will they be able to tell? Behold, another can of worms.
但如果廣告商破壞了聊天機器人的客觀性，人們還會繼續(xù)使用嗎？人們能分辨出來嗎？瞧，又是一個棘手問題！

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Then there is a question of competition.

另外還有競爭問題。

It is good news that Google is being kept on its toes by upstarts like OpenAI. But it is unclear whether chatbots are a competitor to search engines, or a complement.

谷歌對OpenAI這樣的新創(chuàng)企業(yè)保持警惕是好事。但聊天機器人究竟是搜索引擎的競爭對手，還是補充助手？目前尚未有定論。

Deploying chatbots initially as add-ons to search, or as stand-alone conversation partners, makes sense given their occasional inaccuracies.

鑒于聊天機器人會偶爾出錯，初期階段最好還是將其作為搜索引擎的附加組件，或作為獨立的對話服務(wù)。

But as their capabilities improve, chatbots could become an interface to all kinds of services, such as making hotel or restaurant reservations, particularly if offered as voice assistants, like Alexa or Siri.

但隨著聊天機器人的不斷改善，它最終可能會成為各種服務(wù)的接口，例如預訂酒店或預訂餐廳，特別是可能會以Alexa或Siri等語音助手的形式出現(xiàn)。

If chatbots’ main value is as a layer on top of other digital services, though, that will favour incumbents which provide such services already.

如果聊天機器人的主要價值建立在其他數(shù)字服務(wù)之上，那么現(xiàn)有的服務(wù)提供商就會享受到紅利。

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Googling the future?

搜索未來

Yet the fact that today’s upstarts, such as Anthropic and OpenAI, are attracting so much attention (and investment) from Google and Microsoft suggests that smaller firms have a shot at competing in this new field. They will come under great pressure to sell.一個事實是，Anthropic和OpenAI這樣的新秀企業(yè)吸引了谷歌和微軟等科技巨頭的密切關(guān)注（和投資），這說明小公司也有能力在這個新領(lǐng)域大展拳腳。盡管如此，他們還是會面臨巨大的出售壓力。

But what if an upstart chatbot firm develops superior technology and a new business model, and emerges as a new giant?That, after all, is what Google once did.
但是，如果其中一家聊天機器人新創(chuàng)公司開發(fā)出卓越的技術(shù)和全新的商業(yè)模式，并成長為新的科技巨頭，情況又會怎樣呢？畢竟，谷歌就是這樣發(fā)展壯大的。

Chatbots raise hard questions, but they also offer an opportunity to make online information more useful and easier to access.
盡管聊天機器人帶來了一些棘手的問題，但它們也帶來了價值，即人們有機會在網(wǎng)絡(luò)世界中獲得更有用的信息和更便捷的訪問方式。

As in the 1990s, when search engines first appeared, a hugely valuable prize—to become the front door to the internet—may once again be up for grabs.

正如上世紀90年代搜索引擎首次出現(xiàn)時一樣，一個極具誘惑的獎勵可能再次出現(xiàn)——成為互聯(lián)網(wǎng)的新門戶。

（恭喜讀完，本篇英語詞匯量617/1104左右）
原文出自：2023年2月11日《The Economist》Leaders版塊。

精讀筆記來源于：自由英語之路

本文翻譯整理: Irene

本文編輯校對: Irene
僅供個人英語學習交流使用。

【補充資料】（來自于網(wǎng)絡(luò)）
“AltaVista”這名稱代表“從高處望下”，是全球最知名的搜索引擎公司之一，同時提供搜索引擎后臺技術(shù)支持等相關(guān)產(chǎn)品。AltaVista是一個以網(wǎng)頁全文檢索為主、同時提供分類目錄的搜索引擎。內(nèi)容極其豐富，真正可以稱海量信息檢索。AltaVista于1995年由迪吉多公司創(chuàng)立。2003年被 Overture 以1.4億美元現(xiàn)金加股票的形式購得，同年轉(zhuǎn)手給雅虎 ? 。2013年6月29日，雅虎宣布于2013年7月8日關(guān)閉搜索引擎AltaVista服務(wù)。

Anthropic成立于2021年，已經(jīng)吸引了7億美元的投資，主要來自對沖基金。與OpenAI一樣，它也在致力于開發(fā)生成式AI，這種技術(shù)可以從簡單的文本提示中開發(fā)高質(zhì)量的內(nèi)容。2月6日消息，谷歌向人工智能初創(chuàng)公司Anthropic投資了約3億美元，谷歌獲得了Anthropic10%的股份，目前估值為50億美元。谷歌云成為Anthropic的首選云提供商。此次合作涉及谷歌Cloud為Anthropic構(gòu)建大規(guī)模GPU和TPU集群，以訓練其AI系統(tǒng)。
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【重點句子】（3?個）
Unlike search engines, which mostly direct people to other pages and make no claims for their veracity, chatbots present their answers as gospel truth.
搜索引擎主要將人們引導到其他頁面，而不擔保內(nèi)容的真實性。與之不同的是，聊天機器人會將自己的回答作為絕對真理呈現(xiàn)出來。

But that business model may not be sustainable. Running a chatbot requires more processing power than serving up search results, and therefore costs more, reducing margins.?但這種商業(yè)模式恐怕難以持久。因為聊天機器人所需的處理能力遠超搜索引擎，成本越高，利潤也就越少。

As in the 1990s, when search engines first appeared, a hugely valuable prize—to become the front door to the internet—may once again be up for grabs.
正如上世紀90年代搜索引擎首次出現(xiàn)時一樣，一個極具誘惑的獎勵可能再次出現(xiàn)——成為互聯(lián)網(wǎng)的新門戶。?