原文標(biāo)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(jī)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(jī)器人會吞掉谷歌的市場嗎？

[Paragraph 1]
FOR MORE than 25 years, search engines have been the internet’s front door.

25年來，搜索引擎一直充當(dāng)互聯(lián)網(wǎng)的門戶角色。

AltaVista, the first site to allow searches of the full text of the web, was swiftly dethroned by Google, which has dominated the field in most of the world ever since.

AltaVista是第一個實(shí)現(xiàn)網(wǎng)頁全文檢索的公司，但很快被谷歌取代。從此谷歌在世界大部分地區(qū)占據(jù)了主導(dǎo)地位。

Google’s search engine, still the heart of its business, has made its parent, Alphabet, one of the world’s most valuable companies, with revenues of $283bn in 2022 and a market capitalisation of $1.3trn.

搜索引擎仍然是谷歌的核心業(yè)務(wù)，它的母公司Alphabet已成為世界上最具價值的公司之一，2022年?duì)I收2830億美元，市值13萬億美元。

Google is not merely a household name; it is a verb.
谷歌不僅是一個家喻戶曉的名稱，也是一個動詞--谷歌即搜索，搜索即谷歌。

[Paragraph 2]
But nothing lasts for ever, particularly in technology.

萬物皆無常，技術(shù)領(lǐng)域尤是如此。

Just ask IBM, which once ruled business computing, or Nokia, once the leader in mobile phones. Both were dethroned because they fumbled big technological transitions.

問問曾主導(dǎo)商業(yè)計算的IBM和手機(jī)領(lǐng)域的昔日霸主諾基亞就知道了，如今這兩家公司都因錯過技術(shù)變革而日薄西山。

Now tech firms are salivating over an innovation that might herald a similar shift—and a similar opportunity.

如今，科技公司對一項(xiàng)可能帶來同等變革和機(jī)遇的技術(shù)創(chuàng)新垂涎三尺。

Chatbots powered by artificial intelligence (AI) let users gather information via typed conversations. Leading the field is ChatGPT, made by OpenAI, a startup.

人工智能聊天機(jī)器人讓用戶通過打字的方式，與之進(jìn)行對話并收集信息。目前這一領(lǐng)域的領(lǐng)頭羊是創(chuàng)業(yè)公司OpenAI開發(fā)的ChatGPT。

By the end of January, two months after its launch, ChatGPT was being used by more than 100m people, making it the “fastest-growing consumer application in history”, according to UBS, a bank.
截至1月底，也就是ChatGPT發(fā)布兩個月后，用戶已超過1億人。瑞銀集團(tuán)稱其為“歷史上增速最快的消費(fèi)應(yīng)用程序”。

[Paragraph 3]
AI is already used behind the scenes in many products, but ChatGPT has put it centre stage, by letting people chat with an AI directly.

實(shí)際上，AI 已是許多產(chǎn)品的幕后功臣，是ChatGPT將AI推到C位，人們可以直接與之對話。

ChatGPT can write essays in various styles, explain complex concepts, summarise text and answer trivia questions. It can even (narrowly) pass legal and medical exams.

ChatGPT可以撰寫不同風(fēng)格的文章，解釋復(fù)雜的概念，總結(jié)文本的要點(diǎn)，回答瑣碎的問題。它甚至可以（勉強(qiáng)）通過法律和醫(yī)學(xué)考試。

And it can synthesise knowledge from the web: for example, listing holiday spots that match certain criteria, or suggesting menus or itineraries. If asked, it can explain its reasoning and provide detail.

它還可以綜合匯總線上信息：例如，列出符合特定標(biāo)準(zhǔn)的度假地點(diǎn)，或推薦的菜單或行程。如果刨根究底，它還會解釋原因且有理有據(jù)。

Many things that people use search engines for today, in short, can be done better with chatbots.
簡言之，搜索引擎能做的，聊天機(jī)器人也能，而且做得更好。

[Paragraph 4]
Hence the flurry of announcements, as rival firms try to seize the initiative.

競爭對手公司想搶占先機(jī)，因此發(fā)布了一系列聲明。

On February 7th Microsoft, which has invested more than $11bn in OpenAI, revealed a new version of Bing, its search engine, which incorporates ChatGPT. Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s boss, sees this as his chance to challenge Google.

2月7日，已向OpenAI投資逾110億美元的微軟發(fā)布了新版“必應(yīng)”，其中就包含了ChatGPT。微軟CEO薩蒂亞·納德拉認(rèn)為這是必應(yīng)挑戰(zhàn)谷歌的機(jī)會。

For its part, Google has announced Bard, its own chatbot, as a “companion” to its search engine.

谷歌也發(fā)布了自己的聊天機(jī)器人Bard，作為其搜索引擎的“搭檔”。

It has also taken a $300m stake in Anthropic, a startup founded by ex-OpenAI employees, which has built a chatbot called Claude.

谷歌還斥資3億美元入股了Anthropic，這是一家由OpenAI前員工創(chuàng)辦的初創(chuàng)公司，該公司已經(jīng)開發(fā)了聊天機(jī)器人Claude。

The share price of Baidu, known as the Google of China, jumped when it said it would release its chatbot, called Ernie, in March.
有“中國的谷歌“之稱的百度公布，公司將于3月發(fā)布聊天機(jī)器人Ernie，股價隨后飆升大漲。

[Paragraph 5]
But can chatbots be trusted, and what do they mean for search and its lucrative advertising business?

但聊天機(jī)器人是否值得信任，它們對搜索及其背后利潤豐厚的廣告業(yè)務(wù)意味著什么？

Do they herald a Schumpeterian moment in which AI topples incumbent firms and elevates upstarts?

它們是否會遵循熊彼特的創(chuàng)新理論，預(yù)示著人工智能會在革故鼎新過程中起重要作用？

The answers depend on three things: moral choices, monetisation and monopoly economics.
答案取決于3個方面：道德選擇、變現(xiàn)方式和壟斷經(jīng)濟(jì)。

（恭喜讀完，本篇英語詞匯量487/1104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(xué)習(xí)交流使用。

【補(bǔ)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(xùn)練其AI系統(tǒng)。

熊彼特以“創(chuàng)新理論”解釋資本主義的本質(zhì)特征，解釋資本主義發(fā)生、發(fā)展和趨于滅亡的結(jié)局，從而聞名于經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)界，影響頗大。“創(chuàng)新理論”的最大特色，就是強(qiáng)調(diào)生產(chǎn)技術(shù)的革新和生產(chǎn)方法的變革在經(jīng)濟(jì)發(fā)展過程中的至高無上的作用。

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【重點(diǎn)句子】（3?個）
Now tech firms are salivating over an innovation that might herald a similar shift—and a similar opportunity.
如今，科技公司對一項(xiàng)可能帶來同等變革和機(jī)遇的技術(shù)創(chuàng)新垂涎三尺。

Many things that people use search engines for today, in short, can be done better with chatbots.
簡言之，搜索引擎能做的，聊天機(jī)器人也能，而且做得更好。

The answers depend on three things: moral choices, monetisation and monopoly economics.
答案取決于3個方面：道德選擇、變現(xiàn)方式和壟斷經(jīng)濟(jì)。