人工智能速成班

经济学人20181027 ‖ Business

No PhD, no problem 没有博士学位也没问题

New schemes teach the masses to build AI人民群众也能玩转AI

Treating it like a craft is paying dividends

AI从此变成一门挣钱的手艺

Oct 25th 2018 | SANFRANCISCO

OVERTHE past five years researchers in artificial intelligence have become the rockstars of the technology world. A branch of AI known as deep learning, which uses neural networks to churnthrough large volumes of data looking for patterns, has proven so useful thatskilled practitioners can command high six-figure salaries to build softwarefor Amazon, Apple, Facebook andGoogle. The top names can earn over $1m a year.

paydividends 有所收获；产生效益

churn |tʃɜ:n; 美 tʃɜ:rn| 搅动，搅起，扰动(水、泥浆、灰尘)

practitioner |prækˈtɪʃənə(r)| 习艺者；专门人才

Thestandard route into these jobs has been a PhD in computer science from one ofAmerica's elite universities.Earning one takes years and requires a disposition suited to academia, which israre among more normal folk. Graduate students are regularly lured away fromtheir studies by lucrative jobs.

disposition |ˌdɪspəˈzɪʃn| 性格；性情

lure |lʊə(r); ljʊə(r); 美 lʊr| 劝诱；引诱；诱惑

lucrative |ˈlu:krətɪv| 赚大钱的；获利多

Thatis changing. This month fast.ai, an education non-profit based in SanFrancisco, kicked off the third year of its course in deep learning. Since itsinception it has attracted more than 100,000 students, scattered around the globe from India to Nigeria. The course and others like it come witha simple proposition: there is no need to spend years obtaining a PhD in orderto practise deep learning. Creating software that learns can be taught as acraft, not as a high intellectual pursuit to be undertaken only in an ivorytower. Fast.ai's course can becompleted in just seven weeks.

inception |ɪnˈsepʃn| 机构、组织等的）开端，创始

scattered |ˈskætəd; 美 -tərd| 分散的；零散的；疏落的

proposition |ˌprɒpəˈzɪʃn; 美ˌprɑ:p-| 见解；主张；观点

ivory 象牙；（某些其他动物的）长牙

Demystifyingthe subject, to make it accessible to anyone who wants to learn how to build AIsoftware, is the aim of JeremyHoward, who founded fast.ai with Rachel Thomas, a mathematician. He says schoolmathematics is sufficient. “No. Greek. Letters,” Mr Howard intones, thumpingthe table for punctuation.

demystify |ˌdi:ˈmɪstɪfaɪ| 使明白易懂；深入浅出地解释

intone |ɪnˈtəʊn; 美ɪnˈtoʊn| 缓慢庄重地说

thump |θʌmp| 重击；狠打；（尤指用拳）捶击

punctuation |ˌpʌŋktʃuˈeɪʃn| 标点符号；标点符号用法

It isworking. A graduate from fast.ai's first year, Sara Hooker, was hired into Google's highly competitive AI residency programmeafter finishing the course, having never worked on deep learning before. She isnow a founding member of Google's new AI research office in Accra, Ghana, the firm's first in Africa. In Bangalore, some 2,400people are members of AI Saturdays, which follows the course together as agigantic study group. Andrei Karpathy, one of deep learning's foremost practitioners, recommends thecourse.

residency |ˈrezɪdənsi| 实习期

foremost |ˈfɔ:məʊst; 美ˈfɔ:rmoʊst| 最重要的；最著名的；最前的

Fast.ai's is not the only alternative AI programme.AI4ALL, another non-profit venture, works to bring AI education toschoolchildren in the United States that would otherwise not have access to it.Andrew Ng, another well-known figure in the field, has started his own onlinecourse, deeplearning.ai.

alternative |ɔ:lˈtɜ:nətɪv; 美 -ˈtɜ:rn-| 备选的；备用的；其他的

MrHoward's ambitions run deeperthan loosening the AI labour market. His aim is to spread deep learning intomany hands, so that it may be applied in as diverse a set of fields by asdiverse a group of people as possible. So far, it has been controlled by a small number of mostly young white men,almost all of whom have been employed by the tech giants. The ambition, says MrHoward, is for AI training software to become as easy to use and ubiquitous assending an email on a smartphone.

ubiquitous |ju:ˈbɪkwɪtəs| 似乎无所不在的；十分普遍的

Someexperts worry that this will serve only to create a flood of dodgy AI systemswhich will be useless at best and dangerous at worst. An analogy may allaythose concerns. In the earliest days of the internet, only a select few nerdswith specific skills could build applications. Not many people used them. Thenthe invention of the world wide web led to an explosion of web pages, both good and bad. But it was only byopening up to all that the internet gave birth to online shopping, instantglobal communications and search. If Mr Howard and others have their way,making the development of AI software easier will bring forth a new crop offruit of a different kind.

dodgy |ˈdɒdʒi; 美ˈdɑ:dʒi| 有毛病的；运转不良的；状况不佳的

allay |əˈleɪ| 减轻（尤指情绪

crop |krɒp; 美 krɑ:p| （同时做某事的）一群人，一批人；（同时发生的）一些事情