【译文】Will A.I., Blockchain, 5G, and Virtual Reality Give Companies a Competitive Edge? 人工智能，区块链，5G，虚拟现实会改变企业竞争格局么？
Business executives have no doubt been inundated with marketing materials and sales pitches proclaiming that these buzzy technologies will give them the edge over their competitors. But often times, big tech initiatives fail, leading to disappointed management teams disillusioned by vendor promises.
毫无疑问，企业高管们已经被广告材料和销售宣传所淹没，这些嗡嗡作响的新科技都宣称能够为企业带来竞争优势。然而这些新技术往往招来大规模的技术失败，导致失望的管理团队难以兑现投资者的承诺。
Executives gathered Wednesday at Fortune’s Brainstorm Tech conference in Aspen, Colo. to discuss these dilemmas during a panel exploring which technologies they believe gives them a competitive edge. In short, executives are still excited by technologies like A.I. and blockchain, but they need to ensure that they have identified a specific business use case for them.
来自不同企业的高管在本周三出席了《财富》杂志在科罗拉多州举办的头脑风暴论坛，他们共同讨论哪一种新科技可以真正为企业带来竞争优势。简而言之，企业高管们仍然为人工智能、区块链这样新兴科技的崛起而感到兴奋，但是他们需要确保有合适的商业场景来应用这些技术。
Paul Cheesebrough, the chief technology officer for the Fox Corporation, for instance, is a believer in machine learning despite therebeing “a lot of noise.” He likened the way companies talk about A.I. to the waythey talked about “the cloud” some years ago as a “badge” that indicates how tech savvy they are.
比如福克斯集团的CTO, Paul Cheesebrough, 坚信机器学习的作用，尽管这个概念在今天饱受质疑。他认为今天人们讨论人工智能的方式，就如同若干年前人们讨论“云计算”的方式，这种讨论就如同一个“徽章”一样表明公司卓越的技术能力。
Instead of betting the farm on big A.I. projects, Cheesebrough said Fox is applying machine learning to small business projects that are more manageable. For instance Fox has “a minefield” of legal documents related to rights managements. As opposed to having 300 lawyers sift through to thedocuments “to say if we have rights to sell in a territory,” Fox can use A.I.techniques to “train machines to answer those questions faster,” he said.
相比于豪赌庞大的人工智能项目，Cheesebrough谈到福克斯更愿意将机器学习应用在一些小型商业项目中，这些小项目往往更加可控。比如福克斯集团有一个关于权限管理的法律文件的“掘金场”，相比于雇佣300名律师浏览文件来回答“我们是否有权出售这一块土地”，福克斯更愿意训练机器学习模型来高效率地回答这个问题。
As for virtual reality and its close cousin augmented reality, Cheesebrough said he is not “hugely positive in the near-term benefit.” It turns out that the cost of producing some short VR content is significant, with expenses nearly on par with movie production. As a result, VR and AR projects are purely part of Fox’s research and development as opposed to being more of a focus for the company.
关于虚拟现实和它的近亲增强现实，Cheesebrough在短期内对这些技术不抱有支持的态度。即使生产一些短时间的VR内容也价格不菲，几乎等同于进行电影制作的费用。因而，VR和AR目前仅仅是福克斯研发中心的一部分内容，而不是公司关注的重点。
Regarding 5G networks, most of the panel attendees didn’t discuss or explain any significant near-term benefits they believe the much-hyped technology will bring to their businesses. That said, Kirsten Wolberg, the chief technology officer and chief operating officer at DocuSign, suggested faster wireless networks could help boost the speed of processing digital identifying forms or other documents. The 5G technology could alleviate “latency challenges” that may burden the company, she said.
关于5G技术，大多数的与会者都没有谈及这项技术能够在近期内给他们带来的重大收益。DocuSign集团的CTO/COO, Kirsten Wolberg认为更加高速的无线网络会加强数字签署文件的处理速度。她认为5G技术可以缓解公司解决延时问题的负担。
Wolberg seemed less enthusiastic about block chain technologies, which companies often pitch as a more efficient way to store and track data in a digital ledger used by multiple organizations. Currently, blockchain projects are too expensive compared to more conventional methods of storing and securing data that work just fine, she said.
Wolberg对区块链技术缺乏热情。区块链技术试图以一种更加高效的方式，在被多个组织共用的数字账本中记录和跟踪数据。今日，区块链相比于传统的数据存储保护方式过于昂贵了，而传统方式至今运转良好。
“It’s so much cheaper for us to do this and secure all the documents and not do it on the blockchain,” Wolberg said.
Wolberg 认为“使用（现在的方式）来存储和保护文件，相比于区块链的方式，来得便宜得多”。