【译文】What People Get Wrong About China and Artificial Intelligence 人们对中国人工智能有哪些误解？
以下翻译自《Fortune》《财富》杂志2019年7月9日由Jonathan Vanian撰写的专栏文章，
China is close to becoming the world’s leader in artificial intelligence, according to conventional wisdom.
根据我们的常识，中国离成为世界人工智能研究的领先者已经触手可及。
But Jeffrey Ding, leader of all things China at the Center for the Governance of AI at Oxford University’s Future of Humanity Institute, has a much different take: China’s prowess in artificial intelligence is exaggerated.
但是牛津大学人类未来研究所人工智能治理中心的领导者Jeffrey Ding对此持有不同的看法。在他看来，中国在人工智领域的影响力被高估了。
Ding’s take on China and A.I. is a counterpoint to the belief that China and the U.S. are embarking on an A.I. arms race that echoes the Cold War. Misinformation could prompt the U.S. to go overboard with its A.I. policy related to China or implement misguided policy, Ding says.
不少人认为中美两国正在人工智能领域内进行“冷战”式的军备竞赛，但是Ding并不这么认为。在与中国相关的人工智能政策中，美国受到了错误信息的误导，过度激化了相关政策的实施。
In an interview with Fortune, Ding explained that much of what is written about China’s multi-billion dollar push into A.I. often seems like it’s written in a “vacuum.” There’s little context or comparison between China’s A.I. abilities and those of other countries.
在接受财富杂志采访的过程中，Ding向我们解释说，中国近期宣布投入数十亿美元以加速人工智能的研发，关于这一行动的大部分文章分析都是“空中楼阁”。评论家们对中国人工智能的发展并不熟悉，也缺乏对中国与其他国家AI研发能力的对比。
For instance, some reports indicate that China leads the U.S. in the number of A.I.-related patents globally and research papers. No one bothers to mention that researchers outside of China more frequently cite U.S. patents and papers in their own studies, indicating that the Chinese patents and papers may be of lesser quality, Ding says.
比如说，有些报道谈到中国在人工智能领域的专利申请数和论文发表数，都已经超过美国称为世界第一。但是这些报道并不愿意提及中国以外的研究者们更倾向于引用来自美国的专利和论文，中国的专利和论文并不具备同样的影响力。
It’s these kinds of observations that make Ding’s weekly ChinAI Newsletter widely read among China and A.I. experts. His analysis is informed by a network of sources in China who help him translate Chinese A.I. research papers and related writings.
正是Ding对人工智能领域的观察和洞见，使得他的“中国人工智能周报”在中美专家中广为传阅。他在中国的消息网不断帮助他翻译中国AI研究的论文，以促使他形成这样的分析。
Another of Ding’s contrarianism targets the assumption that China’s vast population provides a huge workforce of A.I. specialists. Yet quantifying the size of that workforce is difficult because there’s no standard for doing so, he says. Some workers in China who claim A.I. expertise may only have associate or technical certificates, meaning they likely lack the skills of people with more advanced engineering degrees.
Ding反对另一个流行的观点，即中国庞大的人口基数为相关行业提供了足量的AI专家。实际上量化AI专家的人数是十分困难的，因为我们并没有这样的衡量标准。一些中国的AI从业者只拥有技术证书，而不是经过系统化训练学习之后的工程学位。
China has also been singled out as a leader because it has compiled a database of over one billion facial images. In theory, it’s a valuable tool for training facial-recognition technologies, a key subset of A.I.
中国还因为拥有超过10亿张面部图像的庞大数据库，而被认为是AI研究的领导者。从理论上来说，这确实是面部识别技术仰仗的重要工具，也是AI的重要一部分。
Less appreciated is the fact that the FBI has its own database of over 640 million faces, according to a Government Accountability Office report. Like China, the U.S. is also well on its way to track people’s identities based on their faces, despite concerns by human-rights activists.
但是你可能想不到FBI也有自己的面部数据库，存储了超过6400万个面部数据。和中国一样，美国也善于通过面部特征识别身份，尽管这一点被人权活动家频频抗议。
Assumptions about privacy expectations in China are another source of misunderstanding in the West, Ding says. In short, because of China’s authoritarian government, Westerners believe that the country’s citizens don’t value privacy.
对中国隐私保护的猜测也是西方对华误解的重要来源。长话短说，西方观察者认为基于中国官方政府的因素，民众对隐私保护不够重视。
Ding argues that this thesis overlooks a “crucial distinction” between civil liberties (i.e. privacy related to the government) and consumer privacy (how companies handle personal information). Chinese consumers, he said, are wary of companies that are lax in safeguarding their personal data and are concerned about their data being stolen.
Ding认为这些文章忽视了公民自由（与政府相关的隐私）和消费者隐私（企业如何处理他们的个人信息）的区别。根据Ding的理解，中国消费者对于那些不能妥善保护消费者信息的企业持有谨慎的态度。
“If you want sustainable A.I. development, you have to get better at protecting data,” Ding said.
Ding认为，“如果你想要可持续性的Ai发展，你必须在保护数据上做得更好”。
Recently, Ding testified during a U.S. congressional hearing about China’s pursuit of A.I. and its implications on U.S. national security and technology policies. His conclusion: Despite the belief by some experts that China may overtake the U.S. in A.I., the reality is much more nuanced.
近期Ding在美国国会听证会上做了关于中国AI发展的陈述，以及其对于美国国防安全和科技政策的影响。他的结论是：尽管一些专家认为中国的AI发展将会超过美国，但是事实远比这来得复杂。