AlphaGo轻松击败围棋世界冠军柯洁

Google is turning to its prowess in artificial intelligence in its latest charm offensive in China, seeking to appeal to fans of the complex board game Go and party officials in the country where its search engine remains blocked.

谷歌(Google)借助其在人工智能领域的强大实力在中国发起最新魅力攻势，试图吸引围棋这种复杂棋类游戏的粉丝及中国共产党的官员。在中国，谷歌的搜索引擎依然处于被封禁状态。

The US group’s AlphaGo computer program beat Ke Jie, 19, the world champion player of the complicated ancient game developed in China, in the surprisingly short first match of a three-game series.

这家美国集团的AlphaGo电脑程序，在三局比赛的第一局以短得令人吃惊的时间击败了围棋世界冠军、19岁的柯洁。围棋是中国发明的一种复杂古老游戏。

Last year, AlphaGo, a program developed by DeepMind, a London start-up acquired by Google in 2014, sealed a landmark achievement for AI when it defeated Lee Se-dol of South Korea. The victory was the first time a computer had beaten the world champion.

去年，由DeepMind开发的AlphaGo为人工智能取得了里程碑式的成就，击败了韩国的李世石(Lee Se-dol)。那次胜利是电脑首次击败围棋世界冠军。DeepMind是一家伦敦初创企业，2014年被谷歌收购。

Eric Schmidt, chairman of Alphabet, Google’s parent, kicked off the five-day Go tournament and AI summit in Wuzhen, near Shanghai, on Tuesday alongside officials from the Communist party and central government. The tournament is Google’s biggest public event in partnership with the government since its search engine was frozen out of the country seven years ago.

周二，谷歌母公司Alphabet董事长埃里克•施密特(Eric Schmidt)，与中国的党政官员一起，在上海附近的乌镇启动了为期五天的围棋锦标赛和人工智能峰会。这次锦标赛是谷歌自其搜索引擎七年前被中国封堵以来，与中国政府合作举行的最大公共活动。

Over the past year, AlphaGo has become one of Google’s best-known brands in China, where Go was invented 3,000 years ago. The country has hundreds of millions of Go fans and a “big interest in AI at a grassroots level”, notes Demis Hassabis, co-founder of DeepMind.

过去一年里，在3000年前发明围棋的中国，AlphaGo已成为谷歌最具知名度的品牌之一。DeepMind联合创始人杰米斯•哈萨比斯(Demis Hassabis)指出，中国拥有数亿围棋粉丝以及“基层对人工智能的巨大兴趣”。

“We were told everyone in China knows about AlphaGo,” he said. “When we go out to Korea or China [the level of interest in us] is pretty crazy.”

他说：“我们被告知，中国每个人都知道AlphaGo。当我们去韩国或中国时，(人们对我们的兴趣)极为疯狂。”

Mr Hassabis plans to visit Chinese companies and institutes to discuss ways of using AI commercially and in scientific research. The government considers AI research crucial for upgrading its slowing economy.

哈萨比斯计划访问中国的企业和科研院所，围绕在商业和科研中应用人工智能的方法开展讨论。中国政府认为，人工智能研究对于升级中国放缓的经济至关重要。

Despite the fervour of Chinese fans — more than 1m of whom watched the live streaming of last year’s games in South Korea — the authorities banned live streaming of AlphaGo’s first match against Mr Ke on Tuesday, although it was unclear why.

尽管中国的粉丝热情高涨——超过100万粉丝观看了去年在韩国的赛况的直播，当局周二却禁止直播AlphaGo与柯洁的首场比赛，原因无从得知。

“It’s disgusting, I need to use a VPN to watch a world-famous event which features a Chinese master playing the game that Chinese invented,” wrote one disappointed fan on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like social media platform.

在中国类似Twitter的社交平台新浪微博(Weibo)上，一名失望的粉丝写道：“真恶心，中国大师下中国人发明的围棋，我却要用VPN才能看这场全球闻名的赛事。”

“Ke Jie versus AlphaGo” was one of the top trending topics on Weibo on Tuesday morning, with 17.3m views.

周二早上，“柯洁大战AlphaGo”是微博上的热门话题之一，有1730万人查看。

Chinese media livestreamed Google’s Developer Day conference in Beijing last year without running into any restrictions.

去年，中国媒体曾直播在北京举行的谷歌开发者日技术大会(Google Developer Day)，并未受到任何限制。

Google pulled its search engine from China in 2010 after several years of conflict with the government over the censoring of politically sensitive keywords.

2010年，在与中国政府围绕对政治敏感关键词的审查发生多年冲突之后，谷歌将其搜索引擎撤出了中国。

A senior official involved in discussions with the company told the Financial Times that the country’s relationship with the US business is improving.

一位曾参与同谷歌磋商的高级官员向英国《金融时报》表示，中国与这家美国企业的关系正在好转。

China is the biggest market missing from Google’s empire, particularly in the growing area of mobile revenue. Although a third of the world’s users of Google’s Android smartphone operating system are in China, none can access the Google Play app store, meaning the company loses out on the world’s biggest source of mobile app sales.

中国是谷歌帝国缺失的最大市场——尤其是在不断增长的移动营收领域。尽管谷歌的Android智能手机操作系统在全球的用户有三分之一在中国，但这些用户无法访问Google Play应用商店，这意味着谷歌丧失了全球最大的移动应用销售来源。