悄然接近的人工智能

Walmart will soon deploy 360 robot janitors across a few hundred of its stores. Using maps plotted by human employees, the AI-powered cleaners will placidly traverse the aisles, sweeping and buffing as they go—just as blue-aproned human employees used to do (and still will, in Walmart stores without an Auto-C, as the robots are called).

沃尔玛将为其少数百家门店配置共360台清洁机器人。在工作人员输入地图后这些AI清洁工就可以自在穿梭在货架之间，留下干净、抛过光的地面。这些机器人名叫Auto-C，所做工作与其余门店的人类雇员别无二致。

Perhaps the most striking thing about these robot workers is how not-striking they are. Sci-fi movies suggest a future full of humanoid robots who unnerve us with their “uncanny valley” qualities. Now the future is coming into view, and it looks like a giant Roomba. It’s easy to imagine walking absentmindedly past an Auto-C on a shopping trip without even registering its presence.

也许最值得注意的事情正是这些机器人的存在实在太自然。科幻电影塑造了一个充满仿生人的未来，在那里机器人们是行走的“恐怖谷”，四处惊起鸡皮疙瘩(小编注：恐怖谷理论认为机器人的拟人程度到了特定范围会让人反感恐惧)现在这个未来到来了，只不过这个机器人看起来就是高配扫地狗，逛超市路过它甚至不会多看几眼。

BRAIN CORPAI has already started to become a part of our everyday landscape. In New Jersey this week, dozens of workers were hospitalized after a robot at an Amazon fulfillment center accidentally punctured a can of bear repellent and enveloped workers in eye- and lung-searing fumes. Days earlier in California, an auto-piloted Tesla drove an allegedly drunk, sleeping “driver” down a highway, right alongside more more alert travelers no doubt alarmed by the scene in the next lane. (Highway patrol officers figured out on the spot how to stop the automated car.)

有关AI的新闻在当今绝非是空谷足音。本周在美国新泽西亚马逊仓库，几十名工人因机器人意外刺破了一个内含驱逐狗熊用辣椒素的罐子而眼部肺部灼伤。几天前在加州，一辆具有自动驾驶功能的特斯拉载着据说是已经喝醉睡着的司机在高速上狂奔，对其余车道的过往车辆无疑造成威胁，交警不得不当场摸索逼停涉事车辆的方法。

Of course, industrial accidents and drunk drivers existed well before AI. Tools with the power to alleviate the burden of physical labor—horses, threshing machines, self-driving cars—also come with the power to injure. And the presence of AI-powered machines just steps away from us is, for now, still a rarity for most people.

当然了，早在AI之前就有各类工业事故和酒驾;解放生产力的工具如马、脱粒机、自动驾驶，往往也带来新的危险。对更多人来说，事实上近在咫尺的AI依然触不可及。

But the incremental nature of robots’ creep into our daily lives will make it harder to recognize—or object to—the bigger changes they bring later. Walmart insists that the robot janitors will give employees more time for customer service and other tasks. Critics point out that they could just as easily become an excuse to reduce staff and wages. And if customers get used to ignoring robot workers, they may be even less cognizant of the needs of the human ones.

机器人温水煮青蛙般的渗透，会让我们更难察觉到时代的巨变，更别提抵制了。沃尔玛坚持认为机器人清洁工会解放雇员以便更好地服务顾客。而有人说这一切都是下一步裁员减薪的阴谋，还有人说消费者在习惯机器人员工之后在面对人类员工时可能会不近人情。