未来计算：人工智能及其社会角色

近日，微软发布新书——《未来计算：人工智能及其社会角色》（The Future Computed, Artificial Intelligence and Its Role in Society），我们的团队合作参与了编写，并由我们二人为书作序。正如标题所言，这本书分享了微软对人工智能技术发展及其所引发的新的社会问题的思考。

　　在序言中，我们回顾了过去 20 多年来，科技对生活的改变，并思考了未来 20 年，科技即将对生活带来的影响。1998 年，我们两人都在微软工作，但是在地球的两端。我们生活在不同的大洲，被不同的文化所熏陶，但我们却拥有着类似的体验和日常。对于二十年后的数字世界，我们理所当然地认为那都只是科幻。

　　伴随着技术发展，特别是移动设备和云计算的发展，我们获取新闻、安排日程、沟通交流、购物，以及与亲人、朋友和同事的互动方式从根本上产生了改变。二十年后，世界又会是怎样的呢？人工智能将能够帮助人类更好地利用宝贵的时间。通过机器学习，数字化的个人助理将会更懂我们，能够预知我们的需要，帮助我们管理日程，协助我们规划社交生活，甚至驾驶汽车等。

　　除此之外，人工智能将在医疗、农业、教育和交通等领域取得突破性进展。

　　当然，就如我们在过去 20 年所目睹的，任何技术的诞生都会不可避免地带来新的问题。一个由人类智慧和机器智能共同驱动的未来已经到来，重要的是我们在迎接机遇的同时，能更好地面对挑战。

　　如何确保人工智能的设计和应用是负责任的？如何建立可以保护人类的道德准则？我们应该如何规范人工智能应用？人工智能将会如何影响就业和工作本身？

　　回答这些问题并不容易。技术专家需要与政府、学术界、商界、以及其他各社会利益相关方紧密合作。在微软，我们明确了六个道德基本准则：公平、包容、透明、负责、可靠与安全、隐私与保密，这些原则将指导人工智能跨学科的发展和利用。只有我们更好地理解相关问题，不断完善制度，技术开发人员才能得出更好的解决方案，用户才能拥有更好的体验，人工智能才能够更好地服务世界。

　　我们还要关注，人工智能可能会取代什么类型的工作？创造出哪些新工作？让哪些既有的工作本身发生变化？技术的变革和发展对就业的影响潜移默化，持续不断。

　　把握技术趋势，一些重要的结论不难得出：

　　第一，只有那些敢于拥抱技术变革，能够快速转型的企业和国家才能在人工智能时代脱颖而出。

　　第二，虽然我们相信人工智能有助于解决重要的社会问题，但我们必须辩证地看待未来。机遇和挑战并存。完善道德准则、健全法律、推动新技能培养及适应新需要的人才储备，这些都是当务之急。

　　第三，我们需要社会各界共担使命与责任。因为科技的发展与驱动并非技术创新者独立完成的。微软正在努力使人工智能普及化。通过打造工具和平台，帮助开发者、企业和政府都能够轻松地构建基于人工智能的解决方案，最终造福全社会。

　　人工智能离不开数据、算法、计算力，同时也关乎语言、艺术、历史、经济、 伦理、哲学、心理学和人类学的深入研究与理解。要实现真正的服务人类，人工智能就应该是科学、技术、工程学、数学，以及社会科学、人文科学等跨学科跨领域的共同课题。

　　虽然没有水晶球能帮助我们预知未来，但我们深知，我们要投入更多时间去倾听和相互学习。我们希望《未来计算：人工智能及其社会角色》一书能有助于各界更加深入和广泛的探讨。

Today Microsoft is releasing a new book, The Future Computed: Artificial Intelligence and its role in society. The two of us have written the foreword for the book, and our teams collaborated to write its contents. As the title suggests, the book provides our perspective on where AI technology is going and the new societal issues it has raised.

On a personal level, our work on the foreword provided an opportunity to step back and think about how much technology has changed our lives over the past two decades and to consider the changes that are likely to come over the next 20 years. In 1998, we both worked at Microsoft, but on opposite sides of the globe. While we lived on separate continents and in quite different cultures, we shared similar experiences and daily routines which were managed by manual planning and movement. Twenty years later, we take for granted the digital world that was once the stuff of science fiction.

Technology – including mobile devices and cloud computing – has fundamentally changed the way we consume news, plan our day, communicate, shop and interact with our family, friends and colleagues. Two decades from now, what will our world look like? At Microsoft, we imagine that artificial intelligence will help us do more with one of our most precious commodities: time. By 2038, personal digital assistants will be trained to anticipate our needs, help manage our schedule, prepare us for meetings, assist as we plan our social lives, reply to and route communications, and drive cars.

Beyond our personal lives, AI will enable breakthrough advances in areas like healthcare, agriculture, education and transportation. It’s already happening in impressive ways.

But as we’ve witnessed over the past 20 years, new technology also inevitably raises complex questions and broad societal concerns. As we look to a future powered by a partnership between computers and humans, it’s important that we address these challenges head on.

How do we ensure that AI is designed and used responsibly? How do we establish ethical principles to protect people? How should we govern its use? And how will AI impact employment and jobs?

To answer these tough questions, technologists will need to work closely with government, academia, business, civil society and other stakeholders. At Microsoft, we’ve identified six ethical principles – fairness, reliability and safety, privacy and security, inclusivity, transparency, and accountability – to guide the cross-disciplinary development and use of artificial intelligence. The better we understand these or similar issues — and the more technology developers and users can share best practices to address them — the better served the world will be as we contemplate societal rules to govern AI.

We must also pay attention to AI’s impact on workers. What jobs will AI eliminate? What jobs will it create? If there has been one constant over 250 years of technological change, it has been the ongoing impact of technology on jobs — the creation of new jobs, the elimination of existing jobs and the evolution of job tasks and content. This too is certain to continue.

Some key conclusions are emerging.

First, the companies and countries that will fare best in the AI era will be those that embrace these changes rapidly and effectively. This is because new jobs and economic growth will come to those that embrace the technology, not those that resist or delay adopting it.

Second, while we believe that AI will help solve big societal problems, we must look to this future with a critical eye. There will be challenges as well as opportunities. We must address the need for strong ethical principles, the evolution of laws, training for new skills and even labor market reforms. This must all come together if we’re going to make the most of AI.

Third, we need to act with a sense of shared responsibility because AI won’t be created by the tech sector alone. At Microsoft we’re working to democratize AI in a manner that’s similar to how we made  the PC available to everyone. This means we’re creating tools to make it easy for every developer, business and government to build AI-based solutions and accelerate the benefit to society.

All of this leads us to what may be one of the most important conclusions of all. Skilling-up for an AI-powered world involves more than science, technology, engineering and math. As computers behave more like humans, the social sciences and humanities will become even more important. Languages, art, history, economics, ethics, philosophy, psychology and human development courses can teach critical, philosophical and ethics-based skills that will be instrumental in the development and management of AI solutions. If AI is to reach its potential in serving humans, then every engineer will need to learn more about the liberal arts and every liberal arts major will need to learn more about engineering.

While we don’t have a crystal ball that shows us the future, we do know that we’re all going to need to spend more time listening to and learning from each other. We hope that The Future Computed can contribute to this conversation.