这是最好的时代，这是最坏的时代——我爱英语第六期：Now we are talking

本篇预计学习

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语音识别，是人工智能技术之一，将标志着人类社会的又一进步。可是，我们也不得不害怕，如果一个机器人能听懂人话，懂得人的思维和情感，他是否也不再会是一台机器？如果机器再也不是纯粹的理性，西部世界是否已不再遥远？

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Now we are talking

Vioce technology is making computers less daunting and more accessible.

Any sufficiently advanced technology, noted Arthur C. Clarke, a British science-fiction writer, is indistinguishable from magic. The fast-emerging technology of voice computing proves his point. Using it is just like casting a spell: say a few words into the air, and a nearby device can grant your wish.

daunt：来源于拉丁文，domitare，意思就是to lessen the courage of，也就是吓到，气馁。当然如果平常大家在阅读的时候有一些单词不认识，也可以通过对逻辑关系的简单判断来降低其对我们阅读的障碍呢，比如这里如果daunting不认识，也并不会影响到大家对此处含义的理解，因为and前后并列，and后面more accessible其实和less daunting方向上差不多。

advanced：先进的

indistinguishable from：与……没什么不同（与……相同）

fast-emerging：迅速崛起的，在这个日新月异的时代，很多新生产业都可以用这个词形容，大家可以多加应用。

casting a spell：念个咒语，美好的事情就会发生的感觉。

grant your wish ：实现愿望。grant，这个词并不难，是授予、准许的意思，但是它是一个很正式的用法，在外交辞令以及国际商务合同用语中经常出现，比allow高级。

Please do grant me a favour.

你就行个方便吧！ （带有撒娇妆效果最好喽）。

Take sth for granted 把……当做理所当然:

She takes his love for granted. 她把他的爱当作是理所当然的

文章开篇小标题是：语音技术让计算机不那么令人生畏，且更容易接近了。

为了增加趣味性，文章一开始通过英国的一个科幻小说家说过的话引入本文的核心话题，当然如果大家的记忆并没有变得模糊，就会记得我们之前一篇文章against happiness跟大家讲过一种方法叫做引用观点，通过引用很牛逼的人的观点来彰显自己的观点的正确性，或者借用很牛逼的人之口说出自己的观点都是可以很好的提升文章的比格，增加自己观点的可信度的。

第一段说任何足够先进的技术就像魔法。快速兴起的语音技术就证明了他的说法。使用这种语音技术就像是念咒语，你说出指令，附近的智能设备就能够实现你的愿望。

The Amazon Echo, a voice-driven cylindrical computer that sits on a table top and answers to the name Alexa, can call up music tracks and radio stations, tell jokes, answer trivia questions and control smart appliances; even before Christmas it was already resident in about 4% of American households. Voice assistants are proliferating in smartphones, too: Apple's Siri handles over 2bn commands a week, and 20% of Google searches on Android-powered handsets in America are input by voice. Dictating e-mails and text messages now works reliably enough to be useful. Why type when you can talk?

Amazon Echo：一个语音控制设备

track：这个词意思比较宽泛，可以表示道路路径，另外在本文中其意思是唱片或者CD上面的一首歌曲，其实这两种意思之间还是有一些联系的，大家可以想象一下那种老式的唱片机，在播放音乐的时候，唱片会旋转，唱片针就像是在上面划出了一道路径吧~

resident in（居住于），拟人化用法

proliferating：增生就是proliferating。恶性肿瘤的蔓延之类的我们都说proliferating。

dictate：口述，听写

这一段列举了一个语音控制系统，它能做许多事，并且已经有4%的家庭在使用了。语音助手同样也在智能手机上广泛应用。能给你读email能替你发短信。

哇塞，光BB不动手，这不是我们梦想的生活嘛！

This is a huge shift. Simple though it may seem, voice has the power to transform computing, by providing a natural means of interaction. Windows, icons and menus, and then touchscreens, were welcomed as more intuitive ways to deal with computers than entering complex keyboard commands. But being able to talk to computers abolishes the need for the abstraction of a “user interface” at all. Just as mobile phones were more than existing phones without wires, and cars were more than carriages without horses, so computers without screens and keyboards have the potential to be more useful, powerful and ubiquitous than people can imagine today.

sb has the power to do sth：某人有能力作某事

icons：图标

user interface：简称UI，广义上是指用户可以和计算机进行交互的硬件或软件，狭义上就是指软件中可见的外观及其底层与用户交互部分（也就是平常我们用一些软件的时候可以点来点去操作的部分）。

just as···so：反应快的同学应该很快就能够看出，just as后面其实是在举例，为了引出或者说佐证so之后的观点。

intuitive：直觉的，直观的

语音技术看起来简单，其实能耐大着呢！你们看电脑上这些窗口、图标、菜单，以及后来出现的触摸屏，其实他们都在做一件事，就是更直观地让人与机器互动。但是直接跟电脑说话，这简直是革命啊！这个东西一旦发展起来，什么UI都不需要了啊！比如说智能手机远远不止是无线电话，汽车远远不止是不靠马拉的车，未来这种靠语音的电脑将会牛逼的超乎想象啊！

这么一说是不是感觉好像追不上时代发展的潮流了……

Voice will not wholly replace other forms of input and output. Sometimes it will remain more convenient to converse with a machine by typing rather than talking (Amazon is said to be working on an Echo device with a built-in screen). But voice is destined to account for a growing share of people's interactions with the technology around them, from washing machines that tell you how much of the cycle they have left to virtual assistants in corporate call-centres. However, to reach its full potential, the technology requires further breakthroughs-and a resolution of the tricky questions it raises around the trade-off between convenience and privacy.

wholly：词根是whole，类似的表达就是completely，意为完全的

be destined to：命中注定要做……。Doomed也表示“注定了……”，但是注意doomed往往倾向于说不好的事情，比如： This time we really doomed.

这一次我们真的完蛋了。

further breakthroughs：长远的突破

trade-off：注意它作名词用，意为权衡，协调，交易，这个词汇在经济类新闻中较长出现，比如the trade-off between inflation and unemployment，就是在通货膨胀与失业率之间求得平衡。

resolution：还有分辨率的意思，手机的分辨率是多少多少，其实就是the resolution is……。

语音并不会完全取代其他形式的输入和输出吧，但是语音注定了是未来。但是要实现语音技术的全部潜能还需要未来的技术突破，还要解决便利和隐私的平衡问题。

Alexa, what is deep learning?

Computer-dictation systems have been around for years. But they were unreliable and required lengthy training to learn a specific user's voice. Computers' new ability to recognise almost anyone's speech dependably without training is the latest manifestation of the power of “deep learning”, an artificial-intelligence technique in which a software system is trained using millions of examples, usually culled from the internet. Thanks to deep learning, machines now nearly equal humans in transcription accuracy, computerized translation systems are improving rapidly and text-to-speech systems are becoming less robotic and more natural-sounding. Computers are, in short, getting much better at handling natural language in all its forms.

lengthy：长期的

manifestation：显示，表现

artificial-intelligence：AI，人工智能

cull：拣出

小标题问“Alexa”什么是深度学习，那么其实内心肯定坚信Alexa是可以回答这个问题的吧，而Alexa其实就是代表了现在的语音智能，也就是说现在的语音智能已经掌握了deep learning。

看，其实读文章的时候，不要单处的看到一个单词或者是看到一个句子，作者在写每一句话的时候都是有自己的行文目的，我们一起看一看这一部分说的是不是与我们一开始思考的是一样的呢？

这一段一开始说语音识别其实已经出现多年了，但是以前没有现在这么好用，为什么呢？计算机无需训练即能识别几乎任何人的语言是深度学习力量的最新体现，深度思考是一种人工智能技术，这一技术用通常来自互联网的数百万个范例来训练某一系统。最后就是指出计算机经过这样的深度学习之后，其处理各种形式的自然语言时的表现大幅提升。我们都听说过2016年10月18日，中国著名相声演员罗永浩发布了自己的锤子T2手机，在发布会上他大大的吹了一波科大讯飞的语音输入法，导致科大讯飞的股票暴涨。其实这家公司玩的就是voice computing。

Although deep learning means that machines can recognise speech more reliably and talk in a less stilted manner, they still don't understand the meaning of language. That is the most difficult aspect of the problem and, if voice-driven computing is truly to flourish, one that must be overcome. Computers must be able to understand context in order to maintain a coherent conversation about something, rather than just responding to simple, one-off voice commands, as they mostly do today (“Hey, Siri, set a timer for ten minutes”). Researchers in universities and at companies large and small are working on this very problem, building “bots” that can hold more elaborate conversations about more complex tasks, from retrieving information to advising on mortgages to making travel arrangements. (Amazon is offering a $1m prize for a bot that can converse “coherently and engagingly” for 20 minutes.)

one-off event：一次性活动。

this very problem：这里面的very表示强调，相当于specific，特指刚刚提到的问题。

bots：其实就是robot的简写。

尽管深度学习意味着机器可以更加可靠的识别语言，但是它们还是无法理解语言的意思。而理解语言的意思恰恰是最难的部分，如果语音技术要真正获得大成果，这个问题必须被攻克。要进行连贯的对话，电脑需要能够理解上下文。而不是仅仅回应简单的一次性活动（现在的语音系统只能做一次性活动，比方Siri）。很多研究者都在钻研这一问题，亚马逊为能开发出能够连贯生动地谈话20分钟的机器人，悬赏100万美元。

当然这100万肯定不好赚，关注过人工智能的同学可能了解微软有个聊天机器人叫小冰，2016年3月份，微软推出了小冰的英文版本名字叫tay。不过，tay这家伙在发布24小时之内，微软就不得不出面干预，关停了tay并且发布声明称tay现在需要作一些调整。什么原因呢，tay发布之后，一大群的网友都跑来和tay聊天，经过网友们不懈的“训练和调教”，她不但学会了满嘴脏话，还发表了种族主义评论和煽动性的政治观点。三观非常不端正。比如：还有人教tay学习川普大叔的各种奇葩政策。Tay学会了说；we are going to build a wall， and Mexico is going to pay for it. 你说这种破坏世界和平的话怎么敢说的呢！微软真是怕怕的。

When spells replace spelling

Consumers and regulators also have a role to play in determining how voice computing develops. Even in its current, relatively primitive form, the technology poses a dilemma: voice-driven systems are most useful when they are personalised, and are granted wide access to sources of data such as calendars, e-mails and other sensitive information. That raises privacy and security concerns.

spells和spelling：题目用了一个词的两个意思来双关。Spell做动词表拼写，做名词表咒语。只有动词能加ing。所以这里是：用咒语代替拼写。

Even in its current = at this moment或者at present，这个用法大家可以多多学习。

primative = primary，初级的，基础的。

pose，raises 都是差不多的动词，表示提出。

dilemma：窘迫境地。这个单词源自希腊语“双重假定”的意思，其实也就是左右为难十分窘迫的意思。

对于任何一个新的产品来说，消费者和监管机构也扮演这一定的角色。在目前这种相对初级的阶段这个技术已经面临窘迫境地。至于这个窘迫境地到底是什么呢？这种语音系统想要发挥最大的作用，就得个人化并获得准许访问各种数据，这肯定就会涉及到隐私安全问题。

To further complicate matters, many voice-driven devices are always listening, waiting to be activated. Some people are already concerned about the implications of internet-connected micro-phones listening in every room and from every smartphone. Not all audio is sent to the cloud-devices wait for a trigger phrase (“Alexa”, “OK, Google”, “Hey, Cortana”, or “Hey, Siri”) before they start relaying the user's voice to the servers that actually handle the requests-but when it comes to storing audio, it is unclear who keeps what and when.

When it comes to……：当谈到……

看后面，哎呀，头疼，还有更复杂的问题。这些设备都在时刻倾听着等待被启动对吧，那么设想，你的房间装了很多这样的设备，那些联网的麦克风将会有什么样的影响。并非所有的声音都传到了云端，在开始将用户的语音传到真正处理用户指令的服务器之前，云端设备在等待一句触发指令。谁在何时记录了什么，我们并不清楚。

Police investigating a murder in Arkansas, which may have been overheard by an Amazon Echo, have asked the company for access to any audio that might have been captured. Amazon has refused to co-operate, arguing (with the backing of privacy advocates) that the legal status of such requests is unclear. The situation is analogous to Apple's refusal in2016 to help FBI investigators unlock a terrorist's iPhone; both cases highlight the need for rules that specify when and what intrusions into personal privacy are justified in the interests of security.

后面这段其实就是一个实例支撑，调查谋杀案的警察觉得echo可能无意中听到了凶案信息，但是亚马逊拒绝提供，这与苹果之前拒绝帮助FBI调查员解锁一名恐怖分子的iphone比较类似。两期案件都强调了需要制定法规明确什么时候为了保证公众安全，能够以何种方式介入个人隐私。这的确是一个很重要的问题，未来一定需要更完善的法律来管控这种信息入口。

但是最近维基解密爆出CIA监视监听各种智能设备，所以为何FBI说自己不能解锁iphone？

Consumers will adopt voice computing even if such issues remain unresolved. In many situations voice is far more convenient and natural than any other means of communication. Uniquely, it can also be used while doing something else (driving, working out or walking down the street). It can extend the power of computing to people unable, for one reason or another, to use screens and key-boards. And it could have a dramatic impact not just on computing, but on the use of language itself Computerised simultaneous translation could render the need to speak a foreign language irrelevant for many people; and in a world where machines can talk, minor languages may be more likely to survive. The arrival of the touchscreen was the last big shift in the way humans interact with computers. The leap to speech matters more.

虽然有上述种种的不便，但是消费者仍然选择语音识别机器，毕竟说话更方便些嘛，很简单的，开车健身或者走在路上使用，肯定是更为方便的，另外也可以惠泽不能够用触摸屏和键盘的障碍人士。还有其他领域的应用，比如计算机同声传译（这个还有待考证），目前的确出了很多实时语音翻译的软件设备等等，但是完全代替译员在国家重大场合上的传译作用还未可知，未来或许有一天能够实现，到时候人工智能也会更加的先进，也许小语种的译者更容易幸存下来，也许机器就能够完全替代人了。

其实语音智能识别技术说到底就是一种人工智能。人工智能果然是这个时代最热的话题。

我们不知道人工智能的未来到底是统治人类还是更好的为人类服务，但我们确定的是人工智能技术的极大发展一定会对社会产生极大的改变。但我们没法阻止这种进步，那么只能拥抱变化，努力把自己变成更牛逼的人才了。

如果有同学对人工智能也有兴趣，想要深度了解未来整个社会的商业生态会怎样被人工智能所改造，可以点击阅读原文，来听霞姐在一块听听平台上关于人工智能发展之路的分享。

英文原文：

http://econ.st/2iL7HZL

讲解：霞姐 / Tiassa / 魔力校花

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往期文章：

《Brexit——Doing it the hard way》

《Against Happiness》

《What do Donald Trump and Jack Ma have in common 》《Reality television：China’s transgender Oprah》

《Gender budgeting--The fiscal mystique》

想听听霞姐关于人工智能的分享，戳这里！