双语阅读英语外刊精讲：互联网巨头在人工智能间的博弈

2018-10-30 09:23:00来源：酷学英语

　　双语阅读是英语学习爱好者的天堂，在双语阅读里，不仅可以了解英美当地文化、习俗，还可以掌握地道英语表达，提高英语综合能力。本期主题：新东方刘琦老师为大家带来《双语阅读英语外刊精讲：互联网巨头在人工智能间的博弈(附音频)》，与大家一起分享。更多双语阅读资料，可点击查看：《双语阅读：英语外刊阅读精讲汇总》

　　Google's hippocampus

　　DEEPMIND'S office is tucked away in a nondescript building next to London's Kings Cross train station. From the outside, it doesn't look like something that two of the world's most powerful technology companies, Facebook and Google, would have fought to acquire. Google won, buying DeepMind for ￡400m ($660m) in January 2014. But why did it want to own a British artificial-intelligence (AI) company in the first place? Google was already on the cutting edge of machine learning and AI, its newly trendy cousin. What value could DeepMind provide?

　　That question has become a little more pressing. Before October 2015 Google's gigantic advertising revenues had cast a comfortable shade in which ambitious, zero-revenue projects like DeepMind could shelter. Then Google conjured up a corporate superstructure called Alphabet, slotting itself in as the only profitable firm. For the first time, other businesses had their combined revenues broken out from Google's on the balance-sheet, placing them under more scrutiny. But understanding DeepMind's worth is not a simple financial question. Its value is deeper than that.

　　DeepMind's most immediate benefit to Google and Alphabet is the advantage it gives in the strategic battle that technology companies are waging over AI. It hoovers up talent, keeping researchers away from competitors like Facebook, Microsoft and Amazon. The Kings Cross office already houses about 400 computer scientists and neuroscientists, and there is talk of expanding that to 1,000.

　　Another boost to the mother ship comes in the form of prestige. DeepMind has reached the cover of Nature, a highly regarded academic journal, twice since it was acquired. Gigantic copies of the relevant covers adorn the walls of the office lobby. The first was for a video-game-playing AI programme the second for one that learned to play the ancient Asian board game of Go. Named AlphaGo for its parent, that software went on to make headlines around the world when it beat Lee Sedol, a South Korean champion, in March 2016.

双语阅读：英语外刊阅读精讲(附音频)