刚刚，现场辩论赛中IBM的AI快辩手输给人类辩手，屈居亚军

虽然IBM Project Debater AI系统在辩论赛上没有完全取胜，但业界给与了非常高的评价，认为这次人机辩论大赛具有分水岭的意义，IBM在认知智能领域取得重要进展，该新闻值得一读。小牛翻译了一下这篇CNN新闻报道。唯一人工干预的是在开放平台（https://NiuTrans.vip）增加了一条用户词条（源语：Project Debater，译文：Project Debater），为了保证文中IBM系统的名字Project Debater不用翻译成为中文，采用原英文名称，便于大家阅读。其他译文全部由小牛翻译自动生成，没有任何人工修改，可能存在一些翻译错误，仅供参考。

People are great at arguing. But a project from IBM shows that computers are getting quite good at it, too.

人们很擅长争吵。 但IBM的一个项目表明，计算机在这方面也变得相当出色。

On Monday, Harish Natarajan, a grand finalist in 2016's World Debating Championships, faced off against IBM's Project Debater — a computer touted by the company as the first artificial-intelligence system built to meaningfully debate humans. Natarajan won, but the computer demonstrated the increasingly complex arguments that AI is starting to make.

本周一，2016年世界辩论锦标赛决赛选手哈里什·纳塔拉詹与IBM的Project Debater展开了较量。IBM将Project Debater吹捧为首款用于人类辩论的人工智能系统。 Natarajan赢了，但电脑显示了人工智能开始提出的越来越复杂的论点。

Project Debater, which has been in the works since 2012, is designed to come up with coherent, convincing speeches of its own, while taking in the arguments of a human opponent and creating its own rebuttal. It even formulates its own closing argument. To generate its arguments and rebuttals, Project Debater uses newspaper and magazine articles from its own database, and also takes in the nuances of the human opponent's arguments. It is not connected to the internet and cannot crib arguments from sites like Wikipedia.

Project Debater.自2012年以来一直在开发中，旨在提出连贯、有说服力的演讲，同时吸收人类对手的观点，形成自己的反驳。 它甚至制定了自己的结案陈词。 为了产生它的论点和反驳，Project Debater使用它自己的数据库中的报纸和杂志文章，并吸收人类对手论点的细微差别。 它没有连接到互联网，不能抄袭来自维基百科等网站的论点。

Monday's debate, which was organized by nonprofit debate-hosting company Intelligence Squared US, was held in front of an audience in San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. The topic of the debate — whether or not preschool should be subsidized — wasn't revealed to the AI system or Natarajan until 15 minutes before they took to the stage. Project Debater argued in favor of subsidized preschool.

周一的辩论会由非营利性辩论会主办公司Intelligence Squared Us组织，在旧金山耶尔巴布埃纳艺术中心的观众面前举行。 辩论的主题-学前教育是否应该得到补贴-直到AI系统或Natarajan上台前15分钟才向他们透露。 一位项目辩论者支持资助学前教育。

It followed traditional debate style. Each side gave a 4-minute opening speech, then they each came up with a 4-minute rebuttal to the other party. At the end, they gave a 2-minute closing argument. The audience was asked to vote for one side or the other at the start of the debate and again at the end.

它遵循传统的辩论方式。 每一方都做了4分钟的开场白，然后每一方都提出了4分钟的反驳。 最后，他们进行了2分钟的结案陈词。 在辩论开始时和结束时，听众被要求投票支持一方或另一方。

"Greetings, Harish," Project Debater began, speaking in a mainly monotonous, female voice. It argued, among other things, that subsidized preschool can help break the poverty cycle. It spoke in complete sentences, and drew from a range of studies (including by the US Centers for Disease Control).

“你好，哈里什，”Project Debater开始用一种单调乏味的女声说话。 它认为，除其他外，受补贴的学前教育有助于打破贫困循环。 它用完整的句子说话，并借鉴了一系列的研究（包括美国疾病控制中心的研究）。

Natarajan followed, arguing against the resolution, saying subsidies would consume resources that middle-class families could use for other things. He also argued that subsidizing preschool doesn't mean that all children will be able to attend.

Natarajan随后反对这项决议，他说补贴会消耗中产阶级家庭可以用于其他事情的资源。 他还认为，补贴学前教育并不意味着所有的孩子都能上学。

"There will still be individuals who will be priced out because of the realities of the market," he said.

他说:“仍然会有一些人因为市场的现实而被出卖。”

The rebuttal segment of the debate was where some of the big differences between human and computer (beyond looks and vocal capabilities) were laid bare. Natarajan addressed specific parts of Project Debater's arguments and rebuffed them — such as saying it's unrealistic to expect a government has an unrestricted budget to put toward helpful programs.

辩论中的反驳部分暴露了人与计算机之间的一些巨大差异（超出了外表和发声能力）。 纳塔拉扬谈到了Project Debater论点中的一些具体部分，并予以回绝，比如他说，指望一个政府有一个不受限制的预算来实施有益的计划是不现实的。

Project Debater's rebuttal, while eloquently phrased, seemed more like a continuation of its initial argument than a true rebuttal of Natarajan's points. It saved its best counter arguments for its closing statement. While out of order, the elements of a proper debate all seemed present.

Project Debater的反驳虽然措辞雄辩，但似乎更像是其最初论点的延续，而不是对纳塔拉扬观点的真正反驳。 它把最好的反驳论据留到了最后发言中。 虽然没有秩序，但适当辩论的要素似乎都存在。

While waiting for the final vote, Natarajan said it was interesting that Project Debater could contextualize information and pull details from research. Combining its skills with those of a human, he said, "could be incredibly powerful."

纳塔拉詹说，在等待最后投票的同时，Project Debater能够将信息背景化，并从研究中提取细节，这很有意思。 他说，将它的技能与人类的技能结合起来，“可能会有不可思议的力量。”

Before the debate, 79 percent of the audience agreed that preschool should be subsidized and 13 percent disagreed. By the end, 62 percent of the crowd agreed and 30 percent disagreed. Because this style of debate is scored by which side gains the most percentage points, Natarajan took the win.

在辩论前，79%的听众同意学前教育应该得到补贴，13%的人不同意。 到最后，62%的人同意，30%的人不同意。 因为这种风格的辩论是得分的哪一方获得最多的百分点，纳塔拉扬取得了胜利。

Project Debater shows how AI systems have become increasingly flexible in recent years. The AI we're used to seeing — like digital assistants built into smart speakers — can only be used in very narrow ways, such as answering specific questions. But IBM's (IBM) system shows how the technology may also be used to explore problems that don't necessarily have a single answer. This might help people find new ways to work with computers, and to use AI to help us come up with more solutions to problems.

Project Debater展示了人工智能系统如何在最近几年变得越来越灵活。 我们习惯看到的人工智能——比如内置在智能扬声器中的数字助理——只能以非常狭隘的方式使用，比如回答特定的问题。 但是IBM的(IBM)系统展示了如何使用该技术来探索不一定有单一答案的问题。 这可能会帮助人们找到使用计算机的新方法，并使用人工智能来帮助我们提出更多的问题解决方案。

"It's really pushing the boundaries [of the] kinds of AI systems that are more interactive with us and can understand us better," IBM Research director Dario Gil said Monday on CNN's First Move.

IBM研究主管达里奥·吉尔周一在接受CNN采访时说:“这确实是在突破与我们互动更多、更能理解我们的人工智能系统的界限。”

文章来源：CNN新闻：https://edition.cnn.com/2019/02/11/tech/ai-versus-human-ibm-debate/index.html

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