Five things you need to know about AI
Five things you need to know about AI
关于人工智能，你需要知道的五件事
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY At SXSW London last week I gave a talk called “Five things you need to know about AI,” in which I shared what I think are the biggest themes in AI right now. I pulled a few things from our first AI10 list, an annual guide to the most important trends in this buzzy world, but I also veered off on a number of tangents. In my half-hour slot, I tried to cover the key talking points that I think help to make sense of what’s going on in tech—and thus the economy—today. (I gave a talk with the same title at SXSW London last year with five different things you needed to know. A lot has happened since then!) So: This is how I’m thinking about AI midway through 2026. Let me know if you would pick different points!
执行摘要 上周在伦敦西南偏南（SXSW）大会上，我发表了一场题为“关于人工智能，你需要知道的五件事”的演讲，分享了我认为当前人工智能领域最重要的几个主题。我从中提取了一些内容，这些内容源自我们首份“AI10”榜单——这是一份针对这个热门领域最重要趋势的年度指南，但我也在演讲中发散探讨了许多其他话题。在半小时的演讲中，我试图涵盖那些我认为有助于理解当今科技界（进而理解经济界）现状的关键议题。（去年我在伦敦SXSW上也做过同名演讲，但当时列举的是另外五件需要知道的事。自那以后，发生了太多变化！）所以，这就是我在2026年中期对人工智能的思考。如果你有不同的观点，欢迎告诉我！
1. Strictly speaking, I didn’t need to show up to give this talk. Tongue in cheek? Maybe. But generative AI tools have already become mundane, used by millions to automate everyday office tasks (including producing and delivering talks). It’s no surprise that one of the biggest questions out there right now is what this all means for jobs. People are confused and scared. The frustrating answer is that despite the hype coming from the top about the potential for AI to join the workforce soon—and viral social media posts yelling that something big is happening—there is almost no data to say either way what kind of effect this technology will have on employment and the economy overall. That’s not to say it won’t have an impact, even a huge one, but it’s just too soon to tell. In theory, teams of agents working together toward common goals could become assembly lines for white-collar work, doing to offices this century what Henry Ford’s innovations did to factories in the 20th century. In theory. Because in order to know what will happen to jobs, we need to know what will happen inside the companies that create those jobs. But most companies are still figuring that out.
1. 严格来说，我根本不需要亲自到场来做这场演讲。 这是在开玩笑吗？也许吧。但生成式人工智能工具已经变得司空见惯，数百万人都在用它来自动化处理日常办公任务（包括撰写和发表演讲）。目前最大的疑问之一就是这一切对就业意味着什么，这并不令人惊讶。人们感到困惑和恐惧。令人沮丧的答案是，尽管高层大肆宣传人工智能即将加入劳动力大军的潜力，社交媒体上也充斥着关于“大事即将发生”的病毒式帖子，但几乎没有任何数据能说明这项技术对就业和整体经济到底会产生何种影响。这并不是说它不会产生影响，甚至可能是巨大的影响，但现在下结论还为时过早。理论上，朝着共同目标协作的智能体团队可能会成为白领工作的“流水线”，在本世纪对办公室产生的影响，就像亨利·福特在20世纪对工厂所做的那样。这只是理论上。因为要了解就业会发生什么，我们需要先了解那些创造就业岗位的公司内部会发生什么。但大多数公司目前仍在摸索之中。
2. AI is getting scary (for real this time). There have been scary stories about AI for years—claims that it will kill us all or bring about the end of civilization. There’s still a loud crowd of doomers, but those scenarios remain dystopian science fiction. What’s happened instead is that many of the worst near-term, real-world fears have come true. Take deepfakes, AI-generated images or videos of people doing things they didn’t actually do. Deepfakes have been used to incite violence, swing votes, and sow distrust. Trump’s White House is among those creating and publishing fake images. Many deepfakes are also used to abuse women and girls. One study found that 98% of deepfakes are pornographic and 99% involve women. Another concern is the rise of dangerous and delusional relationships with chatbots. Many people turn to chatbots to seek private advice and to feel heard. But there are now multiple lawsuits against AI companies alleging that the technology encouraged or aided suicides and other forms of self-harm. AI is also being used in warfare in new and worrying ways. LLMs are now giving advice, not just being used for analysis. One US defense official told my colleague James O’Donnell that you could now give a military chatbot a list of targets and ask which one to hit first. Anyone who uses AI knows that its output needs to be reviewed carefully. In fact-paced, high-stress active conflict, the risk that corners get cut is high.
2. 人工智能正变得可怕（这次是真的）。 多年来，关于人工智能的恐怖故事层出不穷——声称它会杀死我们所有人或导致文明终结。虽然仍有一群大声疾呼的“末日论者”，但那些场景依然属于反乌托邦科幻小说。现实中发生的情况是，许多最糟糕的短期、现实世界的担忧已经成真。以深度伪造（Deepfakes）为例，即通过人工智能生成的图像或视频，展示人们从未做过的事情。深度伪造已被用于煽动暴力、左右选票和播撒不信任。特朗普的白宫也是制造和发布虚假图像的机构之一。许多深度伪造内容还被用于虐待妇女和女童。一项研究发现，98%的深度伪造内容是色情性质的，其中99%涉及女性。另一个担忧是与聊天机器人之间危险且产生妄想的关系的兴起。许多人转向聊天机器人寻求私人建议并渴望被倾听。但目前已有针对人工智能公司的多起诉讼，指控该技术鼓励或协助了自杀及其他形式的自残行为。人工智能也正以新的、令人担忧的方式被用于战争。大语言模型（LLM）现在不仅用于分析，还在提供建议。一位美国国防官员告诉我的同事詹姆斯·奥唐奈，你现在可以给军事聊天机器人一份目标清单，并询问应该先打击哪一个。任何使用人工智能的人都知道，其输出结果需要仔细审查。在快节奏、高压力的实战冲突中，为了效率而忽略审查的风险极高。
3. A lot of people really hate AI. I checked out an anti-AI protest in London earlier this year and found a very broad mix of complaints. Banners proclaiming the end times bounced along to chants of “Stop the slop! Stop the slop!” Protests are getting more organized and drawing larger crowds. There’s pushback from fans of films and video games, who object to the use of generative AI in their favorite titles. In one notable case, the acclaimed 2025 game Clair Obscur was stripped of an award when the developers admitted to using AI in just one small, specific part of its production. And there’s the data center backlash. The US has more than 5,400 data centers and counting. With the energy demands of AI growing, people are unhappy about the environmental impact and their rising electricity bills. Activists are managing to stall development in a number of places. Regulation is becoming politically popular. Grassroots movements like QuitGPT have gained momentum. A small number have turned to violence; a few weeks ago somebody threw a Molotov cocktail at Sam Altman’s house. It’s not clear where all this leads. But the apocalyptic hype from tech leaders is not helping people stay calm.
3. 很多人真的讨厌人工智能。 今年早些时候，我在伦敦观察了一场反人工智能抗议活动，发现人们的抱怨五花八门。抗议者举着宣扬“末日降临”的横幅，高喊着“停止垃圾内容！停止垃圾内容！”（Stop the slop!）。抗议活动正变得越来越有组织，吸引了更多人群。电影和电子游戏粉丝也发起了抵制，他们反对在自己喜爱的作品中使用生成式人工智能。一个值得注意的案例是，备受赞誉的2025年游戏《Clair Obscur》在开发者承认仅在制作的一个小环节使用了人工智能后，被剥夺了奖项。此外，还有针对数据中心的强烈反对。美国目前拥有超过5400个数据中心，且数量还在增加。随着人工智能对能源需求的增长，人们对环境影响和不断上涨的电费感到不满。活动人士已成功在多个地区阻碍了相关开发。监管正变得在政治上广受欢迎。像“QuitGPT”这样的草根运动也获得了势头。极少数人甚至诉诸暴力；几周前，有人向萨姆·奥特曼（Sam Altman）的住所投掷了燃烧瓶。这一切将走向何方尚不清楚。但科技领袖们散布的末日炒作，并不能帮助人们保持冷静。
4. AI for science is a very big deal. It’s early days yet, but the potential for AI to help make a genuine and important scientific discovery is greater than ever. Google DeepMind has developed Co-Scientist, a multipurpose tool that can help researchers dig up and compare previous results, generate hypotheses, and devise experiments to test them. OpenAI told me this year that its North Star is the goal of building a fully automated researcher by 2028. Mathematicians are excited too. Fundamental math underpins many everyday technologies, from internet security to video streaming. The last few months have seen a string of claims that AI has cracked unsolved math problems. And software that can solve really hard math problems will be able—so the argument goes—to solve more general-purpose real-world problems too. What are the downsides? Some scientists are warning that an overreliance on AI tools could narrow the scope of research because scientists may choose problems that are most suited to AI assistance. There are also concerns that AI-assisted research will lead to a flood of inaccurate or fake results: science slop.
4. 人工智能助力科学是一件大事。 虽然还处于早期阶段，但人工智能帮助实现真正且重要的科学发现的潜力比以往任何时候都要大。谷歌DeepMind开发了“Co-Scientist”，这是一种多功能工具，可以帮助研究人员挖掘和比较过往研究结果、生成假设并设计实验进行验证。OpenAI今年告诉我，他们的“北极星”目标是在2028年前打造出一名全自动化的研究员。数学家们也感到兴奋。基础数学支撑着许多日常技术，从互联网安全到视频流媒体。过去几个月里，不断有消息称人工智能破解了未解的数学难题。而能够解决高难度数学问题的软件，按照逻辑推论，也将能够解决更多通用的现实世界问题。有什么负面影响吗？一些科学家警告说，过度依赖人工智能工具可能会缩小研究范围，因为科学家可能会倾向于选择那些最适合人工智能辅助的问题。此外，人们还担心人工智能辅助研究会导致大量不准确或虚假的成果涌现，即“科学垃圾”（science slop）。
5. AI is everywhere all at once. So where does that leave us? There are a lot of exciting things, a lot of worrying things, and a lot of hot air. It can be exhausting to keep up, and yet it all feels inescapable. Some people will tell you we’re in a race to the top; some will tell you we’re…
5. 人工智能无处不在。 那么，我们现在的处境如何？这里面既有很多令人兴奋的事，也有很多令人担忧的事，还有很多虚张声势的炒作。跟上这一切可能会让人精疲力竭，但又让人感觉无法逃避。有些人会告诉你，我们正处于一场通往巅峰的竞赛中；有些人则会告诉你，我们正……