2017 Sergey Brin’s Letters to Alphabet Shareholders

Refer To：《2017 Founders' Letter》。

“It was the best of times,

那是最美好的时光，

it was the worst of times,

那是最糟糕的时光，

it was the age of wisdom,

那是智慧的年代，

it was the age of foolishness,

那是愚蠢的年代，

it was the epoch of belief,

那是信仰的时代，

it was the epoch of incredulity,

那是怀疑的时代，

it was the season of Light,

那是光明的季节，

it was the season of Darkness,

那是黑暗的季节，

it was the spring of hope,

那是希望的春天，

it was the winter of despair ...

那是绝望的冬天...

既和又的白痴循环。

So begins Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities,” and what a great articulation it is of the transformative time we live in. We’re in an era of great inspiration and possibility, but with this opportunity comes the need for tremendous thoughtfulness and responsibility as technology is deeply and irrevocably interwoven into our societies.

这就是狄更斯《双城记》的开篇，它多么精妙地表达了我们所生活的这个变革时代。我们正处于一个充满巨大灵感和无限可能的时代，但与此同时，随着这一机遇而来的是对深思熟虑和责任感的迫切需求，因为科技已深刻且不可逆转地融入我们的社会。

Computation Explosion

计算爆炸

The power and potential of computation to tackle important problems has never been greater. In the last few years, the cost of computation has continued to plummet. The Pentium IIs we used in the first year of Google performed about 100 million floating point operations per second. The GPUs we use today perform about 20 trillion such operations — a factor of about 200,000 difference — and our very own TPUs are now capable of 180 trillion (180,000,000,000,000) floating point operations per second.

计算处理能力和潜力以应对重大问题的能力从未如此强大。近年来，计算成本持续大幅下降。我们在 Google 成立第一年使用的 Pentium II 每秒大约执行一亿次浮点运算。而如今我们使用的 GPU 每秒执行大约20万亿次此类运算——相差约20万倍——而我们自家的 TPU 现在每秒能够执行180万亿（180,000,000,000,000）次浮点运算。

Even these startling gains may look small if the promise of quantum computing comes to fruition. For a specialized class of problems, quantum computers can solve them exponentially faster. For instance, if we are successful with our 72 qubit prototype, it would take millions of conventional computers to be able to emulate it. A 333 qubit error-corrected quantum computer would live up to our name, offering a 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000x speedup.

即便是这些惊人的增幅，如果量子计算的承诺得以实现，也可能显得微不足道。对于一类特定的问题，量子计算机可以以指数级的速度解决问题。例如，如果我们在72量子比特原型上取得成功，用传统计算机来模拟它将需要数百万台。而一台333量子比特、经过错误校正的量子计算机将名副其实，其加速比可达10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000倍。

There are several factors at play in this boom of computing. First, of course, is the steady hum of Moore’s Law, although some of the traditional measures such as transistor counts, density, and clock frequencies have slowed. The second factor is greater demand, stemming from advanced graphics in gaming and, surprisingly, from the GPU-friendly proof-of-work algorithms found in some of today’s leading cryptocurrencies, such as Ethereum. However, the third and most important factor is the profound revolution in machine learning that has been building over the past decade. It is both made possible by these increasingly powerful processors and is also the major impetus for developing them further.

这次计算浪潮背后有几个因素在起作用。首先，当然是摩尔定律持续发挥作用，尽管传统指标如晶体管数量、密度和时钟频率等已放缓。第二个因素是需求的增长，这源自于游戏中先进图形的推动，以及令人惊讶的是，来自某些当今领先加密货币（如以太坊）中的 GPU 友好型工作量证明算法。然而，第三个也是最重要的因素是过去十年不断积累的机器学习革命。这既得益于这些日益强大的处理器，也成为推动其进一步发展的主要动力。

The Spring of Hope

希望之春

The new spring in artificial intelligence is the most significant development in computing in my lifetime. When we started the company, neural networks were a forgotten footnote in computer science; a remnant of the AI winter of the 1980’s. Yet today, this broad brush of technology has found an astounding number of applications. We now use it to:

人工智能的新春是我有生以来计算领域最重要的发展。当我们创立公司时，神经网络在计算机科学中几乎被遗忘，只是1980年代人工智能寒冬的一个注脚。然而，如今这项广泛的技术已找到了惊人数量的应用。我们现在用它来：

understand images in Google Photos;

理解 Google Photos 中的图像；

enable Waymo cars to recognize and distinguish objects safely;

使 Waymo 汽车能够安全地识别和区分物体；

significantly improve sound and camera quality in our hardware;

显著提升我们硬件中的音质和摄像质量；

understand and produce speech for Google Home;

理解并生成 Google Home 的语音；

translate over 100 languages in Google Translate;

在 Google Translate 中翻译超过100种语言；

caption over a billion videos in 10 languages on YouTube;

在 YouTube 上用10种语言为超过十亿个视频添加字幕；

improve the efficiency of our data centers;

提升我们数据中心的效率；

suggest short replies to emails;

为电子邮件建议简短回复；

help doctors diagnose diseases, such as diabetic retinopathy;

帮助医生诊断疾病，如糖尿病视网膜病变；

discover new planetary systems;

发现新的行星系统；

create better neural networks (AutoML);

创建更优的神经网络（AutoML）；

... and much more.

……以及更多。

Every month, there are stunning new applications and transformative new techniques. In this sense, we are truly in a technology renaissance, an exciting time where we can see applications across nearly every segment of modern society.

每个月都有令人惊叹的新应用和变革性的全新技术出现。从这个意义上说，我们正处于一场技术文艺复兴中，这是一个激动人心的时代，我们可以在现代社会几乎每个领域看到其应用。

However, such powerful tools also bring with them new questions and responsibilities. How will they affect employment across different sectors? How can we understand what they are doing under the hood? What about measures of fairness? How might they manipulate people? Are they safe?

然而，如此强大的工具也带来了新的问题和责任。它们将如何影响各个领域的就业？我们如何了解它们内部的工作原理？公平性又如何衡量？它们会如何操控人们？它们安全吗？

There is serious thought and research going into all of these issues. Most notably, safety spans a wide range of concerns from the fears of sci-fi style sentience to the more near-term questions such as validating the performance of self-driving cars. A few of our noteworthy initiatives on AI safety are as follows:

对于所有这些问题，都在进行严肃的思考和研究。最值得注意的是，安全问题涵盖了从科幻风格的自我意识恐惧到更近期的问题，比如验证自动驾驶汽车的性能等广泛关注点。我们在 AI 安全方面的一些重要举措如下：

Bringing Precision to the AI Safety Discussion

为 AI 安全讨论带来精准视角

DeepMind Ethics & Society

DeepMind 伦理与社会

PAIR: People+AI Research Initiative

PAIR：人机协同研究计划

Partnership on AI

AI 合作伙伴关系

I expect machine learning technology to continue to evolve rapidly and for Alphabet to continue to be a leader — in both the technological and ethical evolution of the field.

我预计机器学习技术将继续迅速发展，而 Alphabet 也将在该领域的技术和伦理演进上继续保持领先地位。

G is for Google

G 代表谷歌

Roughly three years ago, we restructured the company as Alphabet, with Google as a subsidiary (albeit far larger than the rest). As I write this, Google is in its 20th year of existence and continues to serve ever more people with information and technology products and services. Over one billion people now use Search, YouTube, Maps, Play, Gmail, Android, and Chrome every month.

大约三年前，我们将公司重组为 Alphabet，谷歌成为其子公司（尽管其规模远超其他部分）。在我写下这些时，谷歌已经存在20年，并不断为越来越多的人提供信息和科技产品及服务。如今，每个月有超过十亿人使用搜索、YouTube、地图、Play、Gmail、Android和Chrome。

This widespread adoption of technology creates new opportunities, but also new responsibilities as the social fabric of the world is increasingly intertwined.

这种技术的广泛应用创造了新的机遇，同时也带来了新的责任，因为世界的社会结构正变得日益紧密相连。

Expectations about technology can differ significantly based on nationality, cultural background, and political affiliation. Therefore, Google must evolve its products with ever more care and thoughtfulness.

对技术的期望因国籍、文化背景和政治立场而大相径庭。因此，谷歌必须以更加谨慎和深思熟虑的态度不断改进其产品。

The purpose of Alphabet has been to allow new applications of technology to thrive with greater independence. While it is too early to declare the strategy a success, I am cautiously optimistic. Just a few months ago, the Onduo joint venture between Verily and Sanofi launched their first offering to help people with diabetes manage the disease. Waymo has begun operating fully self-driving cars on public roads and has crossed 5 million miles of testing. Sidewalk Labs has begun a large development project in Toronto. And Project Wing has performed some of the earliest drone deliveries in Australia.

Alphabet 的宗旨是让新型科技应用能以更大的独立性蓬勃发展。虽然现在宣布这一战略已取得成功还为时过早，但我对此持谨慎乐观态度。就在几个月前，Verily 与 Sanofi 的联合企业 Onduo 推出了他们的首个产品，帮助糖尿病患者管理病情。Waymo 已经开始在公共道路上运营全自动驾驶汽车，并已累计测试超过500万英里。Sidewalk Labs 在多伦多启动了一项大型开发项目，而 Project Wing 则在澳大利亚进行了部分最早的无人机送货服务。

There remains a high level of collaboration. Most notably, our two machine learning centers of excellence — Google Brain (an X graduate) and DeepMind — continue to bring their expertise to projects throughout Alphabet and the world. And the Nest subsidiary has now officially rejoined Google to form a more robust hardware group.

各方之间仍保持着高度的协作。最值得注意的是，我们的两个机器学习卓越中心——Google Brain（从 X 毕业）和 DeepMind——继续将其专业知识应用于 Alphabet 及全球各项目中。而 Nest 子公司现已正式重新加入谷歌，组建更强大的硬件团队。

The Epoch of Belief and the Epoch of Incredulity

信仰的时代与怀疑的时代

Technology companies have historically been wide- eyed and idealistic about the opportunities that their innovations create. And for the overwhelming part, the arc of history shows that these advances, including the Internet and mobile devices, have created opportunities and dramatically improved the quality of life for billions of people. However, there are very legitimate and pertinent issues being raised, across the globe, about the implications and impacts of these advances. This is an important discussion to have. While I am optimistic about the potential to bring technology to bear on the greatest problems in the world, we are on a path that we must tread with deep responsibility, care, and humility. That is Alphabet’s goal.

科技公司历来对其创新所创造的机遇充满憧憬和理想主义。而从历史的长河来看，这些进步，包括互联网和移动设备，已为数十亿人创造了机遇，极大地改善了生活质量。然而，全球各地也在就这些进步的意义和影响提出非常合理且相关的问题。这是一个重要的话题。虽然我对利用科技解决世界上最重大问题的潜力持乐观态度，但我们走的这条路必须以深切的责任、谨慎和谦逊为前提。这正是 Alphabet 的目标。

Sergei B signature

Sergey Brin

President, Alphabet

2017 Sergey Brin’s Letters to Alphabet Shareholders

2017 Sergey Brin’s Letters to Alphabet Shareholders

热门主题

Related Articles

2014 Sergey Brin’s Letters to Alphabet Shareholders

2010 Sergey Brin’s Letters to Alphabet Shareholders

2011 Founders’s Letters to Alphabet Shareholders

2015 Founders’s Letters to Alphabet Shareholders

2005 Founders’s Letters to Alphabet Shareholders