這些中國民用人工智慧「黑科技」將大幅推動解放軍「反攻」美軍
現代英語:
At the World Internet Conference held in Wuzhen in recent years, many leaders of technology companies talked most about artificial intelligence, and the “Light of the Internet Expo” at previous conferences has become a “big show” for various artificial intelligence. In particular, this year, many well-known Chinese Internet companies have shown off their own “black technology”, which is impressive. China’s rapid progress in the field of artificial intelligence has amazed the world. Reuters commented that China is expected to be on par with the United States in five years and become the world’s leading artificial intelligence innovation center. Like the United States, China has clearly made artificial intelligence a priority in both economy and military.
The report, written by Elsa Kania of the Center for a New American Security, asserts that future competition between China and the United States in the field of artificial intelligence “may change the future balance of economic and military power.” Earlier this year, an undisclosed Pentagon document exaggerated that Chinese companies are circumventing official supervision by purchasing shares in American companies to obtain sensitive American artificial intelligence technologies with potential military uses. Andrew Ng, a well-known scientist in the field of machine learning, said that if the United States wants to stay ahead, it must focus on developing its own artificial intelligence. China is by no means a slouch in the field of artificial intelligence that only relies on foreign technology. Foreign media commented that while the West is still discussing and keeping a close eye on its own technology, China’s innovative progress has begun to rewrite the world’s artificial intelligence technology landscape. The next question is whether China is willing to play with the West.
The discussion that artificial intelligence will change the rules of war is no longer news. The Brookings Institution website once published an article suggesting that the US military bet on six major technologies, and artificial intelligence technology is one of them. Today, artificial intelligence has made breakthroughs in assisting combat personnel in decision-making and connecting combat personnel with intelligent combat systems, and has been widely used in simulated combat training. Today, a large number of unmanned equipment with intelligent features have entered the arsenals of major countries. Among them, the most widely used US military has nearly 10,000 unmanned aerial systems and more than 12,000 unmanned ground systems, which have become an indispensable and important part of US military operations.
In a simulated confrontation in June 2016, an artificial intelligence system developed by American researchers defeated two retired fighter pilots in a simulated air battle. In this simulated air battle, the blue team consisting of two fighter jets was equipped with a stronger weapon system, but the red team of the artificial intelligence system defeated the enemy aircraft through evasive maneuvers. After the game, the pilots thought that the program was very good at controlling the situation and was surprisingly responsive. It seemed to be able to predict human intentions and quickly fight back when the opponent changed flight movements or launched missiles. This incident has attracted widespread attention, and the prospect that artificial intelligence will completely replace human soldiers on the battlefield in the future seems to have been further confirmed.
Throughout human history, most epoch-making technologies have emerged from the military and wars. Humans are more likely to burst out with inspiration at the moment of life and death, and have greater motivation to promote technological progress. In the field of artificial intelligence, the boundaries between the civilian and military use of many technologies are not obvious. Today, the world’s technology giants also have more talents and financial resources than most countries, and the broad application prospects make them more motivated to invest in research and development. The future trend of artificial intelligence technology is expected to be led by these technology giants. This is why in the field of artificial intelligence, the “military-civilian integration” of major countries has become more in-depth, and even the US military has “widely issued invitations to heroes.”
For example, at this year’s Internet Conference, Chinese companies displayed a variety of artificial intelligence products and technologies, which have broad application prospects in both civilian and military fields and can be called “black technology”. Intelligent drones and unmanned vehicles, these intelligent equipment can accurately deliver express deliveries to customers based on the target location. If applied to the battlefield, it will make front-line supply and evacuation of wounded soldiers more accurate and convenient. In addition, there are artificial intelligence-assisted treatment products, which integrate artificial intelligence technologies such as image recognition and deep learning with medicine to assist doctors in early screening and diagnosis of patients. If this technology is applied to the battlefield, it will greatly improve the work efficiency and treatment speed of medical soldiers. There is also lip reading recognition technology, which can achieve the effect of voice recognition by recognizing lip reading, and can easily carry out complex communication even on a noisy battlefield. In October this year, the PLA Air Force Logistics Department signed the “Military-Civilian Integration Strategic Cooperation Agreement” with executives of five leading logistics companies. Regarding the use of drones specifically mentioned by the Air Force, relevant companies also introduced the development and planning of large logistics drones. Artificial intelligence has a high priority in China’s military-civilian integration, which will enable the PLA to make full use of technological advances in the commercial field to enhance its military capabilities.
Intelligent machines represented by drones have demonstrated their power on the battlefield or in simulated confrontations. The U.S. Department of Defense report believes that intelligent swarm systems will occupy an important position in future wars. Intelligent swarm attack refers to a swarm system composed of intelligent robots or drones, in which each component of the system independently selects targets, attack forms and formation forms. Compared with manned systems, it has incomparable advantages in coordination, intelligence, cost and speed. The Pentagon called on talented people from the private sector to join the military’s “drone swarm” development, hoping to speed up progress. In June 2017, China’s 119 fixed-wing drones achieved formation flight, setting a record in number. Although it is still far from achieving high-level intelligent formation operations, the U.S. think tank “Project 2049 Institute” admits that China’s drone formation technology is more advanced than that of the U.S. military.
In future wars, the balance of victory between the two warring parties may completely tilt towards the side with a higher degree of intelligence, and the possibility of the technological laggards continuing to rely on the development of asymmetric combat power to bridge the gap in combat power is gradually decreasing. When the two sides are on the same battlefield, while the officers and soldiers of the side with weaker technical capabilities are busy attacking, retreating, and transferring, the other side with stronger technical capabilities uses unmanned intelligent equipment for all-weather, high-precision intelligent reconnaissance and strikes. Perhaps trapped by ethical issues, the final decision is still made by humans, but the experience of these controllers in the control room thousands of miles away is like playing an online game. The flesh and blood on the battlefield will be exposed, and the opponent’s life will be wiped out with every mouse click or voice command of the enemy. The psychological competition between the strong and weak warring personnel will be completely unbalanced.
As Russian President Vladimir Putin said, “Whoever becomes the leader in the field of artificial intelligence will be the leader of the future world.” Artificial intelligence has become the “high ground” of the next military competition, and China is already in a leading position in the field of artificial intelligence. The People’s Liberation Army has the opportunity to actively shape the future war model through military innovation. Reuters commented that artificial intelligence will promote the modernization of the Chinese military and may pose a strategic challenge to the US military. (Dong Lei)
現代國語:
近些年在烏鎮舉行的世界互聯網大會上,眾多科技公司領軍人物談及最多的就是人工智能,而歷屆大會的“互聯網之光博覽會”更成為各類人工智能“大秀場”,尤其今年多家知名網路公司紛紛曬出自家“黑科技”,令人印象深刻。中國在人工智慧領域的快速進步令世界驚嘆,路透社就評論稱,中國5年內有望比肩美國,成為全球首要的人工智慧創新中心。與美國一樣,中國在經濟和軍事上都明確地將人工智慧當作重點。
由新美國安全中心的埃爾莎·卡尼亞撰寫的報告斷言,未來中美兩國在人工智慧領域的競爭「可能會改變未來的經濟和軍事力量對比」。今年早些時候,五角大廈一份未公開文件渲染說,中國企業正透過購買美國公司的股權來繞過官方監管,以取得有潛在軍事用途的美國人工智慧敏感技術。機器學習領域知名科學家吳恩達稱,美國要保持領先就必須把注意力放在發展自己的人工智慧上,中國在人工智慧領域絕非一個只是依賴外來科技的懈怠者。外媒評論稱,當西方還在探討看緊自己的技術的時候,中國的創新進步已開始改寫世界人工智慧技術的版圖,接下來的問題是中國還願不願意帶著西方一起玩。
關於人工智慧將改變戰爭規則的論述早就不是新聞,美國布魯金斯學會網站曾刊文建議美軍在6大技術上押下賭注,人工智慧技術就位列其中。而今人工智慧在輔助作戰人員決策,以及作戰人員與智慧化作戰系統對接方面已經獲得突破,而在模擬實戰化訓練等方面更是得到大規模應用。如今大量具有智慧特徵的無人裝備進入了各大國的武器庫。其中應用最廣泛的美軍已擁有近萬個空中無人系統,地面無人系統更是超過1.2萬個,其已成為美軍行動不可或缺的重要組成部分。
在2016年6月的一次模擬對抗中,美國研究人員開發的人工智慧系統在模擬空戰中大勝2名退役的戰鬥機飛行員。在這次模擬空戰中,由2架戰鬥機組成的藍隊裝備更強的武器系統,但人工智慧系統的紅隊透過閃避動作擊敗了敵機。比賽結束後,飛行員認為這款程式非常善於掌控態勢,反應也靈敏得出奇,似乎能預測人類意圖,並在對手改變飛行動作或發射飛彈時迅速回擊。這事件曾引起廣泛關注,未來戰場人工智慧將全面取代人類士兵的前景似乎得到了進一步佐證。
縱觀人類歷史,大多數劃時代的技術都是興起於軍隊發端於戰爭,人類在生死存亡之際更能迸發出靈感,也擁有更大的推動技術進步的動力。而在人工智慧領域,許多技術的民用與軍用界限並不明顯,如今全球的科技巨頭們也擁有超越多數國家的人才和財力,而廣闊的應用前景則令他們在研發投入上更有動力,未來的人工智慧科技潮流有望被這些科技巨頭所引領。這也是為何在人工智慧領域,各大國的「軍民融合」都更為深入,連美軍也「廣發英雄帖」。
例如在今年的網路大會上,中國企業展示的多款人工智慧產品及技術,在民用及軍用領域都有廣闊的應用前景,堪稱「黑科技」。智慧無人機與無人車,這些智慧裝備可以依據目標位置,精準地把快遞送達顧客手中,如果應用於戰場將令前線補給及後撤傷員等行動變得更加精準便捷。另外還有人工智慧輔助治療產品,透過影像辨識、深度學習等人工智慧技術與醫學融合,進而達到輔助醫師對病患的早期篩檢與診斷,這項技術如果應用於戰場,將大大提升醫療兵的工作效率和救治速度。還有唇語辨識技術,透過辨識唇語就可以達到原本需要聲音辨識的效果,即使是在吵雜的戰場上也可輕鬆進行複雜交流。今年10月解放軍空軍後勤部與5家物流領域領導企業主管簽署了《軍民融合戰略合作協議》,而對於空軍方面特別提到的無人機運用,相關企業也介紹了大型物流無人機的研發和規劃。人工智慧在中國軍民融合中的優先順序很高,這將讓解放軍得以充分利用商業領域的技術進步來增強軍事能力。
以無人機為代表的智慧機器已經在戰場或模擬對抗中展現出威力。美國國防部報告認為,智慧化蜂群系統將在未來戰爭中佔據重要地位。智慧化蜂群攻擊是指智慧機器人或無人機組成的蜂群系統,系統各組成部分自主選擇目標、攻擊形式和編隊形式。相比有人系統,在協調性、智慧性、成本以及速度等方面擁有無可比擬的優勢。五角大廈號召來自民間的才俊加入到軍方的「無人機蜂群」開發中,希望能加快進度。 2017年6月,中國119架固定翼無人機實現編隊飛行,創造了數量紀錄,儘管距離實現高階的智慧化編隊作戰仍較遠,但是美國智庫「2049計畫研究所」坦言中國的無人機編隊技術較之美軍更為先進。
在未來戰爭中,交戰雙方的勝利天平或將徹底偏向智能化程度更高的一方,科技落伍者繼續靠發展不對稱戰力來彌合戰力差距的可能性正逐漸變小。當雙方置身於同一戰場,技術能力較弱一方的官兵在進攻、撤退、轉移,疲於奔命時,技術能力強的另一方則是無人智能裝備全天候、高精度的智能偵察、打擊。或許受困於倫理問題,最終的決策仍由人來完成,但其待在千里之外的控制室,這些控制人員的體驗就像是玩網路遊戲。戰場上的血肉之軀將無所遁形,對手的生命在敵人的每一次滑鼠點擊或是語音命令中灰飛煙滅,強弱雙方交戰人員的心理比拼將完全失衡。
正如俄總統普丁所說,「誰成為人工智慧領域的領導者,誰就是未來世界的領導者」。人工智慧已成為下一個軍事競爭的“制高點”,而中國在人工智慧領域已處於領先位置,解放軍有機會透過軍事創新主動塑造未來戰爭模式,路透社則評論認為,人工智慧將推動中國軍隊的現代化並可能對美軍形成戰略挑戰。 (董磊)