外刊听读| 经济学人 机器人行业进步

Robotics

机器人科学

A cryin’, talkin’, sleepin’, walkin’, livin’ doll

一个哭泣，说话，睡觉，走路，活生生的玩偶

Robots that resemble human beings are getting rapidly better

人型机器人正在迅速进步

 

1 ASKED A QUESTION, Ameca fixes you with sapphire-blue eyes. Does that face contain a hint of a smile? “Yes, I am a robot,” is the reply. Another Ameca, standing nearby in a group of four, stares across inquisitively and tries to join in. “Currently, it’s the worst-ever party guest,” says Will Jackson, Ameca’s creator. “It butts in on every conversation and never shuts up.”

 

当被问及一个问题时，Ameca用宝蓝色的眼睛盯着你。这张脸是否含有一丝微笑？"是的，我是一个机器人，" Ameca回答道。另一个Ameca，站在附近的四人小组中，好奇地盯着对面，试图加入对话。"目前，它是有史以来最糟糕的聚会客人，"Ameca的创造者威尔-杰克逊说。"它会插嘴每一次谈话，而且从不闭嘴"。

 

2 Mr Jackson, boss of Engineered Arts, a small robotics company in Falmouth, south-west England, is trying to fix that problem. Those eyes contain cameras and the Amecas are being trained to recognise faces and decide who is paying attention or making eye contact during conversations. Teaching manners to robots in this way is another step in the long, complicated process of making humanlike machines that can live and work alongside people—and, importantly, do so safely. As Ameca and other robots show, great strides are being made towards this end.

 

杰克逊先生是英格兰西南部法尔茅斯的一家小型机器人公司Engineered Arts的老板，他正试图解决这个插嘴的问题。Ameca的眼睛含有摄像头，它们正在接受训练来识别人脸，并决定谁在关注谈话或者正在进行谈话，以此来与人们进行眼神交流。工程师们以这种方式向机器人传授礼仪，使人型机器人能够与人类一起生活和工作，这是在漫长、复杂过程中的一项进步。而且重要的是，这样能让人与机器人的相处更加安全。正如Ameca和其他机器人所显示的那样，人们正朝着这一目标大步迈进。

 

3 Some big boys are also moving into the business. On September 30th Elon Musk, boss of Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter, unveiled Optimus, a clunky, faceless prototype that walked hesitantly on stage and waved to the crowd. It was built from readily available parts. A more refined version, using components designed by Tesla, was then wheeled on. Although it was not yet able to walk, Mr Musk said progress was being made and that in volume production its price could fall to around $20,000.

 

be wheeled on 被推上.....

一些商业大亨也正在进入这个行业。9月30日，特斯拉、SpaceX和Twitter的老板埃隆·马斯克(Elon Musk)发布了Optimus，这是一个笨重的、没有面孔的原型机，在舞台上犹豫不决地走着，向人群挥手。它是用现有的零件制造的。随后，一个由特斯拉公司设计，更精致的版本被推上了舞台。虽然它还不能行走，但马斯克先生说，项目正在取得进展，在批量生产后，其价格可能会降至2万美元左右。

 

Every home should have one

每个家庭都应该拥有一个机器人

 

4 That is a tenth of the cost of a basic Ameca. Mr Jackson, who attended Optimus’s unveiling, agrees prices will come down with mass production. (He has sold 11 Amecas so far, and plans to open a factory in America to boost output.) But he wonders what, exactly, Mr Musk is proposing. The unveiling featured a video of Optimus moving parts in a Tesla factory. Yet car factories are already filled with the world’s most successful robots—transporting components around, welding and painting parts, and assembling vehicles. These robots do not look like people because they don’t need to.

 

Optimus相当于一个普通Ameca十分之一的成本。参加Optimus揭幕仪式的杰克逊先生同意这一说法，随着大规模生产，价格将会下降。(到目前为止，他已经卖出了11台Ameca，并计划在美国开设一家工厂以提高产量）。但他想知道，马斯克先生的计划到底是什么。揭幕式上播放了一段Optimus在特斯拉工厂中移动零部件的视频。然而，汽车工厂已经充满了世界上最成功的机器人--运输零部件、焊接、喷涂零件以及组装车辆。这些机器人看起来不像人类，因为它们不需要如此。

 

5 The reason for building humanoid machines, Mr Jackson maintains, is for tasks involving human interaction. With a bit of development Ameca might, for example, make a companion for an elderly person—keeping an eye on them, telling them their favourite television programme is about to start and never getting bored with having to make repeated reminders to the forgetful. To that end, Engineered Arts aims to teach its robots to play board games, like chess. But only well enough so that they remain fallible, and can be beaten.

杰克逊先生认为，制造人型机器人的原因是为了完成涉及人类互动的任务。例如，通过开发，Amela可以成为老年人的陪护—照料他们，告诉他们自己最喜欢的电视节目即将开始，并且永远不会对健忘的人感到厌烦。为此，Engineered Arts旨在教机器人玩棋类游戏，如国际象棋。但不会把它们教的太好，以保证它们仍然是会犯错误的，可以被人类打败。

 

6 To interact successfully with people, Mr Jackson asserts, a robot needs a face. “The human face is the highest bandwidth communications tool we have,” he observes. “You can say more with an expression than you can with your voice.” Hence Ameca’s face, formed from an electronically animated latex skin, is very expressive.

 

杰克逊先生断言，为了成功地与人互动，机器人还需要一张脸。"人脸是我们最高带宽的通信工具，"他说，"你用表情说的话比你用声音说的还要多。" 因此，Ameca的脸由电子驱动的乳胶皮肤形成，非常具有表现力。

 

7 Although the company, which has its origins in making animated figures for the entertainment industry, can construct highly realistic faces, Ameca’s phizog is designed deliberately to look how people might expect a robot from the world of science fiction to appear. It has a grey complexion, visible joints and no hair. It therefore avoids falling into the “uncanny valley”, an illusion that happens when an artificially created being shifts from looking clearly not human into something more real, but not quite real enough. At this point people feel disturbed by its appearance. Comfort levels rise again as similarity to a human becomes almost perfect.

 

尽管这家公司起源于为娱乐业制作动画人物，能够构建高度逼真的脸，但Ameca的练被刻意设计成人们期望的科幻世界中机器人的样子。它有一个灰色的皮肤，外露的关节、没有头发。因此，它避免落入 "恐怖谷"，这是一种错觉。当人造生物的外表努力模仿人类特征，但又不够逼真的时候，就会出现这种错觉。人们会对其外观感到不安。当与人类的相似性变得几乎完美时，人类对其的舒适度会再次上升。

 

8 Some roboticists do, however, seek such perfection. Besides assisting people, robots can also act as their avatar representatives. Ishiguro Hiroshi, director of the Intelligent Robotics Laboratory at Osaka University, in Japan, has built one in his own image. He recently unveiled another, which resembles Kono Taro, Japan’s digital minister. The idea is that people either speak through their avatar with their own voice, or through someone else’s voice modified to sound like them. Mr Kono’s avatar will, apparently, be used to stand in for the minister at public-relations functions.

 

然而，一些机器人专家确实在追求这种完美。除了协助人们，机器人还可以作为他们的化身。日本大阪大学智能机器人实验室主任石黑浩，已经按照自己的形象建造了一个机器人。他最近公布了另一个机器人，它类似于日本数字部长河野太郎。这个想法是，人们可以用自己的声音通过机器人化身来说话，也可以通过别人的声音修改成自己的声音。显然，河野先生的化身将用来在公共关系活动中代替自己的位置。

 

9 Though less humanlike, Ameca could work as an avatar, too. Its conversation is more compelling—a loquaciousness derived from an external AI program called a large language model, with which it interacts via Wi-Fi and the internet.

 

虽然不那么像人，但Ameca也可以作为一个化身。它的对话更加引人入胜--一种来自外部人工智能程序，称为大型语言模型，它通过Wi-Fi和互联网与人互动。

 

10 Engineered Arts is also working on hardware and software to allow the latest developments in computer vision to be incorporated quickly into its robots. And, as Mr Jackson readily admits, Ameca needs work in other areas, too. Asked if it can walk, the robot replies: “Unfortunately not, but I hope to soon. Until then I am bolted to the floor.” A set of experimental legs stands ready in a nearby corner.

 

Engineered Arts还在研究硬件和软件，以使计算机上的最新发展能够迅速融入机器人。而且，正如杰克逊先生欣然承认的那样，Ameca在其他方面也需要努力。当被问及它是否可以行走时，机器人回答说，"不幸的是，我不能行走，但我希望自己很快就能做到。在那之前，我被固定在地板上。" 一套实验腿已经在附近的角落准备好了。

 

Different strokes

不同的招数

 

11 Different companies are coming from different directions in their approaches to making humanoid robots. Mr Jackson, who was born into a family of artists involved in making automatons, gravitated naturally towards producing modern versions of them for the likes of theme parks, museums and the film industry. These have steadily evolved in sophistication. Some work as interactive guides. Others are used as research platforms by universities. During the covid lockdown, when business dried up, the firm threw all of its resources at developing Ameca, its most advanced model yet.

stroke

 

不同公司在制造人型机器人方面有不同的方向。杰克逊先生出生在一个从事机器人制造的艺术家家庭，他很自然地倾向于为主题公园、博物馆和电影产业等生产现代版本的机器人。这些机器人在复杂性方面有了稳步发展。有些是作为互动导游，还有一些被大学用作研究平台。在疫情封锁期间，当业务枯竭时，该公司将其所有资源用于开发Ameca，这是其迄今为止最先进的机器人。

 

12 Other developers, like Tesla, are able to organise far bigger efforts—but not always successfully, as the case of Honda, a Japanese carmaker, shows. At one point, Honda’s diminutive humanoid robot ASIMO (so named to honour Isaac Asimov, who wrote science-fiction stories about robots) was considered the world’s most advanced. The firm started work on this project in the 1980s, and although ASIMO could walk—albeit clumsily—interpret voice commands and move objects, Honda shut the project down in 2018 to concentrate instead on more practical forms of robotics, such as mobility devices for the elderly.

 

其他开发商，如特斯拉，能够组织更大的研发活动--但并不总是成功的，正如日本汽车制造商本田公司的案例所示。该公司的小型人型机器人ASIMO（名字为纪念机器人科幻小说作家艾萨克-阿西莫夫）一度被认为是世界上最先进的。该公司在20世纪80年代开始了这个项目的工作，虽然ASIMO可以行走--尽管很笨拙—能够理解语音命令和移动物体，但本田在2018年关闭了这个项目，转而专注于更实用的机器人技术形式，如辅助老年人行动的设备。

 

13 Some roboticists have turned a hobby into a business. Shadow Robot, in London, which makes one of the most dexterous humanlike robot hands available, traces its roots to hobbyists meeting in the attic of its founder’s home. Most outfits, however, have emerged from universities. One of the best known is Boston Dynamics, which began at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Atlas, its Hulk-like humanoid, has become an internet video sensation—running, jumping and performing backflips. But Atlas is principally a research project, too expensive to put into production. The company does sell a walking robot, but it is a four-legged one called Spot, which resembles a dog.

 

attic

outfit

atlas有地图集的意思

一些机器人学家已经把爱好变成了生意。伦敦的" Shadow Robot,"制造的是目前最灵巧的人型机器人手，其灵感源自业余爱好者们在其创始人家中的阁楼聚会。然而，大多数公司都是从大学中产生的。其中最著名的是波士顿动力公司，它始于麻省理工学院。它的巨型人形机器人Atlas的视频已经在互联网上引起了轰动—视频中的Atlas能够奔跑、跳跃和表演后空翻。但Atlas主要是一个研究项目，投入批量生产的成本太高。该公司确实还出售一种行走机器人，但它是一种四条腿的机器人，名为Spot，类似于一只狗。

 

14 One of a bipedal robot’s advantages is that it should be able to go wherever a person can. That includes navigating uneven surfaces and walking up and down steps. Digit, made by Agility Robotics of Corvallis, Oregon, is actually able to do this.

 

双足机器人的优势之一是，它理论上能去人能够到达的地方。这包括在不平坦的地表上行走和上下台阶。俄勒冈州科瓦利斯的Agility Robotics公司制造的Digit，能够在现实中做到这一点。

 

15 Digit is based on Cassie, a walking torso developed at Oregon State University using machine-learning studies of human locomotion. In May, it set a record as the fastest robot to run 100 metres. (It took 24.7 seconds, some way behind Usain Bolt’s 9.6.)

 

Digit以Cassie为基础，Cassie是俄勒冈州立大学利用对人类运动的机器学习研究而开发的一个行走躯干。5月，它创造了最快的机器人跑100米的记录。(它花了24.7秒，比尤塞恩-博尔特的9.6秒慢了一些）。

 

16 Unlike Cassie, Digit has a chest, arms and hands of a sort— though no fingers. In place of a head it has a lidar, an optical analogue of radar that builds up a three-dimensional model of the world around it using lasers. Digit is not designed to be humanoid, says Jonathan Hurst, Agility’s chief technology officer. It is, rather, a “human-centric” robot intended as a tool for people to use to achieve more things.

 

与Cassie不同的是，Digit有胸部、手臂和手，但没有手指。它有一个激光雷达，这是一种类似于雷达的光学设备，它通过激光建立起周围世界的三维模型，代替了头部。Agility公司的首席技术官乔纳森-赫斯特（Jonathan Hurst）说，Digit的设计不是为了成为人形。相反，它是一个 "以人为本 "的机器人，旨在帮助人们实现更多事情的工具。

 

17 One of Digit’s first roles is likely to be in a distribution centre run by an online retailer or freight company. Some already use automated goods-handling, but usually in areas fenced off to keep people out, in order to avoid injuries. Elsewhere, tasks remain labour-intensive. By being designed to work safely alongside people, Digit could start changing this—for instance, by moving and stacking crates (see picture). It might then progress to unloading trucks and subsequently graduate to making home deliveries, carrying items from van to doorstep. Ultimately, the aim is to be able to instruct the robot by talking to it.

 

Digit的第一个工作可能是在线上零售商或货运公司经营的配送中心。一些公司已经实现了自动化货物处理，但通常是在有围栏的地方，为了避免受伤，不让人员进入。在其他地方，运输任务仍然是劳动密集型的。通过设计，机器人可以与人类一起安全工作，Digit可以开始改变这种状况--例如，移动和堆放板条箱（见图）。然后，它可能会发展到卸载卡车货物，随后发展到送货上门，将物品从货车运到家门口。最终，公司的目标是能够通过与机器人对话来指导它行动。

 

18 Agility plans to produce Digit in volume by 2024. It is working with several big, though unnamed, delivery outfits, on ways in which Digit could collaborate safely with people. If the robot’s sensors detect someone it pauses and then navigates around them. Nevertheless, says Dr Hurst, it will soon acquire a simplified face to help signal its intentions. An animated set of eyes, for instance, will look in a particular direction to indicate which way it is heading, and a glance at someone will show it has noticed them.

 

Agility公司计划在2024年之前批量生产Digit。该公司正在与未透露姓名的几家大型快递公司合作，研究如何让Digit与人安全协作。如果机器人的传感器探测到有人，它就会暂停，然后在他们周围规划新路线。然而，赫斯特博士说，它很快就会开发一个简化的面部表情，以帮助表达机器人的意图。例如，一组眼睛动画表明机器人正在看向一个特定方向，以表明它的行进方向，而看一眼某人则表明机器人注意到了他们。

 

Do no harm

不造成伤害

 

19 Such safety systems will be needed for robots to interact successfully with people. At present, their use is governed mainly by standard safety and product-liability rules. Some argue, however, that special robot-specific laws will be required to ensure they are operated safely. As every sci-fi buff knows, Asimov laid out a set of these eight decades ago. 20 They are:

A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

 

要想让机器人成功地与人互动，就需要这样的安全系统。目前，它们的使用主要受安全标准和产品责任规则的制约。然而，一些人认为，将需要专门的机器人法律来确保它们的安全运行。每个科幻迷都知道，阿西莫夫在八十年前就制定了一套这样的法律。它们是：

机器人不得伤害人类个体，或者目睹人类个体将遭受危险而袖手不管。

机器人必须服从人给予它的命令，当该命令与第一定律冲突时例外。

机器人在不违反第一、第二定律的情况下要尽可能保护自己的生存。

 

21 But, as every sci-fi buff also knows, Asimov’s storylines often revolve around these laws not quite working as planned.

 

但每个科幻迷也知道，阿西莫夫的故事情节往往围绕着这些法则并不完全按照法则运作。

 

22 About his Digits, Dr Hurst says, “My opinion is that they are very safe. But we need real statistics and a regulatory environment to prove this.”

 

关于他的Digit机器人，赫斯特博士说："我的看法是，它们非常安全。但我们需要真实的统计数据和监管环境来证明这一点。"

 

23 For his part, Mr Musk said that Optimus would contain a device that could be used as an off switch if necessary. Although the robot itself would be connected to Wi-Fi, the switch would not, so that it was isolated to prevent remote interference.

 

马斯克先生则表示，Optimus将包含一个装置，可以在必要时作为关闭开关使用。虽然机器人本身会连接到Wi-Fi，但开关不会，这样机器人就可以独立运行，以防止远程信号干扰。

 

24 As far as the Amecas’ safety is concerned, Mr Jackson is taking an engineering approach. He observes that one reason human limbs avoid injuring others is by being both firm and floppy at the same time. Unfortunately, the small, powerful actuators needed to emulate this in robots do not yet exist. He is working on that, though, for it will be of little use teaching an Ameca social graces if it then commits the faux pas of bashing into you.

 

就Ameca的安全性而言，杰克逊先生正在采取一种工程方法。他观察到，人类肢体避免伤害他人的一个原因是同时具有坚硬和柔软。不幸的是，在机器人方面，模拟这种情况所需的小型、强大的驱动器还不存在。不过，他正在研究这个问题，因为如果Ameca失态撞上了其他人，那么教它社交礼仪就没什么用了。