2020年经济学人 空战--虚拟小牛(2)

Though dogfighting practice, like parade-ground drill and military bands, is a leftover¹ from an earlier form of warfare² that still serves a residual³ purpose, the next phase of DARPA's ACE⁴(AIr combat evolution) project belongs firmly in the future, for it will require the piloting programs to control two planes simultaneously⁵. Also, these virtual aircraft will be armed with short-range missiles rather than guns. That increases the risk of accidental fratricide, for a missile dispatched towards the wrong target will pursue it relentlessly⁶. Tests after that will get more realistic still, with longer-range missiles, the use of chaff⁷ and flares⁸, and a requirement to deal with corrupt⁹ data and time lags of a sort typical of real radar¹⁰ information.

尽管空战像阅兵式地面演练和军乐队那样是旧战争的残留物，但它仍有其残存的作用。未来DARPA的“空战进化(ACE)”项目将要进入下一阶段，届时会要求飞行员同时控制两架飞机。此外，这些虚拟飞机将配备短程导弹而不是枪炮，这增加了意外发生自相残杀的风险，因为朝错误目标发射的导弹会无情地追击敌人。之后的测试还将更加真实，包括远程导弹、箔条和信号弹的使用以及处理一种真实雷达信息典型的数据破坏和时间滞后的要求。

The point of all this, putative¹¹ Top Guns should be reassured¹², is not so much to dispense¹³ with ilots as to help them by "a redistribution of cognitive¹⁴ workload¹⁵ within the cockpit", as Colonel Javorsek puts it. In theory, taking the pilot out of the plane lets it manoeuvre¹⁶ without regard for the impact of high g-forces on squishy humans. An uncrewed plane is also easier to treat as cannon-fodder. Still, most designs for new fighter jets have not done away with cockpits. For example, both of the rival European programmes—the British-led Tempest and the Franco-German-Spanish Future Combat Air System (FCAS)—are currently "optionally manned". There are several reasons for this, explains Nick Colosimo, a lead engineer at BAE Systems, Tempest's chief contractor¹⁷.

那些“空中英豪们”应该放下心来，因为正如亚沃尔塞克上校所说，所有这一切的意义并不在于撤掉飞行员，而在于通过“重新分配驾驶舱内的认知负荷”来为他们提供帮助。理论上说，让飞行员离开飞机就是在无需考虑高重力对软绵绵的人体的影响的情况下来操纵飞机。一架无人飞机也更容易被当作炮灰。尽管如此，大多新型战斗机的设计里并没有去掉驾驶舱。例如，欧洲的两个竞争项目——英国主导的“害虫”和法国-德国-西班牙的未来作战空中系统(FCAS)——目前都是“可选载人”的。对此有几点原因，“害虫”的总承包商、BAE系统的首席工程师尼克·科洛西莫解释说。

One is that eliminating the pilot does not provide much of a saving. The cockpit plus the assorted¹⁸ systems needed to keep a human being alive and happy at high altitude—cabin pressure, for example—contribute only 1-2% of a plane's weight. A second is that even AI systems of great virtuosity¹⁹ have shortcomings. They tend not to be able to convey how they came to a decision, which makes it harder to understand why they made a mistake. They are also narrowly trained for specific applications and thus fail badly when outside the limits of that training or in response to "spoofing" by adversaries²⁰.

第一点是撤掉飞行员节省不了多少钱。在高海拔环境下(比如机舱压力)，驾驶员座舱和各种系统只占飞机重量的1-2%。第二点，即便是技术精湛的人工智能系统也有缺点。他们通常无法表达自己是如何做出决定的，这使得人们更难理解他们犯错的原因。它们还为特定的应用进行了严格的训练，所以当情况超出了训练的范围或者应对敌方的“诈术”时，它们会败得很惨。

An example of this inflexibility²¹ is that, at one point in the AlphaDogfight trials, the organisers threw in a cruise missile to see what would happen. Cruise missiles follow preordained flight paths, so behave more simply than piloted jets. The AI pilots struggled with this because, paradoxically, they had beaten the missile in an earlier round and were now trained for more demanding threats. "A human pilot would have had no problem," observes Chris DeMay, who runs the APL's part of ACE. "AI is only as smart as the training you give it."

这种僵化的一个例子是，在“阿尔法空战”的庭审中，组织者曾投了一枚巡航导弹看看会发生什么。巡航导弹遵循预定的飞行路线，表现得比人工驾驶飞机更为简单。而这种情况对人工智能飞行员来说会很棘手，因为它们在之前的回合中已经击败了导弹，现在它们被训练应对的是更为严峻的威胁，这很矛盾。“人类飞行员不会有任何问题，”负责空战进化(ACE)项目APL部分的克里斯·戴梅说。“人工智能的聪明程度取决于你给它的训练。”

1 leftover   

n.剩货，残留物，剩饭；adj.残余的

参考例句：

• These narrow roads are a leftover from the days of horse-drawn carriages.这些小道是从马车时代沿用下来的。
• Wonder if that bakery lets us take leftover home.不知道那家糕饼店会不会让我们把卖剩的带回家。

2 warfare   

n.战争(状态)；斗争；冲突

参考例句：

• He addressed the audience on the subject of atomic warfare.他向听众演讲有关原子战争的问题。
• Their struggle consists mainly in peasant guerrilla warfare.他们的斗争主要是农民游击战。

3 residual   

adj.复播复映追加时间；存留下来的，剩余的

参考例句：

• There are still a few residual problems with the computer program.电脑程序还有一些残留问题。
• The resulting residual chromatism is known as secondary spectrum.所得到的剩余色差叫做二次光谱。

4 ace   

n.A牌；发球得分；佼佼者；adj.杰出的

参考例句：

• A good negotiator always has more than one ace in the hole.谈判高手总有数张王牌在手。
• He is an ace mechanic.He can repair any cars.他是一流的机械师,什么车都会修。

5 simultaneously   

adv.同时发生地，同时进行地

参考例句：

• The radar beam can track a number of targets almost simultaneously.雷达波几乎可以同时追着多个目标。
• The Windows allow a computer user to execute multiple programs simultaneously.Windows允许计算机用户同时运行多个程序。

6 relentlessly   

adv.不屈不挠地；残酷地；不间断

参考例句：

• The African sun beat relentlessly down on his aching head. 非洲的太阳无情地照射在他那发痛的头上。
• He pursued her relentlessly, refusing to take 'no' for an answer. 他锲而不舍地追求她，拒不接受“不”的回答。

7 chaff   

v.取笑，嘲笑；n.谷壳

参考例句：

• I didn't mind their chaff.我不在乎他们的玩笑。
• Old birds are not caught with chaff.谷糠难诱老雀。

8 flares   

n.喇叭裤v.（使）闪耀( flare的第三人称单数 )；（使）（船舷）外倾；（使）鼻孔张大；（使）（衣裙、酒杯等）呈喇叭形展开

参考例句：

• The side of a ship flares from the keel to the deck. 船舷从龙骨向甲板外倾。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He's got a fiery temper and flares up at the slightest provocation. 他是火爆性子，一点就着。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

9 corrupt   

v.贿赂，收买；adj.腐败的，贪污的

参考例句：

• The newspaper alleged the mayor's corrupt practices.那家报纸断言市长有舞弊行为。
• This judge is corrupt.这个法官贪污。

10 radar   

n.雷达，无线电探测器

参考例句：

• They are following the flight of an aircraft by radar.他们正在用雷达追踪一架飞机的飞行。
• Enemy ships were detected on the radar.敌舰的影像已显现在雷达上。

11 putative   

adj.假定的

参考例句：

• There have been many attempts to track down the putative Loch Ness monster.人们为追踪假定存在的尼斯湖水怪做了许多努力。
• He is the putative father of this child.他是这孩子的推定的父亲。

12 reassured   

adj.使消除疑虑的；使放心的v.再保证，恢复信心( reassure的过去式和过去分词)

参考例句：

• The captain's confidence during the storm reassured the passengers. 在风暴中船长的信念使旅客们恢复了信心。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• The doctor reassured the old lady. 医生叫那位老妇人放心。 来自《简明英汉词典》

13 dispense   

vt.分配，分发；配(药)，发(药)；实施

参考例句：

• Let us dispense the food.咱们来分发这食物。
• The charity has been given a large sum of money to dispense as it sees fit.这个慈善机构获得一大笔钱，可自行适当分配。

14 cognitive   

adj.认知的，认识的，有感知的

参考例句：

• As children grow older,their cognitive processes become sharper.孩子们越长越大，他们的认知过程变得更为敏锐。
• The cognitive psychologist is like the tinker who wants to know how a clock works.认知心理学者倒很像一个需要通晓钟表如何运转的钟表修理匠。

15 workload   

n.作业量，工作量

参考例句：

• An assistant one day a week would ease my workload.每周有一天配一个助手就会减轻我的工作负担。
• He's always grousing about the workload.他总是抱怨工作量大。

16 manoeuvre   

n.策略，调动；v.用策略，调动

参考例句：

• Her withdrawal from the contest was a tactical manoeuvre.她退出比赛是一个战术策略。
• The clutter of ships had little room to manoeuvre.船只橫七竖八地挤在一起，几乎没有多少移动的空间。

17 contractor   

n.订约人，承包人，收缩肌

参考例句：

• The Tokyo contractor was asked to kick $ 6000 back as commission.那个东京的承包商被要求退还6000美元作为佣金。
• The style of house the contractor builds depends partly on the lay of the land.承包商所建房屋的式样，有几分要看地势而定。

18 assorted   

adj.各种各样的，各色俱备的

参考例句：

• There's a bag of assorted sweets on the table.桌子上有一袋什锦糖果。
• He has always assorted with men of his age.他总是与和他年令相仿的人交往。

19 virtuosity   

n.精湛技巧

参考例句：

• At that time,his virtuosity on the trumpet had no parallel in jazz.那时，他高超的小号吹奏技巧在爵士乐界无人能比。
• As chemists began to pry out my secret they discovered my virtuosity.化学家开始探讨我的秘密，他们发现了我的精湛技巧。

20 adversaries   

n.对手，敌手( adversary的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• That would cause potential adversaries to recoil from a challenge. 这会迫使潜在的敌人在挑战面前退缩。 来自辞典例句
• Every adversaries are more comfortable with a predictable, coherent America. 就连敌人也会因有可以预料的，始终一致的美国而感到舒服得多。 来自辞典例句

21 inflexibility   

n.不屈性，顽固，不变性；不可弯曲；非挠性；刚性

参考例句：

• One basic advantage of organization planning is avoidance of organizational inflexibility. 组织规划的一个基本优点就是可避免组织缺乏弹性。 来自辞典例句
• Allenda was brought down by his own incompetence and inflexibility. 阿连德之所以倒台，是由于他自己的无能和固执。 来自辞典例句