李彦宏登上《时代》封面：他正帮中国在21世纪赢得胜利
北京时间1月19日，百度创始人、董事长兼CEO李彦宏登上最新一期《时代周刊》（亚洲版）封面。这是中国互联网企业家第一次登上该周刊封面。
文章中回顾了李彦宏创立百度的创业历程，并称目前的百度是仅次于谷歌的搜索引擎，在中国占有80%的市场份额，成为全球第四大网站。现在百度已经发展成为一个在中国只有社交媒体巨头腾讯和马云的在线购物帝国阿里巴巴才能媲美的600亿美元巨无霸。
Baidu's Robin Li is Helping China Win the 21st Century
百度李彦宏正在帮助中国赢得21世纪
When Robin Li looks back at the question now, he can laugh. But things were different in 1992, when the Baidu CEO was a tongue-tied[1] Chinese student applying for a computer-graphics graduate program in the U.S. The interviewing professor asked him, “Do you have computers in China?” It left the young man stunned. “I was very embarrassed,” says Li, 49, breaking into a grin from the penthouse office of his Beijing headquarters. “I thought, One day I'll demonstrate that China has a really powerful computer industry.”
如今的李彦宏在回想起当年别人问他的一个问题时，他尽可以一笑而过。然而在1992年他却并没有这样的底气。那一年，还没有成为百度CEO的李彦宏申请了一所美国大学的计算机图形学专业的研究生。面试他的教授向他提出了一个问题：“你在中国有计算机吗？”这样一个问题让年轻的李彦宏感到不知所措。现年49岁的他坐在位于北京的百度总部的办公室里，他在回忆起那一幕的时候表示：“我当时非常尴尬。我那时想，总有一天我要证明中国拥有非常强大的计算机产业。”
[1]tongue-tied：If you get tongue-tied, you find it difficult to express yourself, usually because you are nervous. （通常因紧张而）张口结舌的，说不出话的
Eight years later, he did. In 2000, Li founded Baidu, a search engine that today is second only to Google in popularity, and whose 80% market share in China makes it the world's fourth most popular website.
8年之后，他成功做到了这一点。2000年李彦宏创立了百度公司，如今它已经成为了世界上流行程度仅仅次于谷歌的第二大搜索引擎，百度在中国拥有80%的搜索市场份额，这也让百度成为了世界上流行程度排在第四名的网站。
The company, whose name derives from a 13th century Chinese poem, has grown into a $60 billion behemoth[2] rivaled in China only by social-media-focused conglomerate[3] Tencent and Jack Ma's online shopping empire Alibaba.Baidu Maps directs every Chinese motorist, Baidu search results enlighten every student. Nobody is asking Robin Li if computers exist in China anymore.
百度的名字来自于中国13世纪的一首宋词，如今的百度已经成为了市值600亿的互联网巨鳄，在中国的互联网市场上，它与马化腾的腾讯以及马云的阿里巴巴鼎足而立。百度地图为每一名中国的司机提供导航服务，百度搜索也启发了每一名中国的学生。如今，已经没有人再问李彦宏中国到底有没有计算机。
[2]behemoth：something that is extremely large and often extremely powerful 庞然大物；强大的事物
a grocery chain behemoth
大型连锁食品杂货店
[3]conglomerate：a company that owns several smaller businesses whose products or services are usually very different 联合大企业，企业集团
a financial/industrial conglomerate
金融／工业企业集团
In fact, what was once a land of cheap knockoffs[4] now has Silicon Valley losing sleep[5]. China has nurtured a third of the world's 262 tech “unicorns,” or private $1 billion startups, according to a recent report by the global consulting firm McKinsey. Alibaba's 2014 stock floating remains the biggest IPO* in history, valued at $25 billion.
在美国人眼中，中国曾经一度是充斥着廉价仿制品的国度，然而如今正是这个国家，已经开始让硅谷不可一世的大佬们愁到难以入眠。咨询机构麦肯锡最近发布的一份报告显示，在全世界所有262家科技独角兽企业（估值超过10亿美元的私有初创企业）中，有三分之一都来自中国。2014年阿里巴巴上市，到如今他们依然保持着科技行业内规模最大IPO的记录，这家公司在IPO后的市值当时是250亿美元。
[4]cheap knockoffs：(a cheaper copy of an expensive and popular product) 廉价仿制品
[5]lose sleep over/about sth：to worry about something 担心，忧
I wouldn't lose any sleep over what happened.
事已至此，我才不担心呢。
* 首次公开募股（Initial Public Offerings，简称IPO）是指一家企业或公司 （股份有限公司）第一次将它的股份向公众出售（首次公开发行，指股份公司首次向社会公众公开招股的发行方式）。
China is the world's largest e-commerce market, accounting for almost half of all global transactions by value, up from less than 1% just over a decade ago. Its big cities are verging on[6] a cashless society, where even steamed buns or rickshaw rides can be purchased with a flash of a smartphone QR code. It's a far cry from[7] when former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden scoffed[8] that the Middle Kingdom didn't innovate.
中国如今已经成为世界上最大的电子商务市场，全球几乎一半的电子商务交易量都来自中国，相比10年前的不到1%大幅上升。中国的大城市正在推行无现金社会的发展，在大街上买个包子或是坐个三轮车都可以通过用手机扫码进行支付。前美国副总统乔·拜登曾经嘲讽中国没有创新，但是这个评价早已经无法适用于现在的中国。
[6]verge on sth：to be almost a particular state, quality, or feeling, especially one that is very bad or very good 接近；濒临
[7]be a far cry from sth：to be completely different from something 和…相去甚远，与…大相径庭
[8]scoff：to laugh and speak about a person or idea in a way that shows that you think they are stupid or silly 嘲笑，讥笑
China has now set its sights on the next tech frontier: artificial intelligence. On July 20, China's State Council issued a Next Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan to become the “premier global AI innovation center” by 2030, when it predicts China's core AI industry will be worth $148 billion, with AI-related fields at $1.48 trillion.
现在的中国已经将目标瞄准在下一个科技前线之上：人工智能。去年7月20日，中国国务院发布了新一代人工智能发展规划的通知，提出要让中国在2030年前成为“世界主要人工智能创新中心”，国务院预计中国的核心人工智能产业的规模将会达到1480亿美元，而与人工智能相关的产业规模将会达到1.48万亿美元。
China already rivals the world's leading developed nations by spending 2.1% of its $11.2 trillion GDP on research and development. At November's Artificial Intelligence and Global Security Summit in Washington, Eric Schmidt, then executive chairman of Google parent Alphabet, predicted China's AI prowess will overtake the U.S. within a decade. “By 2030, they will dominate the industries of AI,” he said. Russian President Vladimir Putin recently said that whoever masters AI will become “ruler of the world.”
当前中国已经开始了与发达国家之间的竞争，在全部11.2万亿美元的GDP中，中国花费其中的2.1%用于研发之上。去年11月，人工智能与全球安全峰会在华盛顿举行，会上谷歌母公司Alphabet CEO埃里克·施密特（Eric Schmidt）预计，中国的人工智能实力将在10年内超越美国。他表示：“到2030年，他们（中国）将会统治人工智能产业。”俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔·普京（Vladimir Putin）最近也表示，无论谁掌握了人工智能，都将会成为“世界的统治者”。
No one in China takes this challenge more seriously thanRobin Li. Some $1.2 billion of his firm's $9 billion revenue over the first three-quarters of 2017 was put back into R&D, according to published accounts–much of it into AI.
在中国，没有哪个人在发展人工智能这个挑战上比李彦宏更上心。百度已公布的会计报表显示，2017年前三季度，百度公司的总营收为90亿美元，其中12亿美元被百度用于研发。而在所有的研发工作中，大部分都是人工智能方面的研发。
He believes Baidu can dominate the global market for AI by harnessing China's greatest advantage: scale. At a basic level, AI systems replicate human learning based on empirical data: whether driving patterns, financial behavior or the true intention behind a slurred voice command. The more data, the better trained the algorithm–giving a company that serves the world's most populous nation an obvious leg up[9]. “[China is] a very large and uniform market,” Li says. “Everyone speaks the same language; they all obey the same law.”
李彦宏认为，百度能够统治全球的人工智能市场，要想做到这一点，他们需要利用好中国最大的优势：规模。从最基本的层面来看，人工智能系统能够凭借经验数据模仿人类的学习能力：例如驾驶习惯、财务行为以及语音命令之后的真实意图等等。数据越多，就越能更好地训练算法，为这个服务于世界上人口最多的国家的公司提供显而易见的优势。李彦宏表示：“中国是一个巨大而且统一的市场。所有人说着相同的语言；所有人都遵守着相同的法律。”
[9]give sb a leg up：to help someone to improve their situation, especially at work 帮助（某人）提高，帮（某人）一把
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But in fact, business thrives inside the firewall's confines–on its guardians' terms, of course–and the restrictions have not appeared to stymie[10] progress. The central government in Beijing has a fearsome capacity to get things done and is willing to back its policy priorities with hard cash. The benefits for companies willing or able to go along with its whims are clear. The question for Baidu–and for Li–is how far it is willing to go.
中国的科技和互联网市场一片欣欣向荣，即使监管也没有阻止创新的涌现。中国政府如果想要做成一件事情，愿意用真金白银与政策倾斜为做成这件事提供支持。毫无疑问，同样想要做成这件事的企业能够从中得到许多好处。现在对于百度和李彦宏来说，最大的问题是：他们愿意走多远。
[10]stymie：to prevent something from happening or someone from achieving a purpose 阻止，妨碍，阻挠
A trip in Baidu's self-driving car is not yet a comfortable ride. When TIME took a test drive around the Baidu campus, potential obstacles like trash cans or parked cars caused the vehicle to regularly jolt to a halt. The car is far from road-ready: there's a clumsy spinning radar on the roof and a trunk full of whirring gadgetry. Still, Baidu's driverless-car platform, Apollo, has been adopted by 130 independent manufacturers, testament to what Baidu has achieved in the field.
当前百度的无人车还无法给你带来舒适的乘车体验。《时代》杂志曾经在百度总部体验过他们的无人车，垃圾桶、停在路边的其他车辆等障碍物会让百度无人车时不时的停下来。百度的无人车离实际开上道路还要有很长一段时间：现在车顶上还安放着一个硕大的旋转雷达，后备箱里放着大量呼呼作响的电子仪器。然而尽管如此，百度的无人驾驶平台阿波罗仍然被130个独立生产商所接受，他们都想要知道百度在这个领域取得了什么样的成就。
The company has launched voice-recognition software, DuerOS, which it says recognizes Mandarin Chinese more reliably than a human being does. Its AI-driven facial-recognition software is so advanced, it is being used to reunite missing children with their parents by digitally aging and matching photographs. On Jan. 8, Baidu was ready to unveil Apollo 2.0, which enables autonomous driving on simple urban roads, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Baidu's message at the event said it all: “AI is changing the world, at China speed.”
百度还发布了语音识别软件DuerOS，百度宣称这个软件识别普通话的能力甚至比人类自己更可靠。该公司的人工智能面部识别软件也十分先进，如今它已经被用来寻找丢失儿童，让这些孩子与自己的亲生父母得以团聚。今年1月8日，百度在CES上发布了阿波罗2.0（Apollo 2.0）无人驾驶平台，百度表示新技术能让无人驾驶汽车在简单的城市道路内进行行驶。在本次活动上，百度给外界传递了一个信息：人工智能正在改变世界，而人工智能在以中国速度进行发展。
“Our vision is that humans can interact with all devices using human language,” says Li. “The difference between humans and animals is that humans can use tools. Over the past 100,000 years, whatever tools you invent you have to learn how to use. In the future, you won't need to do that–tools will learn how to understand human language, human intentions. That's the future.”
李彦宏表示：“我们的愿景是，人类可以与所有设备进行互动，而这些设备使用的是人类的语言。任何动物的区别，就是人类会使用工具。在过去的10万年中，无论你发明了哪些工具，你都要学会如何使用它。未来，你不再需要学习工具的使用，而是要让工具学习理解人类的语言和意图。这就是未来的方向。”
It's a future that Li could hardly have imagined growing up in Yangquan, a city of about 1 million people in China's hardscrabble central province of Shanxi, known for farming and mining. Li's high school had only five Apple II computers for 1,800 pupils, so the teachers prioritized their usage for the dozen kids with the best math scores. Li enjoyed math but “immediately fell in love with computers,” he says. “I thought they were magical.”
李彦宏在山西阳泉长大，这个城市大约有1100万人，以农业矿业著称。放在当年，这样的未来是李彦宏不敢想象的。李彦宏上高中时，1800名学生只有5台Apple II电脑，老师只能让几十名数学成绩最好的学生优先使用。李彦宏很喜欢数学，他说：“我很快就爱上了计算机，在我看来，它简直就像魔法一样。”
After studying information management at Peking University, Li obtained a computer-science degree at the State University of New York at Buffalo. He initially worked for the Wall Street Journal as a software engineer, before joining search-engine pioneer Infoseek. Then Li made the decision to return to China to found his own company, in a hotel room opposite the Peking University campus. “I hired a professor and five students about to graduate to work on the first version of the Baidu search engine,” he says.
在北京大学拿到信息管理学位之后，李彦宏又在纽约州立大学拿到了计算机科学学位。后来参加工作，他的第一份工作是在《华尔街日报》担任软件工程师，然后进入搜索先驱Infoseek。就在此时，李彦宏决定返回中国，创办自己的公司，他在酒店创业，而不是北京大学校园。李彦宏说：“我请了一名教授和5名即将毕业的学生，开发第一版百度搜索。”
Baidu went from strength to strength[11], unperturbed even by the entry of Google to the Chinese market in 2005. Baidu had over 40% of Chinese search traffic at that time, compared with its rival's 30%. By the time Google withdrew from China in 2010, citing what it believed was government hacking of Gmail, Baidu had 75% of Chinese search traffic, while Google had shrunk to just in the teens.
百度越变越强，2005年谷歌闯进中国，百度挡住了攻势。当时，百度占了中国搜索流量的40%还要多，谷歌只有30%。直到2010年谷歌离开中国，百度拥有中国搜索流量的75%，而谷歌呢？缩减到只有百分十几。
[11]go from strength to strength：to gradually become more successful 从成功走向成功，日渐强大
Li says the company used government meddling as an excuse. “Google left because Baidu was gaining market share,” he says. “The China market is very competitive and things can change very quickly, so you really need to make decisions very quickly, and the problem is that U.S. companies' decisionmaking is not made here in China.” Lee Kai-Fu, head of Google in China at the time, says the decision to retreat was “difficult.” “You really have to make the decision to fork your product into two different products. That's very painful–especially for Silicon Valley entrepreneurs.”
李彦宏认为：“谷歌之所以离开主要是因为百度攻城略地，份额不断增加。中国市场是一个竞争激烈的市场，形势变化很快，决策一定要快，美国企业的决策并不是在中国做出的，这是一个问题。”当时掌管谷歌中国的是李开复，他说做出决定是一件很难的事。李开复称：“你必须做出决定，将自己的产品分成两种不同的产品，对于硅谷企业家而言，这是一件非常痛苦的事。”
China's 1.4 billion people are a tantalizing[12] prospect for American business minds, but the obstacles are significant. Chief among them is compliance with local regulations, including censorship. Skype, for example, was removed from Chinese app stores in mid-November for failing to abide by new regulations. Last year, China rolled out a controversial new cybersecurity law that, among many stipulations, requires foreign companies doing business in the country to store related data locally. ... Even so, that hasn't dissuaded every U.S. company; on Jan. 10, Apple agreed to outsource local iCloud services to a Chinese firm.
中国有14亿人，在美国商业领袖看来无疑是一个潜力巨大的市场，但是进入的难度很大。有一个障碍相当关键：遵守本地法规。例如，因为未能遵守规定，去年11月中旬Skype从中国应用商店下架。去年中国又颁布新网络法，条款甚多，有一条明确要求在中国经营业务的外国企业必须将数据存储在中国本地。重重困难是否吓倒了所有美国企业呢？不是，1月10日，苹果同意将本地iCloud服务外包给中国企业运营。
[12]tantalizing：causing feelings of excitement, pleasure, or anticipation; making you feel excited or hopeful about having something that you want, often something that you never get诱人的；撩人的；让人非常着急的
... Li is unapologetic. “If certain things are deemed illegal, then it's illegal, and we should block it,” he says. “That's our way of doing business here.”
李彦宏说：“如果某些事情被认为不合法，那就是不合法的，我们应该禁绝。在这里，我们就是这样经营业务的。”
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Is Li worried that Chinese cyberspace is getting smaller? “As an Internet company, we always don't want anything regulated so we can do things freely,” he says carefully. “But I also recognize that that's not practical and not even good for the country.”
李彦宏难道不担心中国的“网络空间”变小吗？他谨慎回答说：“作为一家互联网公司，我们当然不希望有任何监管，这样就可以自由行事了。但是我认为这种想法不切实际，对于国家也没有好处。”
... For the moment at least, both are united in their goal of harnessing the potential of AI. But the technology brings awesome risks as well as rewards. Tesla boss Elon Musk says uncontrollable AI represents a “fundamental” threat to humanity, while renowned physicist Stephen Hawking fears it could “spell the end of the human race.”
就目前而言，百度的目标是充分利用AI的巨大潜力。但这项技术带来巨大回报的同时也蕴含着风险，特斯拉电动汽车公司首席执行官伊隆·马斯克（Elon Musk）认为，无法控制的AI代表了对人类的“根本性”威胁，而著名物理学家斯蒂芬·霍金（Stephen Hawking）担心这可能“意味着人类的末日”。
Li disagrees, saying, “Humans will always have the capabilities to make the world a safe place. Think about nuclear weapons: they can kill a lot of people, they killed a lot of people, but we can actually control this type of weaponry. And the real function of nuclear weapons was to end the Second World War. They did not start the Third World War.”
李彦宏不认同，他说：“人类有能力让世界变得安全，一直以来都是这样的。看看核武器，它的确可以杀死许多人，许多许多，但是我们可以对核武器进行有效控制。核武器的真正作用就是结束了二战，它没有引发第三次世界大战。”
Not yet, at least. But fears over AI are not all about a dystopian future. The technology is already automating tasks that provided incomes to people. Driverless technology will most quickly be adopted for long-distance haulage[13], potentially putting up to 16 million Chinese truckers out of work. For Li, the problem is unavoidable. “When technology changes the world, then a lot of jobs are lost,” he says, comparing it to the advent of the steam engine. “You cannot change that. What you can do is continue to innovate and create more new jobs for people.”
至少到目前为止还没有。担心AI并不完全与反乌托邦的未来有关。有了AI技术，一些事情可以自动完成，为民众创造了福利。很快，无人驾驶技术极有可能会进入长途货车，1600万中国卡车司机也许会失业。在李彦宏看来，这种事情不可避免。他说：“当技术改变世界时，总会有许多工作职位消失。”蒸汽机出现时就曾发生过这样的事。他还认为：“你无法改变趋势，唯一能做的就是继续创新，为民众创造更多职位。”
[13]haulage：the business of moving things by road or railway 公路（或铁路）货运业
a road haulage firm
公路运输公司
That will require the Chinese government to remain open to the world, he suggests, and not withdraw as the U.S. appears to have done under President Trump. The White House's proposals to limit immigration “damage the innovation environment of the U.S.,” Li says, urging China to take a different tack. “We should create a better environment for foreigners to open up here, to innovate here, to set up companies.” But for that to happen, and for Baidu to truly dominate AI, Li may have to confront China's own ideological tightening. For now, however, Li is focused on his mission: “to make the complex world simpler.” Or, perhaps, to pull down barriers faster than others can throw them up.
李彦宏认为，如果想追赶潮流，中国政府需要保持向世界开放，在特朗普总统的领导下，美国在开放面前出现倒退迹象。李彦宏认为，白宫提议限制移民，这种做法伤害了美国的创新环境，他希望中国走不一样的道路。李彦宏称：“我们要为外国人创造更好的环境，让他们在这里起步，在这里创新，在这里创办企业。”就眼下来说，李彦宏会专注于自己的使命：让复杂的世界变简单。或者说，用更快的速度扫除障碍，比其它人设置障碍的速度快。
译文来源：http://t.cn/RQ9pzXK，仅供参考
This appears in the January 29, 2018 issue of TIME.
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