计算器的演变为计算历史提供了新的视角 | 书评
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《经济学人·商论》2023-09-16
冷静盘算
袖珍计算器如何为数字时代铺平道路
计算器的演变为计算历史提供了新的视角【《总和帝国：袖珍计算器的风光史》书评】
WHEN WAS the last time you used a calculator? Having enjoyed a brief heyday in the 1970s, these once miraculous-seeming gizmos now mostly languish in desk drawers. Keith Houston’s sprightly history aims to give the calculator the recognition it deserves as a stepping stone to the digital era. Calculators, he argues, “helped usher in the world of ubiquitous computing”.
你上一次用计算器是什么时候？这些曾经看似神奇的小玩意在20世纪70年代经历了短暂的辉煌，现在大部分都在书桌抽屉里吃灰。基思·休斯顿（Keith Houston）写了一部活泼有趣的计算器历史，想让这块迈向数字时代路上的垫脚石得到应有的认可。他认为，计算器“帮助我们开创了普适计算的世界”。
It is a tale that starts with a 42,000-year-old tally stick found in South Africa and moves through finger-counting systems to the abacus and the slide-rule. But Mr Houston’s narrative really gets going with the advent of the clockwork calculating devices in the 17th century. These in turn gave way to ever smaller and more capable electrical devices in which numbers were crunched by relays, valves and ultimately transistors.
计算器的故事从在南非发现的一根有4.2万年历史的计数棒开始，接着来到手指计数法，再到算盘和计算尺。但休斯顿叙事的真正开启是17世纪发条计算装置的出现。这些装置后来被越来越小、越来越强大的电气设备取代，它们先是使用继电器，然后是阀门，最后是晶体管来计算。
All this is recounted with wry wit, plus numerous detours into mathematics, science and social history. Modern jargon has deep roots: “digit” and “digital” recall finger-counting systems; “calculi” were pebbles used by Romans on abacus-like counting boards; a cursor was originally a sliding indicator on a slide-rule, pioneered by Isaac Newton; and computers were originally people, many of them women, who performed calculations, often in teams.
作者的叙述诙谐幽默，还穿插了很多数学、科学和社会历史。现代术语有着深厚的历史根源：“digit” 和“digital”（“数字”和“数字的”）让人联想起扳手指计数；“calculi”（微积分一词calculus的复数形式）是罗马人在类似算盘的计数板上所用的鹅卵石；“cursor”（光标）最初是计算尺上的游标，由牛顿首创；“computer”（计算机）一词最初指的是人，其中许多是女性，她们通常组队进行计算。... ...
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衍生阅读
《经济学人·商论》2023-08-28
NOT SO LONG ago analysts were openly wondering whether artificial intelligence (AI) would be the death of Adobe, a maker of software for creative types. New tools like DALL-E 2 and Midjourney, which conjure up pictures from text, seemed set to render Adobe’s image-editing offerings redundant. As recently as April, Seeking Alpha, a financial-news site, published an article headlined “Is AI the Adobe killer?”
不久前，分析人士还在公开猜想人工智能（AI）是否会让Adobe这样一家面向创意人士的软件制造商消亡。DALL-E 2和Midjourney等可以根据文本生成图像的新工具似乎势必会让Adobe的图像编辑产品变得多余。就在4月，财经新闻网站Seeking Alpha还发布了一篇文章，题为《AI是Adobe杀手吗？》（Is AI the Adobe killer?）
Far from it. Adobe has used its database of hundreds of millions of stock photos to build its own suite of AI tools, dubbed Firefly. Since its release in March the software has been used to create over 1bn images, says Dana Rao, a company executive. By avoiding mining the internet for images, as rivals did, Adobe has skirted the deepening dispute over copyright that now dogs the industry. The firm’s share price has risen by 36% since Firefly was launched.
事实远非如此。Adobe已经利用其容纳了数亿张照片的数据库创建了自己的AI工具套件Firefly。Adobe高管达纳·拉奥（Dana Rao）表示，自3月发布以来，该软件已经被用来创作了超过10亿张图像。Adobe没有像其竞争对手那样在互联网上挖掘图像，从而避开了目前困扰业界的日益严重的版权纠纷。自Firefly推出以来，Adobe的股价上涨了36%。
Adobe’s triumph over the doomsters illustrates a wider point about the contest for dominance in the fast-developing market for AI tools. The supersize models powering the latest wave of so-called “generative” AI rely on oodles of data. Having already helped themselves to much of the internet, often without permission, AI firms are now seeking out new data sources to sustain the feeding frenzy. Meanwhile, companies with vast troves of the stuff are weighing up how best to profit from it. A data land grab is under way.
从Adobe对其唱衰者的胜利上，可以看到在快速发展的AI工具市场上的争霸战中广泛存在的一个问题。驱动着最新一批“生成式”AI的超大模型离不开海量数据。过去，AI公司往往在未经许可的情况下在互联网上大肆饕餮，现在它们正在寻找新的数据源以维持这种疯狂喂食。与此同时，拥有巨大数据宝库的公司正在琢磨如何能充分从中获利。一场数据抢地战正在展开。..... ...
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