Almost six years ago, a Google computer program toppled the best player in China — and the world — at Go, an ancient Chinese board game. The defeat catalyzed China's revolution in artificial intelligence. Beijing unrolled a monumental A.I. plan, and investors poured record sums into new projects.
大約六年前，谷歌研發的計算機程式在圍棋這一古老的中國棋類遊戲上擊敗了中國（同時也是全世界）最好的棋手。那次敗北催生了中國在人工智能領域的革命。北京推出了一項意義重大的人工智能發展規劃，投資者向各種新項目注入了前所未有的資金。
Now, a similar moment has arrived: The rise of ChatGPT has kicked off another A.I. arms race, this time in the realm of machine-generated content. On Thursday, China's first major rival to ChatGPT was unveiled in Beijing by the search giant Baidu. But the debut of the bot, dubbed Ernie, was a flop.
而今，相似的場面已經上演：ChatGPT的風靡引發了另一場人工智能競賽，這次是在機器生成内容領域。周四，中國搜尋巨頭百度在北京揭開了中國首款ChatGPT主要競品的面紗，但這款名為“文心一言”(Ernie)的機器人首次亮相就以失敗告終。
Halfway through a demonstration that had been marketed as live, in which Ernie summarized a science fiction novel and analyzed a Chinese idiom, Robin Li, Baidu's chief executive, said the presentation had been prerecorded “to save time.”
在被宣傳為現場直播的示範中，“文心一言”總結了一部科幻小說，并分析了一句中國成語，但示範進行到一半，百度首席執行官李彥宏表示，為了“節約時間”，這些展示是預先錄制的。
Baidu's shares plunged 10 percent in Hong Kong, a striking contrast to the rally earlier this year that was fueled by the company's announcement that it has had a rival to ChatGPT in the works since 2019.
百度在香港的股價暴跌10%，與今年早些時候的漲勢形成鮮明對比，當時該公司宣稱從2019年起就已在研發ChatGPT的競品。
The botched rollout comes as the likes of Baidu and Google rush to catch up with ChatGPT, whose maker released a new version this week. It was also a sign that China still has work to do to catch up with the United States in A.I., a race that has only intensified in recent years as relations between the two countries have deteriorated. As Washington has moved to contain competition from China, it has cut Beijing off from high-end computing chips — a key ingredient in technologies like ChatGPT and Ernie.
在這場産品釋出弄巧成拙之時，百度和谷歌等企業正急于追趕ChatGPT，其開發者本周釋出了新的版本。百度的失敗還表明，在人工智能領域，中國仍落後于美國，随着近年來兩國關系的惡化，這場競賽已愈演愈烈。因為美國采取措施遏制來自中國的競争，中國擷取高端計算機晶片的途徑已被切斷，而這種晶片正是ChatGPT和“文心一言”等技術的關鍵組成部分。
Because of enormous computing requirements, only a handful of companies, most based in either the United States or China, have the capacity to build bots that rely on what are known as large language models. Microsoft has poured billions of dollars into OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT.
由于巨大的計算需求，隻有少數幾家公司有能力研發依賴于所謂大語言模型的機器人，這些公司大多位于美國或中國。微軟已向ChatGPT開發者OpenAI投入了數十億美元。
Baidu's bot, whose name comes from Enhanced Representation through Knowledge Integration, will be open to some users starting Thursday.
百度這款機器人的英文版名字來源于“通過知識整合增強表達”，機器人從周四開始面向部分使用者開放。
Ernie, Mr. Li insisted, was not a “tool for Sino-U.S. technology competition.” But he also acknowledged that ChatGPT's success had accelerated the timeline for Baidu's rollout.
李彥宏堅稱，“文心一言”不是“中美科技對抗的工具”。但他也承認，ChatGPT的成功加快了百度推出該産品的進度。