The Pentagon's ‘Terminator Conundrum’: Robots That Could Kill on Their Own

The small drone, with its six whirring rotors, swept past the replica of a Middle Eastern village and closed in on a mosque-like structure, its camera scanning for targets.

No humans were remotely piloting the drone, which was nothing more than a machine that could be bought on Amazon. But armed with advanced artificial intelligence software, it had been transformed into a robot that could find and identify the half-dozen men carrying replicas of AK-47s around the village and pretending to be insurgents.

有6個旋轉回轉軸的一架小型無人機，快速飛掠一個仿造的中東村莊，逼近一個看似清真寺的建築，機上的攝影機開始掃描搜尋目標。

並沒有人在遙控這架無人機，它不過是部在亞馬遜網站就能買到的機器。但為它配備上先進的人工智慧軟體後，它就變成了機器人，能夠找到並辨識在村莊周圍的6個人，這些人攜帶著AK-47自動步槍的複製品，扮演叛亂分子。

As the drone descended slightly, a purple rectangle flickered on a video feed that was being relayed to engineers monitoring the test. The drone had locked onto a man obscured in the shadows, a display of hunting prowess that offered an eerie preview of how the Pentagon plans to transform warfare.

Almost unnoticed outside defense circles, the Pentagon has put artificial intelligence at the center of its strategy to maintain the United States' position as the world's dominant military power. It is spending billions of dollars to develop what it calls autonomous and semiautonomous weapons and to build an arsenal stocked with the kind of weaponry that until now has existed only in Hollywood movies and science fiction, raising alarm among scientists and activists concerned by the implications of a robot arms race.

無人機高度稍降，在傳給監測這項測試的工程師的一個視頻饋送中，有個紫色的矩形在閃動。無人機鎖定一名藏身暗影中的人，這展示了無人機非凡的搜尋能力，也提供一項奇特的預覽，說明五角大廈正計畫如何轉變戰爭型態。

國防圈外幾乎沒人注意到，五角大廈已將人工智慧視為戰略中心，意圖藉此維繫美國全球軍力霸主的地位。五角大廈正投注數十億美元，開發它所謂的自主和半自主武器，並開發一批新武器，個個是迄今只見於好萊塢電影和科幻小說中的那類武器，這個行動已引起科學家和社運人士的警覺，憂心機器人武器競賽可能帶來的後果。

The Defense Department is designing robotic fighter jets that would fly into combat alongside manned aircraft. It has tested missiles that can decide what to attack, and it has built ships that can hunt for enemy submarines, stalking those it finds over thousands of miles, without any help from humans.

“If Stanley Kubrick directed ‘Dr. Strangelove’ again, it would be about the issue of autonomous weapons,” said Michael Schrage, a research fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management.

國防部正在設計機器人戰機，讓它與有人駕駛的戰機並肩作戰。國防部並已對能自行決定攻擊目標的飛彈做了測試，建造了可找出敵方潛艇的船艦，可跟蹤發現的潛艇數千哩，完全不需人類協助。

麻省理工學院史隆管理學院研究員邁可．施拉格說：「若是（美國電影導演）史丹利．庫柏力克重新執導『奇愛博士』，一定會與自主武器問題有關。」

Defense officials say the weapons are needed for the United States to maintain its military edge over China, Russia and other rivals, who are also pouring money into similar research (as are allies, such as Britain and Israel). The Pentagon's latest budget outlined $18 billion to be spent over three years on technologies that included those needed for autonomous weapons.

國防部官員說，美國需要這些武器來維持對中國大陸、俄羅斯和其他競爭對手的軍事優勢，對方也對類似研究投入大筆經費（美國盟國亦然，如英國、以色列）。五角大廈的最新預算粗估，未來三年將以180億美元研發新科技，包括自主武器所需者在內。

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文／張佑生

本文的導言寫作方式屬於descriptive lead，不是開門見山，而是先寫景再帶出主題。標題conundrum的其中一個意思是「謎語」，特別是利用詞語的雙重含義，用雙關語解答的謎語。人頭獅身的Sphinx問伊底帕斯（Oedipus）的謎語就是一個conundrum，答錯會被她吃掉！

標題的conundrum意指「難題」，尤其是「兩難」，往往無解。美國總統歐巴馬的民調支持率不差，為何同黨的希拉蕊仍不敵川普？《紐約客》（The New Yorker）雜誌評為當代一大費解之謎：How Trump's strange rise and Obama's high rating can have coincided in the same moment will remain one of the permanent conundrums of our history.

Eerie除了神秘古怪，更令人感覺毛毛的。康拉德（Joseph Conrad）的短篇小說《暗影邊界》（The Shadow Line）的敘事者形容一片死寂中傳來的怪聲讓他毛骨悚然：These were eerie, disturbing, alarming sounds in the dead stillness of the air around me.

A century ago, the flaming fall foliage in Nova Scotia would have long faded by early November. But today, some of the hills are still as nubbly with color as an aunt’s embroidered pillow.

Climate change is responsible, scientists say. As the seasonal change creeps later into the year, not only here but all across the northern United States and Canada, the glorious colors will last longer, they predict — a rare instance where global warming is giving us something to look forward to.

一個世紀前，加拿大諾瓦斯科細亞省火紅的秋天樹葉在11月初以前早已凋謝，而當下一些山丘的顏色仍舊一塊塊的，彷彿姨媽的繡花枕頭一般。

科學家說，這都是氣候變遷造成的。他們預測，隨著一年裡的時序變化來得更晚，不僅這個地方，還有在美國北部與加拿大全境，這壯麗的顏色將持續更長的時間，而這是全球暖化讓我們有所期盼的罕見事例。

“If climate change makes eastern North America drier, then autumn colors will be spectacular, as they are on the Canadian Shield in dry summers, especially the red maples,” said Root Gorelick, a biology professor at Carleton University in Ottawa. The Canadian Shield is a broad ring of forests and ancient bedrock that extends hundreds of miles from the shores of Hudson Bay.

Over the very long term, the warming planet may have a negative effect on fall foliage, but even then any adverse impact is uncertain. It is not just an aesthetic question, but an economic one as well: The changing colors drive billions of dollars in “leaf peeping” tourism in Canada and the United States.

渥太華卡爾頓大學生物學教授路特．高利克說：「如果氣候變遷讓北美洲東部變得更乾燥，秋天的顏色將會很壯觀，就像加拿大地盾在乾燥夏季時那般，尤其是紅色的楓樹。」加拿大地盾是由廣大的森林與古代基岩所組成，從哈德遜灣海岸向外延伸數百哩。

就極長期而言，地球日益暖化可能會對秋天的樹葉產生負面影響，但即便如此，任何的不利影響都還難以確定。這不僅是個美學問題，還是個經濟問題：這些顏色的變化為加拿大與美國的「賞葉」旅遊業帶來數十億美元的產值。

“From a peeper’s point of view, it’s good news,” said Marco Archetti, the lead author of a 2013 paper at Harvard on predicting climate change impacts on autumn colors in New England.

We only have to read Henry David Thoreau to know that climate change is pushing the changing colors later into the year. He spent a lot of time tramping around his native Concord, Massachusetts, making notes on how plants changed with the seasons.

哈佛大學2013年發表了一篇預測氣候變遷如何影響新英格蘭秋天顏色的論文，論文的主要作者馬可．阿切堤說：「從觀賞者角度來說，這是個好消息。」

我們只消閱讀梭羅的文字就可以知道，氣候變遷正讓一年中這顏色的變化來得更晚。他花了很多時間在他家鄉麻薩諸塞州康科德附近漫遊，記錄植物如何隨季節而變化。

“In general, peak leaf color in Concord and the surrounding Boston area for these maples is now more typically a week or two later” than what Thoreau observed, said Richard Primack, a biology professor at Boston University. He has been using Thoreau’s records and satellite images to track the effect of climate change on local plant cycles.

The Harvard study, which looked at the percentage and duration of autumn color in Harvard Forest in central Massachusetts from 1993 to 2010, predicted that with current climate change forecasts, the duration of the fall display would increase about one day for every 10 years.

波士頓大學生物學教授理查．普瑞麥克說，相較於梭羅所觀察到的，「大體而言，康科德跟波士頓周圍地區楓樹顏色最紅的時節，如今通常晚了一、兩周」。他一直在使用梭羅留下的記錄與衛星圖像來追蹤氣候變遷對當地植物周期的影響。

哈佛大學的這項研究觀察1993年至2010年間，麻州中部哈佛森林內秋葉變色部分的百分比及持續期間的長短，他們根據目前對氣候變遷走勢的預測推估，秋葉變色持續的期間，每十年大約會拉長一天。

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文／張佑生

歐陽修〈秋聲賦〉：「夫秋，刑官也」，可視為秋天對（犯）人的影響；「草拂之而色變，木遭之而葉脫」則是對植物的衝擊。紐時介紹全球暖化對秋季「賞葉」（leaf peeping）活動的影響，日文是「紅葉狩」（Momijigari）、中文常說「賞楓」，英語用法不限於賞楓，賞葉人是leaf peeper。

全球暖化延遲且拉長賞葉季的時間，作者稱為「百害一利」。暖化的影響不僅是一片楓葉一片情的美感體驗（aesthetic），更牽涉到數十億美元獲利的實際問題，美國東北的新英格蘭區是賞葉勝地（leaf peeping destination），每年都大發觀光財：Leaf peeping, the pastime of enjoying autumn foliage, brings in $1bn each year to New England.

Foliage指樹葉，一簇葉子、枝葉、葉叢，為不可數名詞。報導舉例的美國大思想家梭羅，在名著《湖濱散記》（Walden）中提到觀察某處著實怪異的草木（a truly grotesque vegetation）時描述，其枝葉形似建築圖案（architectural foliage）的程度比其他樹葉更古老更具代表性。