In Person(面对面；亲自). By Natalia Emanuel and Emma Harrington. Crown Currency; 304 pages; $30.Penguin Life; £17.99
《面对面》。娜塔莉亚·伊曼纽尔与艾玛·哈林顿著。Crown Currency 出版，304页，30美元；Penguin Life 出版，17.99英镑。
Those mulling(仔细考虑；反复琢磨) the current AI boom should look back to a kitchen in Google’s office in the early 2000s. Two employees, Noam Shazeer and Georges Harik(谷歌早期员工，AI 先驱), began to chat about how computers differentiated between essential and superfluous information(区分必要信息与冗余信息). This chance encounter windingly led to the mechanism that underpins large language models.(这次偶然的相遇几经曲折，最终催生了支撑大语言模型的机制。)
那些正在琢磨当下人工智能热潮的人，不妨回顾一下2000年代初谷歌办公室里的一个厨房。两名员工诺姆·沙泽尔和乔治·哈里克开始闲聊，话题是计算机如何区分必要信息与冗余信息。这次偶然的相遇，几经曲折，最终催生了支撑大语言模型的机制。
Had Google allowed remote work, Mr Shazeer and Mr Harik might never have spoken. In-person spitballing(随意头脑风暴；即兴出主意) has led to ideas ranging from the hugely consequential (IBM’s personal computer(IBM个人电脑，1981年推出)) to the hugely entertaining (“Finding Nemo(皮克斯动画电影《海底总动员》)”). That is one reason why bosses often lament(哀叹；对……表示惋惜) the rise of remote work, notes a new book by Natalia Emanuel and Emma Harrington, two economists. In 2019 American workers spent 7% of their paid days working at home. Now it is about a quarter.
如果谷歌当时允许远程办公，沙泽尔和哈里克可能永远不会交谈。面对面的头脑风暴催生了各种想法，从影响深远的（IBM的个人电脑）到极具娱乐性的（《海底总动员》）。两位经济学家娜塔莉亚·伊曼纽尔和艾玛·哈林顿在新书中指出，这正是老板们常常哀叹远程办公兴起的原因之一。2019年，美国员工有7%的带薪工作日在家工作。如今这一比例约为四分之一。