美國企業的創新能力如何？來這三家公司看看
《財富》美國500強排名：第57位
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在Facebook的人工智能研究實驗室，這家線上平臺正在教機器人如何學習。Facebook承諾與朋友分享成果。 六足機器人黛西出生于Facebook新的人工智能實驗室里，當它在公司位于加州門洛帕克總部大樓郁郁蔥蔥的屋頂上掠過時，傳遞著這樣的信息：未來屬于那些會教授、會學習的人。 這是Facebook人工智能研究機器人實驗室的核心理念，該實驗室以前從未公開，是2018年底推出的開源項目，正巧那時Facebook因為其廣告產品引發用戶對隱私的擔憂而一再遭受非議。該實驗室的目的是將機器人作為工具，更好地開發人工智能。“擁有具身智能是一個非常重要的問題，它會對你可以使用的算法種類造成限制。”Facebook的一位機器人研究科學家羅伯托·卡蘭德拉說，“你需要擁有強大、高效且適用于現實世界的算法。” |
At the Facebook AI Research lab, the online publisher is teaching robots how to learn. It promises to share the results with its friends. Daisy, a hexapod robot born in Facebook’s new artificial intelligence lab, scuttles across the -verdant roof of the company’s Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters with a message to deliver: The -future belongs to those who teach—and learn. That concept sits at the center of Facebook’s AI Research robotics lab, a previously unrevealed open-source project that launched in late 2018, even as the company endured repeated black eyes over privacy concerns related to its advertising products. The lab’s purpose is to use robotics as a vehicle for developing better A.I. “Having embodied intelligence is a really important problem because it creates constraints to the kinds of algorithms that you can use,” says Roberto Calandra, one of Facebook’s robotics research scientists. “You need to have algorithms that can be robust, efficient, and applicable in the real world.” |
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這就是為什么黛西能夠沿著落滿灰塵的小路閑逛具有如此重要的意義。讓人工智能了解“噪音”——比如道路上的顛簸——不僅有助于黛西走得更好，而且更重要的是，有助于它學習如何學習。 卡蘭德拉認為，觸摸是學習的關鍵。但實驗室的目標不僅僅是創造更多有觸覺的機器人。畢竟這里是Facebook。因此，從最近的機器人和自動化國際會議開始，Facebook將學到的東西與其他人分享。 |
That’s why Daisy’s stroll along a dusty path is so significant. Introducing the A.I. to “noise”—like bumps in the road—not only helps the robot walk better but, more important, also helps Daisy learn how to learn. Touch, posits Calandra, is key to learning. But the lab’s goal isn’t merely to create more tactile robots. This is Facebook, after all. So starting at the recent International Conference on Robotics and Automation, what Facebook learns, it shares with others. |
李維斯
《財富》美國500強排名：第500位
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李維斯位于舊金山的尤里卡創新實驗室（Eureka Innovation Lab）利用鐳射、顏料和獨創性保證該公司處于牛仔褲制造技術的前沿。 李維斯的尤里卡創新實驗室位于舊金山電報山附近的一家小型模型工廠里，一點牛仔布都不生產。但是，它解決了這家166年歷史的服裝制造商的大問題，李維斯最近重新上市，并在七年內首次重返《財富》美國500強榜單。 比如說，在這個18000平方英尺空間的一個角落里，一個團隊正在推進該公司的化學物質篩選計劃，該計劃旨在用更安全的物質取代對人類健康和環境有害的化學物質。在另一個角落里，一名工作人員正在用鐳射做實驗，想要在牛仔布的“洗水”工序中確保李維斯的供應鏈更加靈活。 |
Levi’s Eureka Innovation Lab in San Francisco uses lasers, pigments, and ingenuity to keep the jeansmaker technologically fashion-forward. Housed in a small prototyping factory in San Francisco’s Telegraph Hill neighborhood, Levi’s ?Eureka Innovation Lab churns out not a stitch of denim. Instead, it solves big problems for the 166-year-old apparel maker, which recently relisted its shares publicly and returns to the Fortune 500 for the first time in seven years. For instance, in one corner of the 18,000-square-foot space, a team works on the company’s Screened Chemistry Program, which seeks to replace chemicals that are hazardous to human health and the environment with safer alternatives. In another corner, a crew experiments with lasers to make Levi’s supply chain more agile during the denim’s “finishing” process. |
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“四十年前，只有三種洗水方法：重石洗、中度石洗、輕石洗。”李維斯的技術創新副總裁巴特·賽茨說，“快進到今天，我們每個季節都要做大約1000種不同的洗水。這還只是我們公司。”使用新的鐳射洗水工藝，該公司基本上已經重返未來，只生產三種基本款式，然后讓李維斯遍布各地的工廠在當地完成牛仔褲洗水。 尤里卡創新實驗室共有30名工作人員，包括裁縫、軟件開發員和其他專家。所有人都有一個共同點：每個人都知道如何生產公司傳奇的501牛仔褲。 |
“Forty years ago, there were only three finishes: dark stonewash, medium stonewash, and light stonewash,” says Bart Sights, Levi’s vice president of technical innovation. “Fast-forward to today, we do about a thousand different finishes every season. Just our company.” Using the new laser-finishing treatment, the company has essentially gone back to the future, producing only the three base styles, then letting far-flung Levi facilities finish the jeans locally. Eureka’s 30-person crew includes tailors, software developers, and other experts. All have one thing in common: Everyone knows how to produce the company’s legendary 501 jeans. |
福特
《財富》美國500強排名：第12位
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在匹茲堡地區的Argo AI試車跑道上，公司的大股東福特正在測試其首款自動駕駛汽車。 有一輛嬰兒車闖進了車流。一個盲角導致彎道周圍的車輛都看不見了。夜幕剛落，熾熱的太陽打在一個瘋狂閃爍的紅綠燈上。Argo AI在位于賓夕法尼亞州新斯坦頓的試車場上，旨在重構現實世界的各種危險場景，讓福特的自動駕駛汽車做好上路準備——并避開路上的危險——計劃是2021年。屆時，雄心勃勃的汽車制造商福特想要在美國部分城市推出自動駕駛打車服務和送貨服務。 Argo正在開發一個自動駕駛技術平臺，該平臺將搭載于福特汽車中，福特2017年投資10億美元，取得了這家私營公司的多數股權。 |
At the Pittsburgh-area test track of Argo AI, majority shareholder Ford is running its first self-driving cars through their paces. A baby stroller rolls into traffic. A blind corner hides a rush of cars around the bend. The blazing, early evening sun outshines a frantically blinking stoplight. At its test-track facility in New Stanton, Pa., Argo AI aims to re-create real-world hazards to get Ford’s autonomous vehicles ready to hit the road—and dodge its dangers—by 2021. That’s when the automaker wants to launch its ambitious autonomous ride-?hailing and delivery services in select U.S. cities. Argo is developing a self-driving technology platform that’s being engineered into cars produced by Ford, which invested $1 billion in 2017 for a majority stake in the private company. |
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Argo這塊20英畝的封閉式場地位于索尼曾經制造大屏幕電視的半退役工業園區里，是測試自動駕駛車輛的理想控制環境。公司在匹茲堡附近還有修車廠，在那可以調整軟件，汽車甚至可以實現本地化，以匹配特定城市固有的駕駛習慣。 福特由Argo提供動力的自動駕駛汽車目前正在美國的五個城市進行測試，測試環境包括在匹茲堡卡內基梅隆大學周圍鋪設的殖民地時代馬車走的路。那里的研究人員正在幫助該公司改進其計算機視覺和機器學習系統。（財富中文網） 本文另一版本登載于《財富》雜志2019年6月刊，標題是《臭鼬工程》。 譯者：Agatha |
Argo’s 20-acre closed course, located in a semi-decommissioned industrial plant where Sony once built big-screen televisions, is the ideal controlled environment for testing robotic vehicles. And at the company’s depot in nearby Pittsburgh, software gets tweaked, and cars can even be ?localized to match driving behaviors inherent to particular cities. Ford’s Argo-powered autonomous cars are currently being tested in five U.S. cities, including on the paved-over colonial-era horse paths around Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Mellon University. Researchers there are helping the company refine its computer vision and machine-learning -systems. A version of this article appears in the June 2019 issue of Fortune with the headline “Skunkworks.” |
