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February 18th 2023 文章词数是957

Schumpeter The data geeks of war

Ukraine is a testing ground for America's AI-wielding defence-tech industry

熊彼特 战争的数据极客

乌克兰是美国AI操控类国防科技行业的试验场

Much of the Western military hardware used in Ukraine sounds familiar to any student of 20th-century warfare: surface-to-air missiles, anti-tank weapons, rocket launchers and howitzers. But Ukraine's use of western information technology, including artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomous surveillance systems, has also had a powerful, if less visible, impact on Russian forces. Commercial vendors supply Ukrainian troops with satellites, sensors, unmanned drones and software. The products provide reams of battlefield data which are condensed into apps to help soldiers on the ground target the enemy. One American defence official calls them, appreciatively, "Uber for artillery".

乌克兰使用的很多西方军事硬件对了解20世纪战事的人来说都不陌生：地对空导弹、反坦克武器、火箭筒和榴弹炮。但是乌克兰也使用了西方的信息技术，包括人工智能和自动监视系统，对俄罗斯武装的影响力如果不是那么明显可见，也依然强大。商业公司为乌克兰军队提供火箭、传感器、无人机和软件。这些产品提供了大量的战地数据，然后压缩进应用里，帮助地面上的士兵锁定敌人。一位美国国防部官员感激地称他们为“火炮打车”。

howitzer 榴弹炮

ream 大量；不公平对待，欺骗

Behind this new form of warfare are some of the most unconventional minds in American tech. Everyone knows about Elon Musk, whose rocket company SpaceX put Starlink satellites at the service of Ukraine (though he has now restricted access from the battlefield). Your columnist recently met two other iconoclastic entrepreneurs. One is Palmer Luckey, a 30-year-old who in 2017 co-founded Anduril, a maker of surveillance towers, drones, unmanned submarines and an AI-driven system that supports them, called Lattice. With his trademark flip-flops, Hawaiian shirts and goatee, he is an atypical defence contractor (Tony Stark, Marvel's gadget-obsessed "Iron Man", springs to mind). Yet the startup is already shaking up the traditional model of military procurement in America. In its short life, it has won contracts in America and Australia. It provides autonomous systems to Ukraine. When it last raised money in December, it was valued at $8.5bn.

在这种新型战争的背后是美国科技界一些最不守常规的人。人们都知道埃隆·马斯克，他的火箭公司SpaceX用星链火箭为乌克兰提供服务（尽管现在他限制了战地通道）。熊彼特专栏作家今日见了另外两位不守常规的企业家。一个是帕尔默·拉奇，30岁，2017年与人共同创立了Anduril，这家公司制造监视塔、战机、无人潜艇，以及一个人工智能驱动的Lattice系统为他们提供支持。拉奇的典型特征是人字拖、夏威夷短裤和山羊胡，他是一个不守常规的国防业务承包商（看到拉奇，脑海中就会浮现托尼·史塔克，就是漫威里那个沉迷工具的“钢铁侠”）。但Anduril一建立就搅动了美国军事采购的传统模式。在它创立短短的几年里，就已经拿到了美国和澳大利亚的合同。它给乌克兰提供自动化系统。上次在12月份筹集资金时，那可是850亿美元。

goatee 山羊胡

atypical 非典型的

The other is Alex Karp, an eccentric doctor of philosophy with an Einstein-like mop of hair. (Mr Karp used to sit on the board of The Economist's parent company.) Palantir, his Denver-based soft-ware firm, builds digital infrastructure to help clients manage lots of data, be it on security threats, health-care systems or factories' productivity. Like SpaceX, it has blazed the trail for civilian-military ventures since he co-founded it two decades ago. He makes bold claims. Palantir, he says, has changed the way Ukrainian troops target the enemy, and even the nature of counter-terrorism. He credits its software with saving millions of lives during the covid-19 pandemic. It may not all be gospel truth (the description of British journalists he delivers while staring at Schumpeter—"bad teeth, hard questions"—is only half trure.) Yet there is little doubt Palantir is supporting Ukraine both on the ground and as part of NATO's intelligence network. On February 13th, when it reported its first-ever quarterly profit and Mr Karp hinted that his firm might be an acquisition target, its market value rose to $21bn.

另外一位是艾利克斯·卡普，是个古怪的心理医生，有着爱因斯坦式的扫把头。（卡普先生过去是经济学人杂志母公司的董事会成员）。Palantir是他位于丹佛的软件公司，该公司建立数字化基础设施来帮助客户管理海量数据，处理安全威胁、医保系统或者工厂生产效率等业务。自从他20年前与人共同建立了Palantir，该公司就像SpaceX一样，为民营军工企业开辟了道路。拉奇说话大胆无畏。他表示，Palantir已经改变了乌克兰军队锁定敌人的方式，甚至反恐的本质也被改变了。他称誉Palantir的软件在新冠肺炎期间挽救了数以百万级的生命。可能这并不全是事实（他盯着熊彼特说英国记者“坏牙难题”，这话半真半假）。但几乎不用怀疑，Palantir不仅在地面作战上帮助着乌克兰，还作为北约智能网络的一部分支持着乌克兰。2月13日，当Palantir首次公布季度盈利，以及卡普先生暗示他的公司可能是个收购目标时，公司市值就涨到了210亿美元。

blaze the trail for 为...开辟道路

gospel truth 福音真理，绝对真理

Both men are cut from similar cloth. They are Silicon Valley renegades. They criticise big tech for abandoning its historic link with America's defence establishment. They lament the fast pace of civilian-military fusion in China, which they see as a potential threat to the West. To a greater or lesser degree, they are linked to Peter Thiel, a right-wing venture capitalist. Mr Thiel chairs Palantir and his Founders Fund was an early backer of Anduril (both names echo his love of J.R.R. Tolkein). To some that makes them creepy. Still, using different business models, both highlight how sclerotic the traditional system of "prime" defence contracting has become. They offer intriguing alternatives.

他们二人是一个模子刻出来的。他们都是美国硅谷的叛逆分子。他们都批评大型技术公司抛弃了与美国国防基础的历史联系。他们都为【伟大】民营军工企业的崛起而担忧，并视其为西方的潜在威胁。在或大或小的程度上，他们都与右翼投机资本家皮特·希尔有联系。希尔是Palantir公司的主席，而且他的创始人基金会是Anduril早期资助人（Palantir和Anduril这两个名字都唤起了他对约翰·罗纳德·瑞尔·托尔金的喜爱）。对一些人来说，这让他们变得怪异。虽然他们采用不同的商业模式，但都强调“高端”国防业务承包的传统体系已经变得僵化了。他们都提供了诱人的选择。

renegade 变节者，背叛者

creepy 令人毛骨悚然的，离奇的

sclerotic 硬化的

Like a prime contractor, Anduril only sells to military customers. But unlike defence giants such as Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, it does so while taking all the research-and-development (R&D) risk on its own shoulders. Mr Luckey is a born innovator. As a teenager, he invented the Oculus virtual-reality headset that he later sold to Facebook for $3bn. Walk with him through the arsenal of airborne and subsea devices on display at Anduril's headquarters in Southern California and his wonkishness as he explains the gadgetry is almost overwhelming.

像高端承包商一样，Anduril只销售给军事客户。但不同于洛克希德·马丁和诺思罗普·格鲁曼这种国防巨头，Anduril这样做的同时也独自承担了所有研发的风险。拉奇先生是个天生的发明家。在少年时，他发明了奥克拉斯混实头戴设备，后来以30亿美元的价格卖给了脸书。Anduril在南加利福尼亚州总部的武器库，陈列着空军和海下设备，与拉奇一起穿梭于武器库，听他讲解这些设备，俨然一副书呆子形象。

wonkish 唯理论的，书呆子气的

gadgetry 小器具，小装置

His business acumen is no less sharp. He and his executives have no time for the Pentagon's traditional "cost-plus" procurement system. Though it may be necessary for big projects like fighter planes and aircraft-carriers, they say, in general it distorts incentives, creating a risk-averse, expensive and slow-moving defence juggernaut. Rather than waiting for government contracts, Anduril creates what it thinks defence departments need, and used iterative manufacturing and a lean supply chain to make products quickly and relatively cheaply.

他的商业头脑也毫不逊色。他和他的执行官们无暇顾及五角大楼的传统“成本追加”采购体系。他们说，尽管这种体系对大型项目比如战机和潜艇是必要的，但是整体上来说它会扭曲驱动力，从而造就出一个排斥风险、价格昂贵和行动迟缓的国防巨无霸。Anduril并没有等着政府的承包合同，而是创造他们认为国防部门需要的东西，用迭代制造和精细供应链来快速地制造产品，而且相对便宜。

iterative 迭代的，重复的

It is fiercely competitive. Compared with the prolix, Power-Point-heavy bidding processes for prime contracts, Anduril relishes the cut-and-thrust of "shoot-offs", or competitions in which the Department of Defence (DoD) tests commercial products against each other. Its success rate is high. In 2020 it won a big contract to provide surveillance towers on America's border with Mecico. Last year it secured $1bn from the DoD to provide autonomous counter-drone systems. It is building underwater vehicles the size of buses to patrol waters off Australia. Though there is an element of the "America first" crusader about Mr Luckey, he leaves no doubt that he intends Anduril to be a big, profitable business.

竟争非常激烈。严重依赖ppt的高端承包竞标过程很繁琐，与之对比，Anduril使这种唇枪舌剑般的“试射”焕发了生机，或者叫竞争，国防部在参与竞标的承包商里互相测试彼此的商业产品。这个办法成功率很高。2020年Anduril拿到了一个大合同，为美国边境上的墨西哥提供监视塔。去年，Anduril从国防部拿到了10亿美元的合同，提供自动化的反无人机系统。Anduril正在建造公交车大小的水下车辆，用来在澳洲水域巡航。尽管关于拉奇先生身上存在美国优先政策的因素影响，但不用怀疑，他要把Anduril打造成一个大型的盈利公司。

prolix 冗长乏味的，繁琐的

cut and thrust 短兵相接，唇枪舌剑

crusader 十字军，某运动的参加者

Lords of the slings

Palantir has tentatively started to achieve that status, but with a "dual-use" business model. It works for private clients as well as governments (albeit only ones friendly with America). Both on the battlefield and in business, its software cuts through the thickening fog of data to enable quick decision-making. Other dual-use firms are increasingly winning defence contracts. The Pentagon's Defence Innovation Unit, set up in 2015, supports a big increase in the use of commercial technologies, such as AI, autonomy and integrated systems, to speed up the responsiveness to global threats.

军工霸主

Palantir已经试探性地开始达到那一地位，但它却是一个有“双重用途”的商业模式。Palantir不仅为私人客户服务，也为政府服务（虽然仅限于与美国友好的政府）。在战场以及商场，Palantir的软件能穿过厚重的数据团雾做到及时决策。其他有双重用途的公司正拿到越来越多的国防部承包合同。五角大楼的国防创新单元，成立于2015年，支持商业技术应用的快速增长，比如人工智能，自动和整合系统，以此来提升对全球威胁的反应能力。

Ukraine is a good testing ground. It is also a good simile. The struggle of tech Davids taking on America's military-industrial Goliath is not dissimilar to tech-enabled Ukrainian troops battling the turgid might of Russia.

乌克兰是一个绝佳的试验场。这也是一个很好的比喻。戴维斯在美国军工巨头的科技问题上苦苦挣扎，技术赋能的乌克兰军队对抗着强大的俄罗斯，这二者并无不同。

turgid 肿胀的，晦涩难懂的，枯燥乏味的