纽约时报中文网 - 中英对照版-中英前谷歌工程师被控为中国公司窃取AI技术

A Chinese citizen who recently quit his job as a software engineer for Google in California has been charged with trying to transfer artificial intelligence technology to a Beijing-based company that paid him secretly, according to a federal indictment unsealed on Wednesday.

根据周三公布的一份联邦起诉书，一名最近辞去在加州的谷歌软件工程师工作的中国公民被指控试图将人工智能技术转移给一家位于北京的公司，而这家公司秘密向他支付报酬。

Prosecutors accused Linwei Ding, who was part of the team that designs and maintains Google’s vast A.I. supercomputer data system, of stealing information about the “architecture and functionality” of the system, and of pilfering software used to “orchestrate” supercomputers “at the cutting edge of machine learning and A.I. technology.”

被指控的丁林伟（音）是谷歌庞大的人工智能超级计算机数据系统的设计和维护团队成员，检察官指控他窃取了该系统在“架构和功能”方面的信息，以及用于“协调”那些“处于机器学习和人工智能技术前沿”的超级计算机的软件。

From May 2022 to May 2023, Mr. Ding, also known as Leon, uploaded 500 files, many containing trade secrets, from his Google-issued laptop to the cloud by using a multistep scheme that allowed him to “evade immediate detection,” according to the U.S. attorney’s office for the Northern District of California.

据美国加利福尼亚州北区检察官办公室称，从2022年5月到2023年5月，丁林伟（英文名Leon）通过一个使他能够“躲避即时侦查”的多步骤计划，将500个文件从谷歌给他使用的笔记本电脑上传到了云端，其中许多文件包含商业机密。

Mr. Ding was arrested on Wednesday morning at his home in Newark, Calif., not far from Google’s sprawling main campus in Mountain View, officials said.

官员表示，丁林伟于周三上午在位于加州纽瓦克的家中被捕，该地距离谷歌位于山景城的大型主园区不远。

Starting in June 2022, Mr. Ding was paid $14,800 per month — plus a bonus and company stock — by a China-based technology company, without telling his supervisors at Google, according to the indictment. He is also accused of working with another company in China.

起诉书称，从2022年6月开始，丁林伟每月从一家中国科技公司领取10万多人民币的报酬，外加奖金和公司股票，但他没有将这些情况告知他在谷歌的上级。他还被指控与另一家中国公司合作。

Mr. Ding openly sought funding for a new A.I. start-up company he had incorporated at an investor conference in Beijing in November, boasting that “we have experience with Google’s 10,000-card computational power platform; we just need to replicate and upgrade it,” prosecutors said in the indictment, which was unsealed in San Francisco federal court.

检察官在旧金山联邦法院公布的起诉书中称，在去年11月于北京举行的一次投资者会议上，丁林伟公开为他注册成立的一家新的人工智能创业公司寻求资金，并吹嘘说“我们拥有谷歌万卡计算能力平台的经验，我们只需要复制和升级它”。

“The Justice Department will not tolerate the theft of artificial intelligence and other advanced technologies that could put our national security at risk,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, who announced the indictment during an appearance at an American Bar Association conference in San Francisco on Wednesday afternoon.

“司法部不会容忍可能危及我们国家安全的人工智能和其他先进技术被盗，”司法部长梅里克·加兰说，他周三下午在旧金山出席美国律师协会会议时宣布了这一起诉。

The charges underscore the high-stakes contest for primacy in artificial intelligence. While American companies have developed most advances in generative A.I., China has made it a strategic priority to lead the growing field.

这些指控凸显了在人工智能领域争夺领先地位的高风险竞争。虽然美国公司在生成式人工智能领域取得了最多进展，但中国已将引领这一不断发展的领域作为战略重点。

Tech industry insiders have estimated that China is at least a year behind the United States, but many Chinese start-ups have tapped American technology to try to keep up, especially Meta’s open-source large language model, called Llama. Generative A.I., which is behind ChatGPT and the wave of conversational chatbots, has quickly become one of the world’s most coveted technologies.

据科技业内人士估计，中国至少比美国落后一年，但许多中国初创企业都在利用美国的技术以跟上美国的步伐，尤其是Meta公司的开源大语言模型Llama。ChatGPT和对话式聊天机器人浪潮背后的生成式人工智能已迅速成为全球最令人垂涎的技术之一。

In seconds, these types of tools can generate convincing text and images that could be used to boost productivity, create misinformation or provide amusement. Audio and video capabilities are not far behind. Google developed some of the foundational breakthroughs that make these systems work. The company has said that its latest group of A.I. models, named Gemini, are among the most powerful available today.

只需几秒钟，这类工具就能生成令人信服的文本和图像，用于提高工作效率、制造虚假信息或提供娱乐。音频和视频功能也紧随其后。谷歌开发的一些基础性突破使这些系统得以运行。该公司表示，其最新的人工智能模型“双子座”(Gemini)是当今最强大的模型之一。

But since ChatGPT’s debut, Google has lost its status as a market leader and its stumbles have attracted attention. The company has been widely criticized for racial biases in its image generator, leading it to pause users’ ability to create images of people.

但自从ChatGPT面世以来，谷歌已经失去了市场领导者的地位，其磕磕绊绊的发展也引起了人们的关注。该公司因其图像生成器中的种族偏见而广受批评，导致其暂停了用户创建人物图像的功能。

Accusations of intellectual property theft have been a major sticking point in U.S.-China relations for years. A Chinese national was arrested in 2015 for selling some of IBM’s source code to parties in China. In 2018, a former Apple employee was apprehended as he tried to board a flight to Beijing with the company’s autonomous-driving trade secrets.

多年来，知识产权盗窃指控一直是中美关系的一大症结。2015年，一名中国公民因向中国相关方出售IBM的部分源代码而被捕。2018年，一名苹果公司前员工在试图携带该公司自动驾驶商业机密登上飞往北京的航班时被捕。

The same year, the Chinese firm Sinovel Wind Group was convicted of stealing wind turbine technology from a Massachusetts-based company, AMSC, which incurred more than $800 million in losses.

同年，中国华锐风电集团因窃取马萨诸塞州AMSC公司的风力涡轮机技术而被定罪，AMSC因盗窃损失超过8亿美元。

In October, Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director, said that intellectual property theft from China was a danger to U.S. economic and national security, describing it as the “defining threat of this generation.”

今年10月，联邦调查局局长克里斯托弗·雷表示，来自中国的知识产权盗窃对美国的经济和国家安全构成了威胁，并将其称为“这一代人的决定性威胁”。

José Castañeda, a Google spokesman, said in a statement: “We have strict safeguards to prevent the theft of our confidential commercial information and trade secrets. After an investigation, we found that this employee stole numerous documents, and we quickly referred the case to law enforcement. We are grateful to the F.B.I. for helping protect our information and will continue cooperating with them closely.”

谷歌发言人何塞·卡斯塔涅达在一份声明中说：“我们有严格的保障措施来防止机密商业信息和商业秘密被盗。经过调查，我们发现这名员工窃取了大量文件，于是我们迅速将此案移交给了执法部门。我们感谢联邦调查局帮助保护我们的信息，并将继续与他们密切合作。”

Google added that its security systems worked as intended and that this “junior employee” was acting alone.

谷歌还表示，其安全系统按预期运行，这名“初级员工”是单独行动的。

But the indictment suggested that Mr. Ding had some help: Another Google employee swiped Mr. Ding’s identification card at a company office to help him conceal a trip to China, according to the indictment.

但起诉书显示，丁林伟得到了一些帮助。起诉书称，另一名谷歌员工在公司办公室刷了丁林伟的员工卡，帮他隐瞒了一次中国之行。

It was not immediately clear whether Mr. Ding has legal representation.

目前尚不清楚丁林伟是否有法律代表。

The government offered few details about the life of Mr. Ding, who began working for Google in early 2019 and quit suddenly in January — after booking a one-way ticket to Beijing.

丁林伟于2019年初开始为谷歌工作，今年1月突然辞职，在此之前，他购买了一张前往北京的单程机票。

Mr. Ding listed a degree from the Dalian Institute of Technology in China in 2010, along with degrees from the University of Southern California and Stanford, on a LinkedIn page that corresponded to his name and the details of employment at Google.

一个符合丁林伟姓名和谷歌工作经历的LinkedIn个人页面列出了此人2010年在中国大连理工大学获得的学位，以及南加州大学和斯坦福大学的学位。

The page lists stints at software semiconductor and health care companies over the past decade, along with awards he said he earned at Google, including the “Perfy Award and Feats of Engineering.”

该页面列出了他过去十年在半导体软件和医疗保健公司的工作经历，以及他声称在谷歌获得的奖项，包括“Perfy奖和工程壮举奖”。