夜讀｜《紐約客》談AI泡沫（下）：投資者激情不減、掮客要賺錢、政策在鬆綁，聯準會還要降息

我們繼續講文章最後的部分：

It should be noted that, since Figma’s I.P.O., its stock has fallen back to below eighty dollars. This could be interpreted as a sign of sanity prevailing, but, given that the shares are still trading at more than double the offering price, other privately owned A.I. companies will be encouraged to enter the stock market. Renaissance Capital, a research firm that specializes in I.P.O.s, lists eight prominent candidates: OpenAI, Anthropic, Cohere, Databricks, SymphonyAI, Waymo, Scale AI, and Perplexity. Almost all of these companies are unicorns: they have been valued at more than a billion dollars in fund-raising deals with venture capitalists and other early investors. But, across the country, according to the research firm Tracxn, there are about seven thousand smaller and lesser-known A.I. companies, more than a thousand of which have already received Series A funding from external backers to finance their operations.

這一段講，美國目前有數千家AI企業，其中上千家有小有規模並且融到了資，其中更有八家規模不菲的獨角獸。這些都是IPO市場的潛在力量。

interpret 解釋，理解，還有口譯的意思。interpreter 口譯員。translator 譯者，通指翻譯。sanity prevailing 理性佔上峰。prevail是佔據上風。這句的意思是，這可以被解釋理性逐漸回歸的訊號。

given在這裡引導原因狀語，相當於in view of、considering，翻譯成“考慮到，鑑於”等含義，我覺得可以理解成“給定某某情況下”，把give常見的給的含義放進去，就比較容易理解這個分詞的含義了。這句意思是，鑑於股價仍然是發行價（offering price）的兩倍多，其他私人擁有的AI公司也將被鼓勵進入股票市場。

Renaissance Capital 文藝復興資本。Renaissance 再生，復興，來自re（again）和naisci（生）組合，大寫的時候可以表示文藝復興。萬豪酒店旗下有Renaissance Hotel，中文譯為萬麗酒店。

OpenAI, Anthropic, Cohere, Databricks, SymphonyAI, Waymo, Scale AI, and Perplexity.文章列舉的八家公司，我們可以從名字中窺視一二。Anthropic，此前我們講BBC報導假裝上班那課，提到馬普所的人類學家項飆，人類學家anthropology，來自anthropos（希臘語，人），7月初參與課程的或許記得，第一次課就提到了這個詞，可以翻閱第一篇筆記。SymphonyAI sym-phony（同，聲音，交響樂）。Waymo是Google旗下智能駕駛公司。

unicorn 獨角獸（uni-，one；corn，角）。

finance 這裡顯然用為動詞，注意這種靈活用法，非常值得借鑑。

The ready availability of early-stage funding means that a necessary condition for a dot-com-style bubble is in place. So are three more: excitement among investors about a pathbreaking technology—generative A.I. clearly has the potential to impact great swaths of the economy; a Wall Street production line staffed by investment bankers eager to earn fees for organizing I.P.O.s; and accommodative policy. Last month, the Trump Administration announced an “AI Action Plan,” which aims to remove barriers to the deployment of the new technology and to deter individual states from introducing “burdensome” regulatory A.I. laws. The Federal Reserve, meanwhile, appears to be preparing to cut interest rates next month, which could give another boost to the markets.

接著上文作者指出的泡沫存在的兩個特徵外，作者在這段進一步闡述，泡沫形成還有另外三個條件：投資者對突破性技術的熱情，華爾街投行賺取佣金的動力，以及寬鬆的政策（accommodative policy）。作者還預估了聯準會的降息。

necessary condition 必要條件。

deployment 推廣。de-，un，not；ploy，同plic一樣，也是fold的含義（此前有complicated，complex等，一個詞根），本身就來自於拉丁語 displicare：不摺疊，擴展，向外部署。現在流行企業出海，這也是個常用詞。

deter sb from doing sth，相當於prevent sb from doing sth，阻止某人做某事，下段文章就出現了這個詞組。

Federal Reserve 聯準會。本文預測聯準會會降息，將進一步推動市場繁榮（boost）。恰好，昨日聯準會主席鮑爾講話，傳遞降息鴿聲，8月22日晚的美國股市一片大漲。

下圖是聯準會，希臘Ionic式樣的柱子，柱頭有漩渦形裝飾 volute（上次學vol（卷）這個詞根時提到）。

There are, however, some important differences between now and the nineties, one of which is that the online economy is no longer a vast open plain on which enterprising individuals can propose to build castles to the sky. It is a redoubt of monopoly capitalism, in which Big Tech dominates the horizon. During the dot-com era, or its early stages, anyway, small startups could reasonably hope to exploit first-mover advantage, gain early traction, and create durable business franchises. In the A.I. economy, it seems possible that many of the rewards will go to top firms that can afford to build and maintain large A.I. models and can use their market power and financial might to ward off, or buy out, potential competitors. A vigorous antitrust policy could perhaps prevent this from happening, but, as the Wall Street Journal reported last week, the Administration’s pledge to pursue such a policy is now under threat from lobbyists and power brokers with close ties to the President. If investors decide that monopolies are the future of the A.I.-driven economy, the outcome in the stock market could well mean further gains for existing industry giants rather than a broad-based bubble.

to build castles to the sky 在空中建城堡 Just like constructing an actual castle in the sky seems impossible, this phrase describes someone's unrealistic ambitions or dreams.

castle中的t不發音，-sten, -ften, -stle 結尾，t一般不發音。listen、fasten、moisten（ 弄濕）、soften這些以en結尾的幾個動詞，t都不發音；often中的t發出來會很好聽；justly發不發音都行。wrestle（摔跤）、whistle（口哨），hustle and bustle（熙熙攘攘），t都不發音。

redoubt形容最後的堡壘或據點，指的是a temporary or supplementary fortification。這個詞來自法語 redoute，初看以為是re-doubt（懷疑），翻譯後發現文意說不通，再翻字典。

monopoly 壟斷。mono-，一個。poly來自希臘語，售賣，sell。

traction 從詞根來看，tract是拉，draw，名詞，牽引、拖曳等含義。這裡引申為得到廣泛認同。

franchises 特許經營權。這句是說，在網際網路泡沫的早期階段，小型初創公司（startups）可以指望發揮（exploit）先發優勢（first-mover advantage）得到外界的認同（traction），並建立持久的特許經營權。

ward off 躲避，驅逐。

lobbyist 說客。

giant 巨頭，來自希臘語。之前提到這個詞，還舉例說，自行車品牌捷安特就是這個詞。最後一句話的意思是，如果投資者認定壟斷是AI驅動型經濟的未來，那麼股票市場的結果就可能是現存大公司從中繼續得利，而不會是一個廣泛的（broad-based）泡沫。

作者在接下來的兩段給了輝達和思科的例子，當然，也承認了不確定性。因為預測一個危機的到來太難了，長期和短期的概念也沒有具體的時間，尤其是當今這個時代。 (美廬)