今天继续“深度学习”
先回顾一下前面两段的内容：
第1段开篇就用“摇滚明星”来点明AI在科技领域的地位了，接着带出了AI的一个重要分支——深度学习，用其高薪现实来抓人眼球。于是第二段便告诉我们获得这种高薪工作的标准途径对普通人来说并不是最佳途径，以便引出文章标题“No Phd, No Problem：New Schemes Teach the Masses to Build AI”。
第三段以“That is changing”起头，前面描述的状况开始发生转变了。
第三段：
That is changing. This month fast.ai, an education non-profit based in San Francisco, kicked off the third year of its course in deep learning. Since its inception it has attracted more than 100,000 students, scattered around the globe from India to Nigeria. The course and others like it come with a simple proposition: there is no need to spend years obtaining a PhD in order to practise deep learning. Creating software that learns can be taught as a craft, not as a high intellectual pursuit to be undertaken only in an ivory tower. Fast.ai’s course can be completed in just seven weeks.
kick off:表示start，常常搭配“活动、项目、讨论、会议” 等，在意思和用法上等同于start
比如：The shows kick off on October 24th. 展览从10月24日开始。
补充一个kick in，指start to have an effect 开始起作用，开始生效。
ivory tower：象牙塔
段落大意：这种情况正在发生改变。这个月，位于旧金山的非营利教育机构fast.ai开始了其深度学习课程的第三年。自课程设立以来，它已经吸引了超过10万名学生，从印度到尼日利亚、分布在全球各地。这类课程都有一个简单的主张:没必要为了从事深度学习方面的工作而花费数年时间获得博士学位。研发会学习的软件可以作为一门手艺来教，而不是一种仅仅能在象牙塔中实现的高级智力追求。fast.ai的课程短短7周就能学完。
第四段
Demystifying the subject, to make it accessible to anyone who wants to learn how to build AI software, is the aim of Jeremy Howard, who founded fast.ai with Rachel Thomas, a mathematician. He says school mathematics is sufficient. “No. Greek. Letters,” Mr Howard intones, thumping the table for punctuation.
de·mys·tify：使明白易懂；使(某事)简单化；深入浅出地解释；英文解释为：to make sth easier to understand and less complicated by explaining it in a clear and simple way 。
例如：This book aims to demystify medical treatments.
这本书旨在使药物治疗简单化。
intone：to say something slowly and clearly without making your voice rise and fall much as you speak平稳清晰地说
段落大意：杰里米•霍华德(Jeremy Howard) 和数学家雷切尔•托马斯（Rachel Thomas）一起创立了fast.ai，他的目标是揭开深度学习的神秘面纱，让任何想学习如何开发人工智能软件的人都能接触到它。霍华德说学校的数学知识已经足够了。“没有、希腊、字母。”他敲击着桌子，一字一顿地说道。（我们知道高等数学里有许多希腊字母，所以这里的意思就是说具备中学的数学知识就足够了。）
第五段
It is working.② A graduate from fast.ai’s first year, Sara Hooker, was hired into Google’s highly competitive AI residency programme after finishing the course, having never worked on deep learning before. She is now a founding member of Google’s new AI research office in Accra, Ghana, the firm’s first in Africa. In Bangalore, some 2,400 people are members of AISaturdays, which follows the course together as a gigantic study group. Andrei Karpathy, one of deep learning’s foremost practitioners, recommends the course.
residency programme：实习项目
founding member：创始成员
foremost：the best or most important 最好的；最重要的
例如：the world's foremost authority on the subject 该学科全世界首屈一指的权威
段落大意：这个课程的确奏效。萨拉·胡克(Sara Hooker)是fast.ai首届毕业生，她之前从未从事过深度学习相关的工作，学完课程后，她加入了谷歌竞争激烈的AI实习项目。她现在是谷歌在加纳阿克拉新成立的AI研究办公室的创始成员，这是谷歌在非洲的首个AI研究办公室。在班加罗尔，大约有2400人是“AI星期六”（ AISaturdays）的成员，他们组成了一个庞大的学习小组，一起学习这门课程。深度学习领域的权威专家安德烈•卡帕西(Andrei Karpathy)推荐了这门课程。
再把第二句捋一捋：② A graduate from fast.ai’s first year, Sara Hooker, was hired into Google’s highly competitive AI residency programme after finishing the course, having never worked on deep learning before.
句子主干是A graduate was hired into Google’s highly competitive AI residency programme。而having never worked on deep learning before是现在分词作状语。
整个句子翻译时可以由远到近，先说学课程之前从未从事过深度学习，再说学完课程后，加入了谷歌的AI实习项目。
未完待续...
外刊精读：中学生也能学习研发AI软件！（一） -
译文仅供参考，若有不准确之处，还请温柔提点。