拯救世界的是人,不是科技大綱

I have a copy of a long-forgotten 1987 book by Arthur C Clarke: July 20, 2019: Life in the 21st century. I did not plan on mentioning it until the 50th anniversary of the first moon landings, which its title reflects. But I am breaking my own embargo because re-reading it has given me new insight.
我有一本《2019年7月20日：生活在21世紀》(July 20, 2019: Life in the 21st century)——該書爲亞瑟?C?克拉克(Arthur C Clarke)所著，1987年出版，被人遺忘已久。我本打算到登月50週年時再提起這本書，因爲書名反映的正是這一紀念日。但我打破了給自己設置的禁令，因爲重讀這本書給了我新見解。

Clarke, a science-fiction writer, was also no slouch as a futurologist. His fictional HAL 9000 computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey, which he co-wrote, presages many of today’s fears about artificial intelligence. He was also a real scientist who, in a 1945 article, proposed communications satellites.
克拉克是科幻小說作家，也善於預言未來。他在與他人合著的《2001：太空漫遊》(2001: A Space Odyssey)一書中虛構的HAL 9000電腦，預言瞭如今人們對人工智能存在的很多擔憂。他也是一位真正的科學家，曾在1945一篇文章裏提出了通訊衛星。

Unless things change in the next 23 months, July 20, 2019 is wrong in almost every detail. Clarke suggests, for example, “amplifiers” to make us more intelligent — but makes no mention of the internet, which was in development at the time and was predicted 15 years earlier by Joseph Licklider of MIT, when he was working at the US defence department.
除非接下來23個月裏情況發生變化，否則《2019年7月20日》差不多在所有細節上都錯了。比如，克拉克認爲“放大器”會讓我們更聰明，但沒有提到當時在開發中的互聯網——而麻省理工學院(MIT)的約瑟夫?利克萊德(Joseph Licklider)在該書出版的15年前就預言了互聯網，當時利克萊德在美國國防部工作。

Being wrong is just one problem I have with Clarke’s book. Like most future-gazing, it sees tomorrow entirely in terms of technology.
預言錯誤只是我對克拉克這本書的其中一個意見。和大多數未來預言一樣，該書完全從科技的視角來看待未來。

Today’s version of Clarke’s vision is that of tech as humanity’s saviour. It is overblown, and it is gathering momentum. Indeed, this relentless yapping is like some overheated PR campaign for the arrogant, prematurely moneyed young lords of Silicon Valley. There is a messianic tone that our descendants will laugh at. “[By], say, 2045, we will have multiplied?.?.?.?the human biological machine intelligence of our civilisation a billion-fold,” says Google’s Ray Kurzweil.
如果把克拉克的願景搬到現在，那就相當於宣揚科技是人類的救世主。這有點過頭，當今卻在形成勢頭。的確，這種喋喋不休就像是一些傲慢、過早發跡的硅谷少爺的過火公關宣傳。他們帶有那種救世主的腔調，我們的後代肯定會嘲笑。“比如說，到2045年，我們將把……我們文明的人類生物機器智能增加10億倍，”谷歌(Google)的雷?庫茲韋爾(Ray Kurzweil)表示。

Technology is marvellous, but it has had little or nothing to do with the best things about the world. And it will play a minor role in casting out humanity’s worst demons: poverty, ignorance and madness. What do I mean by the best things? The outlawing of racism; rights for disabled people; emancipation for women. The primacy of reason; the dwindling of superstition. Democracy, social security, animal rights, greater life expectancy and, yes, capitalism.
科技很了不起。但它與這世界最美好的東西沒什麼關係。它在趕走人類最糟糕的魔鬼（貧窮、無知和瘋狂）上只會發揮次要的作用。我所指的最美好的東西是什麼？從法律上禁止種族主義；殘疾人權益；女性解放。理性至上；迷信失勢。民主、社會保障、動物權益、延長壽命，沒錯，還有資本主義。

Sure, hygiene and medicine are technology, but the idea to distribute their benefits to all through innovations such as sewers, socialised medicine and refrigeration could only come from human empathy and creativity.
當然，衛生和醫學屬於科技的範疇，但是要把它們的果實通過下水管道、社會化醫療和冷藏傳播給全人類，就只能依靠人類的同理心和創造力了。

Technology, from electric lighting to washing machines to the internet, has aided progress. But it is only part of the future. Machines help solve the “how”, not the “what” nor the “why”.
從電燈到洗衣機、再到互聯網，技術推動了人類進步。但科技只是未來的一部分而已。機器幫助解決“怎麼做”，而不是“什麼”和“爲什麼”。

I love what technology is doing for the developing world, where progress is most needed. I have written recently about ideas such as Ugogo Africa, a proposed online service that wants to enable artisans without bank accounts to sell their products globally. Genius. Even better for the developing world will be universal education, the elimination of corruption, the rule of law, perhaps democracy, although that is on my B-list. Technology will play its part, but it will not be essential.
我喜歡科技對發展中世界的幫助，那裏最需要進步。我最近在文章中寫到Ugogo Africa（一項在線服務提議，旨在讓沒有銀行賬戶的手工藝人可以在全球出售他們的作品）等創意。真是天才點子。但對發展中世界來說，更美好的事物將是全民教育、消除腐敗、法治，或許還有民主制度，儘管最後這點在我的B清單上。科技將發揮自己的作用，但它並非不可或缺。

Last week, I ran this seditious notion past two big brains. First was Marc Demarest, an Oregon-based digital thinker and author. He agrees that Silicon Valley’s incessant riff is self-serving. “Like the president of the US, no statement is too outrageous, too extreme, too under-nuanced,” he says.
不久前，我向兩個有思想的人提出這種煽動性的觀點。第一個是美國俄勒岡州的馬克?德馬雷斯特(Marc Demarest)，他是一名數字化思想家和作者。他認爲，硅谷人士源源不斷的說教都是爲了私利。他稱：“就像對美國總統一樣，對這些人來說，沒有什麼聲明是太過分、太極端、太沒水平的。”

But he believes technology’s torrent of data tells us truths “minus our nasty predisposition to get distracted, to miss the moment, and to bend data to make it mean what we want it to mean”.
但他認爲科技的數據洪流告訴我們真相，“減去我們容易分心、錯過時代脈搏、以及以我們希望的方式扭曲數據的傾向。”

“It is in most respects a better version of us. And [gathering data] is mostly done, one way or another, to improve the human lot.”
“在大多數方面，科技是我們自己的更好版本。（收集數據）從總體上說是以某種方式完善了人類。”

Making sense of data, however, will remain a human activity, he says. “We are better at judgment than any machine we will be able to make for a very long time to come. Technology is only the agent of our desires. It isn’t the future; we are the future.”
然而，他稱，分析數據將仍然是人類活動。“在未來很長一段時期，我們在判斷力上都會勝過我們有本事造出的任何機器。科技只是我們渴望的代理。它不是未來；我們纔是未來。”

I then had a drink — several, actually — with a friend who works in product development for a tech company.
隨後，我和一位在科技公司研發產品的朋友喝了幾杯。

“I shouldn’t say this,” she said after cocktail number three, “but we just make cool s*** people love. You’re right. We’re not progressing humanity or changing the world, are we? “That’s what ideas do, and machines don’t have ideas.”
“我不該這麼說，”她在喝下第三杯雞尾酒之後說道，“但我們只是做人們喜愛的時尚垃圾貨。你說得沒錯。我們沒有推動人類進步，也沒有改變世界，難道不是嗎？那是思想的角色，機器沒有思想。”

Funny. Even Clarke stopped short of predicting machines with imaginations.
有意思。就連克拉克都不敢預言具備想象力的機器。