Cap a finals d'aquest any, gairebé mil milions de persones en el món participaran activament en xarxes socials. L'única cosa que tenen totes en comú és que moriran. Tot i que la idea sona una mica morbosa, crec que conté implicacions molt profundes que val la pena explorar.
By the end of this year, there'll be nearly a billion people on this planet that actively use social networking sites. The one thing that all of them have in common is that they're going to die. While that might be a somewhat morbid thought, I think it has some really profound implications that are worth exploring.
El primer que va fer que m'ho plantegés va ser una entrada de principis d'any al blog de Derek K. Miller, un periodista científic i tecnològic que va morir de càncer. Miller va fer que la seva família i amics escrivissin una entrada publicada poc després que morís. Això és el que va escriure. Va dir: "Ja està. He mort i aquesta és l'última entrada del blog. Abans he demanat que, un cop el meu cos es deixés endur per la penitència del càncer, la meva família i amics publiquin aquest missatge que he preparat... És la primera part del procés de convertir aquesta pàgina activa en un arxiu".
What first got me thinking about this was a blog post authored earlier this year by Derek K. Miller, who was a science and technology journalist who died of cancer. And what Miller did was have his family and friends write a post that went out shortly after he died. Here's what he wrote in starting that out. He said, "Here it is. I'm dead, and this is my last post to my blog. In advance, I asked that once my body finally shut down from the punishments of my cancer, then my family and friends publish this prepared message I wrote -- the first part of the process of turning this from an active website to an archive."
Com a periodista, l'arxiu de Miller devia estar més ben escrit i més organitzat que la majoria. La qüestió és que tots nosaltres, avui dia, estem generant un arxiu que és completament diferent de qualsevol altra cosa creada per una generació anterior.
Now, while as a journalist, Miller's archive may have been better written and more carefully curated than most, the fact of the matter is that all of us today are creating an archive that's something completely different than anything that's been created by any previous generation.
Tingueu en compte algunes estadístiques. Es pengen 48 hores de vídeo cada minut a YouTube. A Twitter es publiquen 200 milions de piulades al dia I l'usuari típic de Facebook publica 90 continguts al mes. Si penseu en els vostres pares o avis, ells hauran fet, com a molt, algunes fotos o vídeos casolans o un diari que ara deu ser en alguna capsa. I ara nosaltres estem creant un arxiu digital completíssim que romandrà a la xarxa indefinidament, anys després d'haver mort. Crec que això generarà oportunitats extraordinàries per als tecnòlegs.
Consider a few stats for a moment. Right now there are 48 hours of video being uploaded to YouTube every single minute. There are 200 million Tweets being posted every day. And the average Facebook user is creating 90 pieces of content each month. So when you think about your parents or your grandparents, at best they may have created some photos or home videos, or a diary that lives in a box somewhere. But today we're all creating this incredibly rich digital archive that's going to live in the cloud indefinitely, years after we're gone. And I think that's going to create some incredibly intriguing opportunities for technologists.
Ara bé, siguem clars, jo sóc periodista i no tecnòleg, així que, el que vull fer, en resum, és crear una imatge de com seran el present i el futur. Actualment ja hi ha alguns serveis dissenyats per a què decidim què fer dels nostres perfils i comptes a les xarxes socials. quan morim. De fet, un d'ells, molt dignament, em va trobar en publicar a Foursquare que estava en un restaurant de Nova York.
Now to be clear, I'm a journalist and not a technologist, so what I'd like to do briefly is paint a picture of what the present and the future are going to look like. Now we're already seeing some services that are designed to let us decide what happens to our online profile and our social media accounts after we die. One of them actually, fittingly enough, found me when I checked into a deli at a restaurant in New York on foursquare.
(Gravació) Adam Ostrow: Hola. La Mort: Adam? A.O.: Sí. La Mort: La Mort et pot atrapar a qualsevol lloc i moment, fins i tot en un restaurant ecològic. A.O.: Amb qui parlo? La Mort: Visita "ifidie.net" ("Si em moro") abans no sigui massa tard.
(Recording) Adam Ostrow: Hello. Death: Adam? AO: Yeah. Death: Death can catch you anywhere, anytime, even at the Organic. AO: Who is this? Death: Go to ifidie.net before it's too late.
(Riallada)
(Laughter)
Adam Ostrow: Una mica esgarrifós, oi? És a dir, aquest servei, senzillament, permet crear un missatge o un vídeo que es publicarà a Facebook quan et moris. Hi ha un altre servei anomenat "1,000 Memories" ("Mil records"). I aquest permet fer un homenatge virtual als éssers estimats, amb fotos, vídeos i anècdotes inclosos que podran publicar quan moris. Però crec que després ve el més interessant.
Adam Ostrow: Kind of creepy, right? So what that service does, quite simply, is let you create a message or a video that can be posted to Facebook after you die. Another service right now is called 1,000 Memories. And what this lets you do is create an online tribute to your loved ones, complete with photos and videos and stories that they can post after you die. But what I think comes next is far more interesting.
Molts de vosaltres coneixereu en Deb Roy, que el març passat va provar ser capaç d'analitzar més de 90.000 hores de vídeo casolà. Trobo que, mentre la capacitat dels aparells per entendre el llenguatge i processar moltes dades segueixi millorant, acabarà essent possible analitzar el valor dels continguts d'una vida (piulades, fotos, vídeos, entrades de blog...) que produïm a gran escala. I que quan això passi la nostra identitat digital podrà continuar interactuant al món real molt després de morir gràcies a l'amplitud de la quantitat de continguts que creem i a la capacitat tecnològica perquè tot encaixi.
Now a lot of you are probably familiar with Deb Roy who, back in March, demonstrated how he was able to analyze more than 90,000 hours of home video. I think as machines' ability to understand human language and process vast amounts of data continues to improve, it's going to become possible to analyze an entire life's worth of content -- the Tweets, the photos, the videos, the blog posts -- that we're producing in such massive numbers. And I think as that happens, it's going to become possible for our digital personas to continue to interact in the real world long after we're gone thanks to the vastness of the amount of content we're creating and technology's ability to make sense of it all.
Ja comencen a conèixer-se alguns experiments. El servei "My Next Tweet" ("La meva propera piulada") analitza el vostre historial de piulades publicades a Twitter, per predir què diríeu a continuació. Ara per ara, com podeu veure, els resultats poden ser una mica còmics. Podeu imaginar-vos què esdevindrà d'aquí a cinc, deu o vint anys a mesura que millorem les capacitats tècniques. Anant més lluny, el laboratori del MIT està treballant amb robots que poden interactuar com els humans. Però i si aquests robots poguessin interactuar tot basant-se en els trets d'una persona concreta que es desprenen dels centenars de milers de continguts que genera al llarg de la vida?
Now we're already starting to see some experiments here. One service called My Next Tweet analyzes your entire Twitter stream, everything you've posted onto Twitter, to make some predictions as to what you might say next. Well right now, as you can see, the results can be somewhat comical. You can imagine what something like this might look like five, 10 or 20 years from now as our technical capabilities improve. Taking it a step further, MIT's media lab is working on robots that can interact more like humans. But what if those robots were able to interact based on the unique characteristics of a specific person based on the hundreds of thousands of pieces of content that person produces in their lifetime?
Per acabar, recordeu la famosa escena de les eleccions del 2008 als Estats Units. La CNN projectava en directe un holograma de l'artista de hip hop Will.i.am al seu estudi per entrevistar-se amb Anderson Cooper. I si poguéssim fer servir el mateix tipus de tecnologia per projectar les persones que estimem a la nostra sala d'estar, que interactués com si fos real basant-se en els continguts que van generar quan vivien? Crec que això serà totalment possible perquè la quantitat de dades que produïm i la capacitat tecnològica per processar-les augmenten exponencialment. I ara, per acabar, trobo que tots hem de pensar si volem que formi part de la nostra realitat i què representa per definir la vida i tot el que ve després. Moltíssimes gràcies.
Finally, think back to this famous scene from election night 2008 back in the United States, where CNN beamed a live hologram of hip hop artist will.i.am into their studio for an interview with Anderson Cooper. What if we were able to use that same type of technology to beam a representation of our loved ones into our living rooms -- interacting in a very lifelike way based on all the content they created while they were alive? I think that's going to become completely possible as the amount of data we're producing and technology's ability to understand it both expand exponentially. Now in closing, I think what we all need to be thinking about is if we want that to become our reality -- and if so, what it means for a definition of life and everything that comes after it. Thank you very much.
(Aplaudiments)
(Applause)