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.
截止到今年年底之前, 全世界總計將會有近十億的人口 活躍於各個社群網絡之中。 他們擁有一個共通點 那就是有一天他們將會面臨死亡。 雖然這樣的想法似乎有些病態, 但我認為這之中蘊藏了一些深遠意涵 值得我們去發掘。
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."
首先讓我認真去思考這件事情的 是一個叫做Derek K. Miller的作家在今年初所發布的一篇部落格文章。 Miller是一個科學和科技類的新聞工作者, 因罹癌而離開人世, 而他要求他的家人和朋友在他死後 把他生前預先寫好的一篇文章發布到網路上。 以下是他所發布文章中的一段 他說:「就在此刻,我已經死了, 而這也是我最後發佈的一篇部落格文章。 我要求我的家人和朋友, 當我的身體最終敵不過癌症的折磨而停止運作時, 將這則事先準備好的訊息發佈出去, 作為將這個活躍的網站 轉變為歷史檔案的起點。」
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.
現在,身為一名新聞工作者, Miller的個人歷史檔案可能比起其他多數的檔案 更好且更加謹慎的被管理和保存著。 事實上, 現在我們每個人都在創造著一份檔案 這些檔案跟以往幾個世代 任何時期創造出來的儲存方式 都完全不同。
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.
讓我們花點時間來瞭解以下幾個數據 就在此刻,每分鐘總計有48小時的影片 被上傳到YouTube網站; 每天有兩億則推特發佈; 而平均每個Facebook用戶 每個月會發佈九十則訊息。 所以想一想你的父母親或是你的祖父母, 他們可能頂多在某個角落的箱子裡 保存了一些照片或家庭生活影片 或是一本日記簿。 但是如今,我們正在創造多元豐富的數位檔案庫。 即使在我們離開人世之後, 這個檔案仍會被永久的保留在雲端運算之中, 而我認為這將為從事科技工作者 開創一些別開生面的機會。
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.
我得先表明,我是一個新聞工作者,並不是科技領域的專家, 所以我想要呈現給各位的 是一幅 描繪現在以及未來將會出現的畫面。 現在已經有一些服務 他可以讓我們決定 在我們死後,我們線上的個人檔案和社群帳號 能有甚麼變化。 實際上,這當中有某一家服務得很稱職 它通過Foursquare網站, 在我進入紐約一家餐廳的以後 立馬找到在熟食部的我
(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.
(錄音)Adam Ostrow: 哈囉! 死神:Adam? AO: 是的。 死神:死神可以隨時隨地將你抓走 甚至是在擁有生機之處。 AO: 你到底是誰? 死神:在一切都還來得及時, 快登錄到ifidie.net
(Laughter)
(大笑)
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.
有點令人毛骨悚然,對吧? 其實該項服務所做的,非常簡單, 就是讓你在死後,可以在Facebook上發布 你生前完成的訊息或影片。 有另外一項 現在叫做[千憶]的服務 這項服務允許你設立一個線上空間,讓你所愛的人們 在你死後 得以上傳照片、影片和故事。 但我預想未來的發展將比這些更加有趣。
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.
你們大概都對Deb Roy還滿熟悉的吧, 他在三月份的時候 演示了他成功分析90,000多小時的家庭影片。 我認為,機器對於 人類語言的理解和處理龐大數字的能力 在持續的進步之中, 想藉由我們正大量製造的 Tweets、照片、影片和部落格文章中 去解析一個生命所留下的內涵 將不再是不可能的事。 而當這樣的情況真的發生時, 我們各種數位分身將真的可能 在我們死後繼續和這個真實世界互動 而這得感謝那些我們正大量製造的訊息內容 以及具有將這一切變得可能的科技能力。
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?
現在我們要來觀察一個實驗。 有一個叫作My Next Tweet的服務 他可藉由分析你所有的推特串,以及所有你已經發布在Twitter上的內容, 去預測你下一步可能會說些甚麼。 嗯...不過現在,就像你所看到的, 這些結果可能有點滑稽。 但隨著我們的科技能力的改進, 你可以想像在五年、十年, 甚至二十年之後這會變成甚麼樣子。 讓這一切更進一步的, 還有MIT的Media Lab正在研究製造 可以更趨近於人類互動模式的機器人。 但假若這些機器人與人互動的基礎 是奠基在專屬某個特定個人的的個性、 以及此人終其一生所發布 數以萬計的訊息內容而成的情況之下呢?
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.
最後,我們回想一下過去一個有名的場景 時間是美國在2008年的 總統大選之夜, 在CNN的現場出現了嘻哈歌手 will.i.am的全息圖, 讓他接受Anderson Cooper的訪談。 我們是否也能應用同樣的科技 製造出一個可以投射在客廳,作為我們所愛之人象徵的全息圖, 用他們生前所發出的訊息內容做為材料 讓這個全息圖可以活生生的與我們互動呢? 我認為當我們所使用的數據訊息量 以及能夠解讀這些訊息的科技能力 都呈指數式的擴充時, 這是非常有可能的。 以此作為演說的尾聲,我認為我們都應該去思考的是 如果我們希望這種情況成真- 而如果他的確成真了, 這對人生的定義,以及與人生相關的種種又意味著什麼。 非常謝謝你們。
(Applause)
(鼓掌)