Let me tell you a story about artificial intelligence. There's a building in Sydney at 1 Bligh Street. It houses lots of government apartments and busy people. From the outside, it looks like something out of American science fiction: all gleaming glass and curved lines, and a piece of orange sculpture. On the inside, it has excellent coffee on the ground floor and my favorite lifts in Sydney. They're beautiful; they look almost alive. And it turns out I'm fascinated with lifts. For lots of reasons. But because lifts are one of the places you can see the future.
让我给你们讲一个 关于人工智能的故事。 在悉尼的布莱街 1 号 有一座大楼。 内有很多政府套间 和忙碌的人们。 从外面看,它就像 美国科幻小说里的东西: 全是闪亮的玻璃和弯曲的线条, 还有一件橘黄色的雕塑。 在里面,一楼有很好的咖啡, 还有我在悉尼最喜欢的电梯。 它们很漂亮; 它们看起来鲜活的。 事实证明,我沉迷于电梯。 原因有很多。 因为电梯是你可以 看见未来的地方之一。
In the 21st century, lifts are interesting because they're one of the first places that AI will touch you without you even knowing it happened. In many buildings all around the world, the lifts are running a set of algorithms. A form of protoartificial intelligence. That means before you even walk up to the lift to press the button, it's anticipated you being there. It's already rearranging all the carriages. Always going down, to save energy, and to know where the traffic is going to be. By the time you've actually pressed the button, you're already part of an entire system that's making sense of people and the environment and the building and the built world.
在21世纪,电梯很有趣。 因为它们是人工智能能够 在你不知不觉间触及你的首批地点。 在世界各地的许多建筑中, 电梯正在运行一套算法。 一种原型人工智能的形式。 这意味着在你走到 电梯按下按钮之前, 它就已经预见你在那里了。 它已经在重新安排所有的轿厢。 总是往下走,以节省能源, 并知道将在哪里通行。 当你真正按下按钮的时候, 你已经是整个系统的一部分了, 这个系统正在对人、环境、 建筑和建构的世界进行感知。
I know when we talk about AI, we often talk about a world of robots. It's easy for our imaginations to be occupied with science fiction, well, over the last 100 years. I say AI and you think "The Terminator." Somewhere, for us, making the connection between AI and the built world, that's a harder story to tell. But the reality is AI is already everywhere around us. And in many places. It's in buildings and in systems. More than 200 years of industrialization suggest that AI will find its way to systems-level scale relatively easily. After all, one telling of that history suggests that all you have to do is find a technology, achieve scale and revolution will follow.
我知道当我们谈论人工智能时, 我们经常谈论一个机器人的世界。 我们的想象力很容易被科幻小说替代, 嗯,在过去的100年里。 我说人工智能,你会想到 “终结者“。 在某个地方,对我们来说, 把人工智能和建构的世界联系起来, 这是个更难说的故事。 但现实是,人工智能已经 遍布在我们周围。 并在很多地方。 它存在于建筑物和系统中。 200多年的工业化进程表明, 人工智能将相对容易地达到 在系统层面的规模。 毕竟,这段历史的一个说法表明, 你所要做的就是找到一种技术, 实现规模化,革命就会随之而来。
The story of mechanization, automation and digitization all point to the role of technology and its importance. Those stories of technological transformation make scale seem, well, normal. Or expected. And stable. And sometimes even predictable. But it also puts the focus squarely on technology and technology change. But I believe that scaling a technology and building a system requires something more.
机械化、自动化和数字化的故事 都指出了技术的作用和它的重要性。 这些技术变迁的故事 使规模看起来正常。 或符合预期。 而且稳定。 甚至有时是可预测的。 但也把重点放在了 技术和技术变革上。 但我相信,扩展一项技术 和建立一个系统 需要更多的东西。
We founded the 3Ai Institute at the Australian National University in September 2017. It has one deceptively simple mission: to establish a new branch of engineering to take AI safely, sustainably and responsibly to scale. But how do you build a new branch of engineering in the 21st century? Well, we're teaching it into existence through an experimental education program. We're researching it into existence with locations as diverse as Shakespeare's birthplace, the Great Barrier Reef, not to mention one of Australia's largest autonomous mines. And we're theorizing it into existence, paying attention to the complexities of cybernetic systems. We're working to build something new and something useful. Something to create the next generation of critical thinkers and critical doers. And we're doing all of that through a richer understanding of AI's many pasts and many stories. And by working collaboratively and collectively through teaching and research and engagement, and by focusing as much on the framing of the questions as the solving of the problems.
我们在澳大利亚国立大学成立了3Ai研究所 于2017年9月。 它有一个看似简单的使命: 建立一个新的工程分支, 以安全、可持续和负责任的方式 将人工智能推向规模。 但你如何在21世纪 建立一个新的工程分支? 好吧,我们正在通过一个实验性的 教育项目来训练它。 我们正在研究它, 地点包括莎士比亚的出生地, 大堡礁, 更不用说澳大利亚最大的自治矿场之一。 而我们正在将其理论化, 关注于控制论系统的复杂性。 我们正在努力搭建 一些新的和有用的东西。 培养下一代批判性思考者 和批判性行动者的东西。 我们正在通过对人工智能的许多过去 和许多故事的更丰富的理解 来实现这一切。 通过教学、研究、雇佣的协作和合作 关注问题的框架 和问题的解决
We're not making a single AI, we're making the possibilities for many. And we're actively working to decolonize our imaginations and to build a curriculum and a pedagogy that leaves room for a range of different conversations and possibilities. We are making and remaking. And I know we're always a work in progress. But here's a little glimpse into how we're approaching that problem of scaling a future.
我们不是在制造一个单一的人工智能, 我们是在为许多人创造可能性。 我们正在积极努力 使我们的想象力去殖民化, 并建立一个课程和教学法, 为一系列不同的对话和可能性留下空间。 我们正在创造和重塑。 我知道我们始终是一个进行中的工作。 但是,这里可以看到我们是 如何处理这个面向未来的问题的。
We start by making sure we're grounded in our own history. In December of 2018, I took myself up to the town of Brewarrina on the New South Wales-Queensland border. This place was a meeting place for Aboriginal people, for different groups, to gather, have ceremonies, meet, to be together. There, on the Barwon River, there's a set of fish weirs that are one of the oldest and largest systems of Aboriginal fish traps in Australia. This system is comprised of 1.8 kilometers of stone walls shaped like a series of fishnets with the "Us" pointing down the river, allowing fish to be trapped at different heights of the water. They're also fish holding pens with different-height walls for storage, designed to change the way the water moves and to be able to store big fish and little fish and to keep those fish in cool, clear running water. This fish-trap system was a way to ensure that you could feed people as they gathered there in a place that was both a meeting of rivers and a meeting of cultures.
我们从确保我们立足于 我们自己的历史开始。 在2018年12月, 我去了新南威尔士州和昆士兰州 交界处的布雷瓦里纳镇。 这个地方是原住民、 不同群体的聚会场所, 他们聚集在一起, 举行仪式、见面、相聚。 在巴元河 (Barwon River) 上, 有一组鱼堰, 是澳大利亚最古老和最大的 原住民捕鱼系统之一。 这个系统由1.8公里长的石墙组成, 形状像一系列鱼网, “我们”指向河下, 使鱼被困于不同高度的水中。 它们也是具有不同高度墙体的储鱼池, 旨在改变水的流动方式, 能够储存大鱼和小鱼, 并将这些鱼放在凉爽、清澈的流水中。 这个捕鱼系统是一种 确保当人们可以被喂饱的方式。 当人们聚集在一个既是河流交汇 又是文化交汇的地方时。
It isn't about the rocks or even the traps per se. It is about the system that those traps created. One that involves technical knowledge, cultural knowledge and ecological knowledge. This system is old. Some archaeologists think it's as old as 40,000 years. The last time we have its recorded uses is in the nineteen teens. It's had remarkable longevity and incredible scale. And it's an inspiration to me. And a photo of the weir is on our walls here at the Institute, to remind us of the promise and the challenge of building something meaningful. And to remind us that we're building systems in a place where people have built systems and sustained those same systems for generations.
这不是关于岩石, 甚至不是关于捕鱼器本身。 它是这些存水弯所创造的系统。 这个系统涉及技术知识、 文化知识和生态知识。 这个系统是古老的。 一些考古学家认为它有4万年的历史。 我们最后一次记录它的用途 是在19世纪10年代。 它有非凡的寿命和令人难以置信的规模。 这对我来说是一种激励。 堰塞湖的照片就挂在我们研究所的墙上, 以提醒我们的承诺和挑战, 去建设有意义的东西。 并提醒我们,我们正在 一个人们世代建立 并维持这些相同系统的地方建立系统。
It isn't just our history, it's our legacy as we seek to establish a new branch of engineering. To build on that legacy and our sense of purpose, I think we need a clear framework for asking questions about the future. Questions for which there aren't ready or easy answers. Here, the point is the asking of the questions. We believe you need to go beyond the traditional approach of problem-solving, to the more complicated one of question asking and question framing. Because in so doing, you open up all kinds of new possibilities and new challenges.
这不仅是我们的历史, 也是我们寻求建立 一个新的工程分支时的遗产。 基于这种遗产和我们的使命感, 我认为我们需要一个明确的框架 来提出关于未来的问题。 这里的问题没有现成的或简单的答案, 问题的关键在于提出这些问题。 我们相信,你需要超越传统的 解决问题的方法, 转而采用更复杂的提问 和问题框架。 因为这样做,你会开辟出各种新的可能性 和新的挑战。
For me, right now, there are six big questions that frame our approach for taking AI safely, sustainably and responsibly to scale. Questions about autonomy, agency, assurance, indicators, interfaces and intentionality.
对我来说,现在有六大问题,它们构成了 我们安全、可持续和负责任地 将人工智能推向规模的方法。 关于自主性、代理、保证、 指标、界面和意向性的问题。
The first question we ask is a simple one. Is the system autonomous? Think back to that lift on Bligh Street. The reality is, one day, that lift may be autonomous. Which is to say it will be able to act without being told to act. But it isn't fully autonomous, right? It can't leave that Bligh Street building and wonder down to Circular Quay for a beer. It goes up and down, that's all. But it does it by itself. It's autonomous in that sense.
我们问的第一个问题是一个简单的问题。 该系统是自主的吗? 回想一下布莱街的那部电梯。 现实是,有一天, 那部电梯可能是自主的。 这就是说,它将能够在 没有人告诉它的情况下采取行动。 但它并不是完全自主的,对吗? 它不能离开布莱街的大楼, 去环形码头喝啤酒。 它可以上上下下,仅此而已。 但它是自主做的。 在这个意义上,它是自主的。
The second question we ask: does this system have agency? Does this system have controls and limits that live somewhere that prevent it from doing certain kinds of things under certain conditions. The reality with lifts, that's absolutely the case. Think of any lift you've been in. There's a red keyslot in the elevator carriage that an emergency services person can stick a key into and override the whole system. But what happens when that system is AI-driven? Where does the key live? Is it a physical key, is it a digital key? Who gets to use it? Is that the emergency services people? And how would you know if that was happening? How would all of that be manifested to you in the lift?
我们问的第二个问题是: 这个系统有代理吗? 这个系统是否有控制和限制, 阻止它在某些条件下做某些事情。 现实中的电梯,绝对是这样的。 想想你坐过的任何电梯。 在电梯轿厢里有一个红色的钥匙槽, 紧急服务人员可以把钥匙插进去, 控制整个系统。 但如果这个系统是人工智能驱动的, 会发生什么? 钥匙在哪里? 它是一把实体钥匙,还是一把数字钥匙? 谁可以使用它? 是应急服务人员吗? 以及你怎么知道是否发生了这种情况? 所有这些将如何在电梯里展示给你?
The third question we ask is how do we think about assurance. How do we think about all of its pieces: safety, security, trust, risk, liability, manageability, explicability, ethics, public policy, law, regulation? And how would we tell you that the system was safe and functioning?
我们问的第三个问题是, 我们如何看待保险问题。 我们如何思考它的所有部分: 安全、保障、信任、 风险、责任、可管理性、 可解释性、道德、 公共政策、法律、监管? 以及我们如何告诉你 这个系统是安全的,并且在运作?
The fourth question we ask is what would be our interfaces with these AI-driven systems. Will we talk to them? Will they talk to us, will they talk to each other? And what will it mean to have a series of technologies we've known, for some of us, all our lives, now suddenly behave in entirely different ways? Lifts, cars, the electrical grid, traffic lights, things in your home.
我们问的第四个问题是, 我们与这些人工智能驱动的系统的 相互作用点会是什么? 我们会和他们交谈吗? 它们会和我们交谈吗, 它们会相互交谈吗? 对于我们中的一些人来说, 我们一生熟知的一系列技术, 现在突然以完全不同的方式行事, 这将意味着什么? 电梯、汽车、电网、 交通灯、你家里的东西。
The fifth question for these AI-driven systems: What will the indicators be to show that they're working well? Two hundred years of the industrial revolution tells us that the two most important ways to think about a good system are productivity and efficiency. In the 21st century, you might want to expand that just a little bit. Is the system sustainable, is it safe, is it responsible? Who gets to judge those things for us? Users of the systems would want to understand how these things are regulated, managed and built.
第五个问题是问这些 人工智能驱动的系统的 有什么指标可以表明它们运行良好? 两百年的工业革命告诉我们, 考量一个好系统的两个最重要的方式 是生产力和效率。 在21世纪, 你可能想把它扩展一点。 这个系统是否可持续, 是否安全,是否负责任? 谁能为我们判断这些事情? 系统的用户会想了解 这些东西是如何被监管、管理和建设的。
And then there's the final, perhaps most critical question that you need to ask of these new AI systems. What's its intent? What's the system designed to do and who said that was a good idea? Or put another way, what is the world that this system is building, how is that world imagined, and what is its relationship to the world we live in today? Who gets to be part of that conversation? Who gets to articulate it? How does it get framed and imagined?
还有最后一个,也许是最关键的问题, 你需要问这些新的人工智能系统。 它的意图是什么? 这个系统的设计目的是什么, 谁说这是一个好主意? 或者换个说法, 这个系统正在构建的世界是什么? 这个世界是如何被想象出来的, 它与我们今天生活的世界有什么关系? 谁能成为这一对话的一部分? 谁来阐述它? 它是如何被构思和想象的?
There are no simple answers to these questions. Instead, they frame what's possible and what we need to imagine, design, build, regulate and even decommission. They point us in the right directions and help us on a path to establish a new branch of engineering. But critical questions aren't enough. You also need a way of holding all those questions together.
这些问题没有简单的答案。 相反,它们框定了什么是可能的, 以及我们需要想象、设计、 建造、监管甚至停止使用什么。 它们为我们指出正确的方向, 帮助我们走上建立新的工程分支的道路。 但光有关键问题还不够。 你还需要一种将所有这些问题 结合起来的方法。
For us at the Institute, we're also really interested in how to think about AI as a system, and where and how to draw the boundaries of that system. And those feel like especially important things right now. Here, we're influenced by the work that was started way back in the 1940s. In 1944, along with anthropologists Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead, mathematician Norbert Wiener convened a series of conversations that would become known as the Macy Conferences on Cybernetics. Ultimately, between 1946 and 1953, ten conferences were held under the banner of cybernetics. As defined by Norbert Wiener, cybernetics sought to "develop a language and techniques that will enable us to indeed attack the problem of control and communication in advanced computing technologies." Cybernetics argued persuasively that one had to think about the relationship between humans, computers and the broader ecological world. You had to think about them as a holistic system. Participants in the Macy Conferences were concerned with how the mind worked, with ideas about intelligence and learning, and about the role of technology in our future.
对我们研究所来说, 我们感兴趣如何将人工智能 作为一个系统来思考, 我们感兴趣在哪里和如何 划定这个系统的边界。 这些感觉是现在特别重要的事情。 在这里,我们受到早在 1940年代开始的工作的影响。 1944年,人类学家格雷戈里·贝特森(Gregory Bateson) 和玛格丽特·米德 (Margaret Mead) 与数学家诺伯特·维纳 (Norbert Wiener) 一起召开了一系列对话, 这些对话后来被称为 “梅西控制论会议”。 最终,在1946年至1953年期间, 在控制论的支持下举行了十次会议。 正如诺伯特·维纳所定义的那样, 控制论试图 “开发一种语言和技术, 使我们能够真正解决先进计算技术中的 控制和通信问题”。 控制论令人信服地认为, 我们必须思考人类、计算机 和更广泛的生态世界之间的关系。 必须把它们作为一个整体的系统来考虑。 梅西会议的参与者关注头脑如何工作, 关注智能和学习, 以及技术在我们未来的作用。
Sadly, the conversations that started with the Macy Conference are often forgotten when the talk is about AI. But for me, there's something really important to reclaim here about the idea of a system that has to accommodate culture, technology and the environment. At the Institute, that sort of systems thinking is core to our work.
可悲的是,以梅西会议为开端的对话 往往被遗忘,当人们谈论人工智能时。 但对我来说,在这里有一些 真正重要的东西需要重申, 那就是关于一个必须适应文化、 技术和环境的系统的想法。 在研究所,这种系统思维是 我们工作的核心。
Over the last three years, a whole collection of amazing people have joined me here on this crazy journey to do this work. Our staff includes anthropologists, systems and environmental engineers, and computer scientists as well as a nuclear physicist, an award-winning photo journalist, and at least one policy and standards expert. It's a heady mix. And the range of experience and expertise is powerful, as are the conflicts and the challenges. Being diverse requires a constant willingness to find ways to hold people in conversation. And to dwell just a little bit with the conflict.
在过去的三年里, 一大批了不起的人加入了 我在这里的疯狂旅程,从事这项工作。 我们的员工包括人类学家、 系统和环境工程师、计算机科学家, 以及一位核物理学家、 一位获奖的摄影记者, 还有至少一位政策和标准专家。 这是个令人振奋的组合。 经验和专业知识的范围是强大的, 冲突和挑战也是如此。 作为一个多元化的组织,需要不断地找到 与他人对话的方法, 并在冲突中稍作停留。
We also worked out early that the way to build a new way of doing things would require a commitment to bringing others along on that same journey with us. So we opened our doors to an education program very quickly, and we launched our first master's program in 2018. Since then, we've had two cohorts of master's students and one cohort of PhD students. Our students come from all over the world and all over life. Australia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Nepal, Mexico, India, the United States. And they range in age from 23 to 60. They variously had backgrounds in maths and music, policy and performance, systems and standards, architecture and arts. Before they joined us at the Institute, they ran companies, they worked for government, served in the army, taught high school, and managed arts organizations. They were adventurers and committed to each other, and to building something new. And really, what more could you ask for?
我们也很早就意识到, 要建立一种新的做事方式, 就需要承诺让其他人 与我们一起踏上同样的旅程。 因此,我们很快打开了教育项目的大门, 我们在2018年推出了 我们的第一个硕士项目。 从那时起,我们已经有两批硕士生 和一批博士生。 我们的学生来自世界各地, 来自生活的各个角落。 澳大利亚、新西兰、尼日利亚、尼泊尔、 墨西哥、印度、美国。 而且他们的年龄从23岁到60岁不等。 他们有不同的背景,包括数学和音乐、 政策和表演、 系统和标准、 建筑和艺术。 在加入我们研究所之前, 他们经营公司,为政府工作, 在军队服役,在高中教书, 管理艺术组织。 他们是冒险家, 对彼此和对建立新事物都有责任感。 真的,你还能要求什么呢?
Because although I've spent 20 years in Silicon Valley and I know the stories about the lone inventor and the hero's journey, I also know the reality. That it's never just a hero's journey. It's always a collection of people who have a shared sense of purpose who can change the world. So where do you start?
因为尽管我在硅谷呆了20年, 我知道关于孤独的发明家 和英雄的旅程的故事, 我也知道现实。 它从来都不只是一个英雄的旅程。 它总是由一群有共同目标感的人组成, 他们可以改变世界。 那么,你从哪里开始呢?
Well, I think you start where you stand. And for me, that means I want to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land upon which I'm standing. The Ngunnawal and Ngambri people, this is their land, never ceded, always sacred. And I pay my respects to the elders, past and present, of this place. I also acknowledge that we're gathering today in many other places, and I pay my respects to the traditional owners and elders of all those places too.
嗯,我想你从你所站的地方开始。 对我来说,这意味着我想感谢 我所站立的这片土地的传统主人。 恩古那瓦和恩甘布利族人, 这是他们的土地, 从未被割让,永远是神圣的。 我向这个地方过去和 现在的长者们表示敬意。 我也感谢,我们当今能在 许多其他地方相聚。 我也向所有这些地方的 传统主人和长者表示敬意。
It means a lot to me to get to say those words and to dwell on what they mean and signal. And to remember that we live in a country that has been continuously occupied for at least 60,000 years. Aboriginal people built worlds here, they built social systems, they built technologies. They built ways to manage this place and to manage it remarkably over a protracted period of time. And every moment any one of us stands on a stage as Australians, here or abroad, we carry with us a privilege and a responsibility because of that history. And it's not just a history. It's also an incredibly rich set of resources, worldviews and knowledge. And it should run through all of our bones and it should be the story we always tell.
能说出这些话,并详述它们的 含义和信号,对我来说意义重大。 并记住我们生活在一个 至少已被持续占领了6万年的国家。 原住民在这里建立了万物, 他们建立了社会系统,他们建立了技术。 他们建立了管理这个地方的方法, 并在很长一段时间内杰出地管理它。 作为澳大利亚人,我们中的任何一个人 站在舞台上的每一刻, 无论在这里,还是在国外, 都带着一种特权和责任。 因为这段历史。 而且这不仅仅是一段历史。 它也是一系列极其丰富的资源、 世界观和知识。 而且它应该贯穿于我们所有的骨子里, 它应该是我们一直讲述的故事。
Ultimately, it's about thinking differently, asking different kinds of questions, looking holistically at the world and the systems, and finding other people who want to be on that journey with you. Because for me, the only way to actually think about the future and scale is to always be doing it collectively. And because for me, the notion of humans in it together is one of the ways we get to think about things that are responsible, safe and ultimately, sustainable.
归根结底,它是关于以不同的方式思考, 提出不同类型的问题, 全面地看待世界和系统, 并找到其他想要与你一起前行的人。 因为对我来说, 真正思考未来和等级的唯一方法 是始终以集体方式进行。 因为对我来说, 人类共同参与的概念 是我们思考负责任的、安全的 和最终可持续的事物的方式之一。
Thank you.
谢谢。