Hello. My name is Herman, and I've always been struck by how the most important, impactful, tsunami-like changes to our culture and our society always come from those things that we least think are going to have that impact.
哈囉, 我是赫曼, 我總是很訝異, 對於我們的文化和社會 最重要、最有影響力、 能引起海嘯般的改變的事物, 總是來自最不被我們認為 會有那種影響力的事物。
I mean, as a computer scientist, I remember when Facebook was just image-sharing in dorm rooms, and depending upon who you ask, it's now involved in toppling elections. I remember when cryptocurrency or automated trading were sort of ideas by a few renegades in the financial institutions in the world for automated trading, or online, for cryptocurrency, and they're now coming to quickly shape the way that we operate. And I think each of you can recall that moment where one of these ideas felt like some ignorable, derisive thing, and suddenly, oh, crap, the price of Bitcoin is what it is. Or, oh, crap, guess who's been elected.
身為資訊科學家, 我記得臉書當初只是 在宿舍分享影像的工具, 看你問的是誰, 臉書現在甚至可以顛覆選舉了。 我還記得加密貨幣或者自動交易 是金融機構叛徒想出來的點子, 他們存在於金融體系, 存在於自動交易世界中, 或是網絡上的加密貨幣。 如今它們快速形塑我們的運作方式。 我想各位都還記得 這些點子曾經都像是 可忽視、可付之一笑的點子, 突然,喔,天哪, 比特幣現在是天價了。 或者,喔,天哪,猜猜誰當選了。
The reality is that, you know, from my perspective, I think that we're about to encounter that again. And I think one of the biggest, most impactful changes in the way we live our lives, to the ways we're educated, probably even to how we end up making an income, is about to come not from AI, not from space travel or biotech -- these are all very important future inventions -- but in the next five years, I think it's going to come from video games.
現實就是,從我的觀點來看, 我們很快又會再次遇到這種改變。 我認為,未來其中一個最大、 最有影響力的改變, 能改變我們的生活方式, 改變我們的教育方式, 甚至可能改變我們 賺取收入的方式, 這個改變不是來自人工智慧, 不是來自太空旅行或生物科技。 這些全是非常重要的未來發明。 但是在接下來的五年, 我認為改變會來自電玩。
So that's a bold claim, OK. I see some skeptical faces in the audience. But if we take a moment to try to look at what video games are already becoming in our lives today, and what just a little bit of technological advancement is about to create, it starts to become more of an inevitability. And I think the possibilities are quite electrifying. So let's just take a moment to think about scale.
這樣說很大膽。 我看到觀眾席中有些懷疑的表情。 但如果我們花點時間看看 哪些電玩遊戲現已深入我們的生活, 以及科技上的一點進步, 能創造出什麼, 就會發現這是無可避免的。 我認為這些可能性很振奮人心。 讓我們花點時間看其規模。
I mean, there's already 2.6 billion people who play games. And the reality is that's a billion more than five years ago. A billion more people in that time. No religion, no media, nothing has spread like that. And there's likely to be a billion more when Africa and India gain the infrastructure to sort of fully realize the possibilities of gaming. But what I find really special is -- and this often shocks a lot of people -- is that the average age of a gamer, like, have a guess, think about it. It's not six, it's not 18, it's not 12. It's 34. [Average age of an American gamer] It's older than me. And that tells us something, that this isn't entertainment for children anymore. This is already a medium like literature or anything else that's becoming a fundamental part of our lives.
現在已有二十六億人 玩電玩遊戲。 比起五年前,多出了十億人。 比那時候多了十億人。 沒有宗教或媒體散播得這麼快。 還有可能再多出十億人, 只要非洲和印度能取得基礎設施後, 就能實現玩電玩的可能性。 但,我發現了一個特點—— 通常會讓很多人吃驚—— 遊戲玩家的平均年齡, 你猜猜看是多少? 不是六歲,不是十八歲, 不是十二歲。 是三十四歲。 【美國電玩家平均 34 歲】 比我還老。 【美國電玩家平均 34 歲】 那告訴我們一些訊息, 這已不再是兒童的娛樂, 它已經是一個媒介體, 就像文學或其他, 已成為我們基礎生活的一部分。
One stat I like is that people who generally picked up gaming in the last sort of 15, 20 years generally don't stop. Something changed in the way that this medium is organized. And more than that, it's not just play anymore, right? You've heard some examples today, but people are earning an income playing games. And not in the obvious ways. Yes, there's e-sports, there's prizes, there's the opportunity to make money in a competitive way. But there's also people earning incomes modding games, building content in them, doing art in them. I mean, there's something at a scale akin to the Florentine Renaissance, happening on your kid's iPhone in your living room. And it's being ignored.
我喜歡的一項數據是 大概在過去十五、二十年, 接觸電玩後喜歡上的人, 多半不會停止玩遊戲。 有些事物的轉變 讓這個媒介體更有條裡。 不只這樣,它已不再只是玩樂而已。 你今天聽到了一些例子, 人們能通過玩電玩賺取收入, 雖然並不是直接性的。 對,我們有電子競技,有獎金 用比賽的方式有機會賺錢。 但也有人通過修改、創建電玩內容 或電玩藝術,賺取收入。 我是說它的規模類似文藝復興, 就在你的客廳、 孩子的 iPhone 裡上演著。 卻一直被忽視。
Now, what's even more exciting for me is what's about to happen. And when you think about gaming, you're probably already imagining that it features these massive, infinite worlds, but the truth is, games have been deeply limited for a very long time in a way that kind of we in the industry have tried very hard to cover up with as much trickery as possible. The metaphor I like to use, if you'd let me geek out for a moment, is the notion of a theater. For the last 10 years, games have massively advanced the visual effects, the physical immersion, the front end of games. But behind the scenes, the actual experiential reality of a game world has remained woefully limited. I'll put that in perspective for a moment. I could leave this theater right now, I could do some graffiti, get in a fight, fall in love. I might actually do all of those things after this, but the point is that all of that would have consequence. It would ripple through reality -- all of you could interact with that at the same time. It would be persistent. And those are very important qualities to what makes the real world real.
讓我感到更振奮的是 將要發生的事。 當你想到玩電玩時, 你可能已開始想像, 它特寫了龐大無限的世界。 但事實上, 電玩長久以來被深深限制著, 換句話說,在我們這行裡, 已經盡可能地用巧計掩飾。 我想用的這個比喻, 請容我賣弄一下, 引用劇場的概念。 在過去的十年間, 電玩大大推進 視覺效果、實體融入遊戲 和遊戲前端的進步。 但是這一切的幕後, 在遊戲世界,現實的實際經驗 一直非常有限。 我先以一個角度來看, 我現在可以離開這個劇場, 我可以去塗鴉, 打一場架,談一場戀愛, 我確實能在離開後做這些事, 但重點是它們都會帶來後果, 會對現實引起連環效應—— 人人都可以與此同時互動, 而且持久。 因為這些重要的特質 讓我們感覺世界的真實。
Now, behind the scenes in games, we've had a limit for a very long time. And the limit is, behind the visuals, the actual information being exchanged between players or entities in a single game world has been deeply bounded by the fact that games mostly take place on a single server or a single machine. Even The World of Warcraft is actually thousands of smaller worlds. When you hear about concerts in Fortnite, you're actually hearing about thousands of small concerts. You know, individual, as was said earlier today, campfires or couches. There isn't really this possibility to bring it all together. Let's take a moment to just really understand what that means. When you look at a game, you might see this, beautiful visuals, all of these things happening in front of you.
這些遊戲的幕後 一直有限制。 這些限制是看不到的。 在遊戲的世界裡, 玩家能和實體交換的實際信息 十分受限。 事實上,遊戲的運作 通常只在一個伺服器 或者一台機器上。 即使是「魔獸世界」 也是幾千個小世界組成的。 當你聽「堡壘之夜」的電玩演唱會時, 其實你聽到的是 上千個小型演唱會。 像我們今天之前提到的個人、 營火會或沙發。 真的不可能將所有內容整合在一起。 讓我們稍微想想這代表什麼。 看著遊戲,你可能會看見美麗的影像。 這些影像就在你面前產生。
But behind the scenes in an online game, this is what it looks like. To a computer scientist, all you see is just a little bit of information being exchanged by a tiny handful of meaningful entities or objects. You might be thinking, "I've played in an infinite world." Well it's more that you've played on a treadmill. As you've been walking through that world, we've been cleverly causing the parts of it that you're not in to vanish, and the parts of it in front of you to appear. A good trick, but not the basis for the revolution that I promised you in the beginning of this talk.
但是線上遊戲的幕後 長這個樣子。 對於資訊科學家, 你看見的只是這一點點資訊 在少數有意義的實體或物體間交換, 你可能在想, 「我在無限的世界裡玩。」 那個世界確實 比你跑步機上的還大。 當你走進那個世界, 我們巧妙地讓你不存在的部份消失, 你存在時那部份又會出現。 很好的手法, 但這不是革新的基礎, 就像我一開場就提到的。
But the reality is, for those of you that are passionate gamers and might be excited about this, and for those of you that are afraid and may not be, all of that is about to change. Because finally, the technology is in place to go well beyond the limits that we've previously seen. I've dedicated my career to this, there are many others working on the problem -- I'd hardly take credit for it myself, but we're at the point now where we can finally do this impossible hard thing of weaving together thousands of disparate machines into single simulations that are convenient enough to not be one-offs, but to be buildable by anybody. And to be at the point where we can start to experience those things that we can't yet fathom.
但事實上,你們這些熱衷的玩家, 會對此感到興奮, 不管你感到擔心或不擔心, 這一切將會有改變。 會改變是因為科技終於趕上, 超越了我們先前有的限制。 我為此奉獻了我的事業, 還有許多人在解決這個問題, 我從來不炫耀我的功勞, 但我們終於到了, 完成這不可能的任務的地步。 我們把上千個截然不同的機器 編織在同一個模擬器裡。 它非常方便,不是一次性的, 而是任何人都能創建。 為了達到這點, 我們能體驗之前無法探測到的事物。
Let's just take a moment to visualize that. I'm talking about not individual little simulations but a massive possibility of huge networks of interaction. Massive global events that can happen inside that. Things that even in the real world become challenging to produce at that kind of scale. And I know some of you are gamers, so I'm going to show you some footage of some things that I'm pretty sure I'm allowed to do, from some of our partners. TED and me had a back-and-forth on this. These are a few things that not many people have seen before, some new experiences powered by this type of technology. I'll just [take] a moment to show you some of this stuff.
我們來想像一下, 我説的不是小型的個人模擬, 而極有可能是大規模網絡互動。 大型的全球性節目能在網絡上演。 包括在現實世界中, 因規模太大難以實踐的。 我知道在座有些玩家, 我給大家看看一些影像, 我非常確定我的夥伴允許我這麼做, TED 也再三和我確認過, 這是很多人沒見過的, 用這項技術產生的全新體驗。 我花一些時間讓你看看,
This is a single game world with thousands of simultaneous people participating in a conflict. It also has its own ecosystem, its own sense of predator and prey. Every single object you see here is simulated in some way. This is a game being built by one of the biggest companies in the world, NetEase, a huge Chinese company. And they've made an assistant creative simulation where groups of players can cocreate together, across multiple devices, in a world that doesn't vanish when you're done. It's a place to tell stories and have adventures. Even the weather is simulated. And that's kind of awesome.
這是一個遊戲世界, 上千的玩家同時在決戰, 這世界有自己的生態系統, 有捕食者和獵物。 你在這裡看到的每一樣物體, 基本上都是虛擬的。 這個遊戲是由世界 大型公司之一所創建的, 「網易」,一家大型的中國公司。 他們已造出創意模擬助手, 一組玩家能夠一起創設遊戲, 用的還是不同的器材, 一個你退出了也不會消失的世界。 它是一個說故事、冒險的地方, 就連天氣都是虛擬的。 那真是太棒了。
And this is my personal favorite. This is a group of people, pioneers in Berlin, a group called Klang Games, and they're completely insane, and they'll love me for saying that. And they found a way to model, basically, an entire planet. They're going to have a simulation with millions of non-player characters and players engaging. They actually grabbed Lawrence Lessig to help understand the political ramifications of the world they're creating.
這是我個人最喜愛的, 是一組在柏林的開發者, 名叫「Klang Games」, 他們簡直是瘋子, 他們會喜歡我這麼說。 他們基本上已經找到方法, 製作整個星球的模型。 他們會進行一場模擬, 讓上百萬個非玩家角色和玩家參與。 他們甚至吸引了 勞倫斯·萊西格的注意 在他們創建的世界裡, 一起了解政治上的影響。
This is the sort of astounding set of experiences, well beyond what we might have imagined, that are now going to be possible. And that's just the first step in this technology.
這是一項驚人的經驗, 遠超乎我們的想像, 把不可能變成可能。 這只是這項科技的第一步,
So if we step beyond that, what happens? Well, computer science tends to be all exponential, once we crack the really hard problems. And I'm pretty sure that very soon, we're going to be in a place where we can make this type of computational power look like nothing. And when that happens, the opportunities ...
如果我們再往前走,會怎樣? 電腦科技通常呈指數增長, 只要我們克服了最艱難的問題, 我很確定在不久的將來, 這項電腦科技帶來的影響力, 看起來也沒什麼了不起。 到了那時候,所帶來的機遇...
It's worth taking a moment to try to imagine what I'm talking about here. Hundreds of thousands or millions of people being able to coinhabit the same space. The last time any of us as a species had the opportunity to build or do something together with that may people was in antiquity. And the circumstances were less than optimal, shall we say. Mostly conflicts or building pyramids. Not necessarily the best thing for us to be spending our time doing. But if you bring together that many people, the kind of shared experience that can create ... I think it exercises a social muscle in us that we've lost and forgotten.
值得我們花點時間想想, 我在這裡提到的一切。 我說的是,千千萬萬的人 能夠在一個空間共生, 距離上次我們族類 能有機會一起建設或做某些事情, 大概是人類在遠古的時候。 我們可以說當時的條件並不樂觀。 大部份是紛爭或建造金字塔, 未必是我們一起花時間 做的最好的事情。 但如果你能把大家聚集在一起, 大家能創建共同的經驗... 我想這能觸動我們交際的本能, 我們已經把它丟失和遺忘的。
Going even beyond that, I want to take a moment to think about what it means for relationships, for identity. If we can give each other worlds, experiences at scale where we can spend a meaningful amount of our time, we can change what it means to be an individual. We can go beyond a single identity to a diverse set of personal identities. The gender, the race, the personality traits you were born with might be something you want to experiment differently with. You might be someone that wants to be more than one person. We all are, inside, multiple people. We rarely get the opportunity to flex that.
除此了這些之外,我想花點時間 想想它在感情、身份上的意義是什麼, 如果能讓大家大規模地 體驗彼此的世界, 能一起有意義地度過時光, 我們就能改變「個人」的意義。 我們能超越單一的身份, 使個人的身份更多元。 可能你想嘗試改變 性別、種族,或與生俱來的個性。 除了自己之外,你還想成為別人。 我們都一樣,內心裡存在著幾個人。 我們很難有機會放縱它。
It's also about empathy. I have a grandmother who I have literally nothing in common with. I love her to bits, but every story she has begins in 1940 and ends sometime in 1950. And every story I have is like 50 years later. But if we could coinhabit, co-experience things together, that undiminished by physical frailty or by lack of context, create opportunities together, that changes things, that bonds people in different ways. I'm struck by how social media has amplified our many differences, and really made us more who we are in the presence of other people. I think games could really start to create an opportunity for us to empathize again. To have shared adversity, shared opportunity.
這有關於同理心。 我有個奶奶, 我幾乎和她沒什麼共通性。 我愛她的一切, 但她的故事都從四零年代開始, 五零年代結束。 我的每個故事都是 五十年後才開始。 但如果我們能共生, 共同體驗不同的事物, 這體驗不會因為 身體虛弱或缺少內容而減少, 能共同創造機會, 它能改變事物, 用不同的方式緊緊繫住人們。 我很訝異社交媒體 如何放大了人們的差異性, 讓我們在他人面前 更能成為我們自己。 我覺得遊戲能開始創造 一個讓我們更有同理心的機會。 有共同的逆境、機會。
I mean, statistically, at this moment in time, there are people who are on the opposite sides of a conflict, who have been matchmade together into a game and don't even know it. That's an incredible opportunity to change the way we look at things.
在數據上,就在這個時候, 有些由於紛爭而敵對的人, 在遊戲裡被配在一起, 而他們全不知情。 這是很棒的機會, 改變了我們看待事物的方法。
Finally, for those of you who perhaps are more cynical about all of this, who maybe don't think that virtual worlds and games are your cup of tea. There's a reality you have to accept, and that is that the economic impact of what I'm talking about will be profound. Right now, thousands of people have full-time jobs in gaming. Soon, it will be millions of people. Wherever there's a mobile phone, there will be a job. An opportunity for something that is creative and rich and gives you an income, no matter what country you're in, no matter what skills or opportunities you might think you have. Probably the first dollar most kids born today make might be in a game. That will be the new paper route, that will be the new opportunity for an income at the earliest time in your life.
最後,對於這些 抱著懷疑態度的你們, 或許也覺得虛擬世界 不是你喜愛的, 你必須接受一個事實, 就像我提到的, 它能對經濟帶來影響, 還是很大的影響。 現今有數以千計的人 在電玩業全職工作, 再過不久,就會以百萬計。 哪裡有手機,哪裡就有工作。 一個能讓某個人創新、致富的機會, 不管你在哪個國家, 都能給你帶來收入。 不管你本來以為 你有什麼技能或機會。 有可能現今出生的小孩, 能賺到的第一塊錢, 就是從遊戲賺到。 就像出現了新的送報路線, 另一個賺錢的機會, 出現在你最初的人生。
So I kind of want to end with almost a plea, really, more than thoughts. A sense of, I think, how we need to face this new opportunity a little differently to some we have in the past. It's so hypocritical for yet another technologist to stand up on stage and say, "The future will be great, technology will fix it." And the reality is, this is going to have downsides. But those downsides will only be amplified if we approach, once again, with cynicism and derision, the opportunities that this presents. The worst thing that we could possibly do is let the same four or five companies end up dominating yet another adjacent space.
我想用幾乎是懇求的語氣來完結, 確實,它不只是一個想法, 我認為某程度上我們需要 想想如何面對這新的機遇, 與我們之前經歷的有點不一樣。 有點虛假,又是一位科技人 站在台上説, 「未來是偉大的, 科技會解決未來。」 現實是這也會有缺點, 但這些缺點只會在 我們對於眼前的機遇 抱著譏諷、悲觀的態度時被放大。 我們可能做的最糟糕的事 是讓相同的四或五家公司 又壟斷另一個相鄰的空間。
(Applause)
(掌聲)
Because they're not just going to define how and who makes money from this. The reality is, we're now talking about defining how we think, what the rules are around identity and collaboration, the rules of the world we live in. This has got to be something we all own, we all cocreate.
因為他們不只決定如何 或什麼人從中賺錢, 現實是,我們現在說的是, 重新定義我們怎麼想, 關於身份和合作的準則是什麼, 我們生活的世界的準則。 這將會是我們所有人擁有的, 我們所有人共創建的。
So, my final plea is really to those engineers, those scientists, those artists in the audience today. Maybe some of you dreamed of working on space travel. The reality is, there are worlds you can build right here, right now, that can transform people's lives. There are still huge technological frontiers that need to be overcome here, akin to those we faced when building the early internet. All the technology behind virtual worlds is different. So, my plea to you is this. Let's engage, let's all engage, let's actually try to make this something that we shape in a positive way, rather than once again have be done to us.
所以,我最後的懇求 是針對今天在現場當中那些 工程師、科學家和藝術家。 或許你們當中有人夢想 要從事太空旅遊行業。 現實是,這裡現在就有 你能建設的世界, 它還能轉變人們的生活。 在前線,我們面對很大的科技困難, 需要去克服, 情況類似於當初我們 建設網絡時的困難。 虛擬世界幕後所用的科技不同。 所以,我懇求大家這件事。 讓我們一起參與!一起參與! 與其採取被動的態度, 不如讓我們用正面的態度, 來塑造這樣一件事。
Thank you.
謝謝。
(Applause)
(掌聲)