I'm an artist and an engineer. And lately, I've been thinking a lot about how technology mediates the way we perceive reality. And it's being done in a superinvisible and nuanced way. Technology is designed to shape our sense of reality by masking itself as the actual experience of the world. As a result, we are becoming unconscious and unaware that it is happening at all.
我是藝術家,也是工程師。 最近,對於科技如何居中影響 我們感知現實,我想了很多。 科技已經以一種超級隱形 且微妙的方式居中影響了。 科技用把它自己偽裝成 真實體驗的方式, 來形塑我們對現實的感受。 因此,我們完全沒有意識到 它其實一直在發生著。
Take the glasses I usually wear, for example. These have become part of the way I ordinarily experience my surroundings. I barely notice them, even though they are constantly framing reality for me. The technology I am talking about is designed to do the same thing: change what we see and think but go unnoticed.
以我通常在戴的眼鏡為例。 眼鏡已經變成我平常 體驗環境的方式的一部分。 我幾乎不會注意到它, 即使它經常在為我構建現實。 我所談的科技, 其設計目的也是一樣的: 以完全不被注意到的方式 改變我們的所見、所想。
Now, the only time I do notice my glasses is when something happens to draw my attention to it, like when it gets dirty or my prescription changes. So I asked myself, "As an artist, what can I create to draw the same kind of attention to the ways digital media -- like news organizations, social media platforms, advertising and search engines -- are shaping our reality?" So I created a series of perceptual machines to help us defamiliarize and question the ways we see the world.
只有一種情況下 我會注意到我有戴眼鏡, 那就是發生了某件事, 把我的注意力拉到眼鏡上, 比如眼鏡被弄髒, 或者我的度數改變。 所以,我問我自己: 「身為藝術家, 我能創造什麼,來把同樣的注意力 帶到數位媒體——如 新聞組織、社群媒體平台、 廣告,和搜尋引擎—— 看看它們如何形塑現實。 所以,我創作了 一系列的感知機器, 來協助我們破除對世界的熟悉感, 並質疑我們看世界的方式。
For example, nowadays, many of us have this kind of allergic reaction to ideas that are different from ours. We may not even realize that we've developed this kind of mental allergy. So I created a helmet that creates this artificial allergy to the color red. It simulates this hypersensitivity by making red things look bigger when you are wearing it. It has two modes: nocebo and placebo. In nocebo mode, it creates this sensorial experience of hyperallergy. Whenever I see red, the red expands. It's similar to social media's amplification effect, like when you look at something that bothers you, you tend to stick with like-minded people and exchange messages and memes, and you become even more angry. Sometimes, a trivial discussion gets amplified and blown way out of proportion. Maybe that's even why we are living in the politics of anger. In placebo mode, it's an artificial cure for this allergy. Whenever you see red, the red shrinks. It's a palliative, like in digital media. When you encounter people with different opinions, we will unfollow them, remove them completely out of our feeds. It cures this allergy by avoiding it. But this way of intentionally ignoring opposing ideas makes human community hyperfragmented and separated.
比如,現今,我們許多人 對於和我們不同的想法 會產生過敏反應。 我們可能甚至沒發現我們 已經發展出了這種心理過敏。 所以我製做了一頂頭盔,能創造出 對紅色這種顏色的人工過敏。 當你戴上這頭盔,它模擬 這種過敏症的方式就是 讓紅色的東西看起來比較大。 它有兩種模式: 反安慰劑和安慰劑。 用反安慰劑模式時, 它會創造出過敏症的感覺體驗。 每當我看見紅色,紅色就會擴張。 這和社群媒體的放大效應很類似, 比如,當你看到讓你反感的事物, 你會傾向留在同溫層, 和想法相似的人交流訊息 和迷因,結果你會更生氣。 有時,很瑣碎的討論會被放大 並擴大到非常不成比例的程度。 也許這甚至是我們活在 「憤怒的政治」下的原因。 用安慰劑模式,則會提供 這種過敏的人工解藥。 每當你看到紅色,紅色就會縮小。 它是種緩和劑,就像數位媒體。 當你遇到意見不同的人, 我們就不會追隨他們, 完全取消追蹤他們的動態。 它治癒這種過敏的 方式是「避開」。 但這種刻意忽略相反想法的方式 會讓人類共同體變得 超分散且分裂。
The device inside the helmet reshapes reality and projects into our eyes through a set of lenses to create an augmented reality. I picked the color red, because it's intense and emotional, it has high visibility and it's political. So what if we take a look at the last American presidential election map through the helmet?
頭盔裡面的裝置能重塑現實, 透過一組鏡片, 投射到你的眼睛上, 來創造擴增實境。 我選中紅色,是因為 這個顏色很強烈且情緒化, 它非常顯眼, 且它有政治味。 所以,如果我們用這個頭盔來看 上次美國總統大選的地圖呢? (笑聲)
(Laughter)
各位可以看見,不論你是 民主黨或共和黨都一樣,
You can see that it doesn't matter if you're a Democrat or a Republican, because the mediation alters our perceptions. The allergy exists on both sides.
因為中介影響會改變我們的感知。 雙方都有過敏。
In digital media, what we see every day is often mediated, but it's also very nuanced. If we are not aware of this, we will keep being vulnerable to many kinds of mental allergies.
在數位媒體中, 我們每天所見的資訊, 通常都已受中介影響, 但這影響非常微妙。 如果我們沒有意識到, 我們就會一直無法 抵抗多種心理過敏。
Our perception is not only part of our identities, but in digital media, it's also a part of the value chain. Our visual field is packed with so much information that our perception has become a commodity with real estate value. Designs are used to exploit our unconscious biases, algorithms favor content that reaffirms our opinions, so that every little corner of our field of view is being colonized to sell ads. Like, when this little red dot comes out in your notifications, it grows and expands, and to your mind, it's huge.
我們的感知不僅是 我們身分的一部分, 在數位媒體中, 它也是價值鏈的一部分。 我們的視野中塞滿了資訊, 因此我們的感知已經變成了 有不動產價值的商品。 很多設計都利用了 我們的無意識偏見, 用演算法找出我們偏好的內容 讓我們更堅信自己的意見, 這麼一來,我們 視野中的每個小角落 都會被開拓來賣廣告。 比如,當這個小紅點 出現在你的通知圖示上, 它會長大、擴展, 對你的心靈而言它很巨大。
So I started to think of ways to put a little dirt, or change the lenses of my glasses, and came up with another project. Now, keep in mind this is conceptual. It's not a real product. It's a web browser plug-in that could help us to notice the things that we would usually ignore. Like the helmet, the plug-in reshapes reality, but this time, directly into the digital media itself. It shouts out the hidden filtered voices. What you should be noticing now will be bigger and vibrant, like here, this story about gender bias emerging from the sea of cats.
所以,我開始想辦法弄髒 我的眼鏡或是改變鏡片度數, 因而想出了另一個計畫。 請記住,這不是真實產品, 只是概念性的。 它是瀏覽器的外掛程式, 能協助我們注意到 我們通常會忽略的東西。 就像那頂頭盔一樣, 這個外掛能重塑現實, 但這次,是直接 進入到數位媒體本身。 它會喊出被過濾掉的隱藏聲音。 你現在應該要注意到的東西 會變得更大且會震動, 像這裡,關於性別偏見的故事 從一片貓海中浮現。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
The plug-in could dilute the things that are being amplified by an algorithm. Like, here in this comment section, there are lots of people shouting about the same opinions. The plug-in makes their comments super small.
這個外掛可以將演算法 所放大的東西給稀釋。 比如,在這個留言區, 有很多人都在 大聲嚷嚷同一種意見, 而這個外掛就讓 他們的留言變得超級小。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
So now the amount of pixel presence they have on the screen is proportional to the actual value they are contributing to the conversation.
所以,他們在螢幕上有多少像素, 就會對應到他們對於對談的 實際貢獻價值有多高。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
(Applause)
(掌聲)
The plug-in also shows the real estate value of our visual field and how much of our perception is being commoditized. Different from ad blockers, for every ad you see on the web page, it shows the amount of money you should be earning.
這個外掛也會展示出 我們視野中的不動產價值, 以及我們有多少感知 已經被商品化。 和廣告攔截程式不同, 針對你在網頁上 所看到的每則廣告, 它都會顯示出你應該 賺到的錢有多少。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
We are living in a battlefield between reality and commercial distributed reality, so the next version of the plug-in could strike away that commercial reality and show you things as they really are.
我們生活在戰場上, 現實和商業分配現實之間在作戰, 所以,下一版的外掛 可以趕跑那商業現實, 讓你看見一切真正的樣貌。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
(Applause)
(掌聲)
Well, you can imagine how many directions this could really go. Believe me, I know the risks are high if this were to become a real product. And I created this with good intentions to train our perception and eliminate biases. But the same approach could be used with bad intentions, like forcing citizens to install a plug-in like that to control the public narrative. It's challenging to make it fair and personal without it just becoming another layer of mediation.
各位可以想像,這個外掛 有多少方向可以去發展。 相信我,我知道如果它變成 真實的產品,風險會很高。 我創造它是出於好意, 想要訓練我們的感知並消除偏見。 但同樣的方法也可以 用在不好的地方,比如 強迫公民安裝那樣的外掛, 來控制對公眾敘事的方式。 困難之處在於要讓它 公平、個人使用, 不能變成另一層的中介影響。
So what does all this mean for us? Even though technology is creating this isolation, we could use it to make the world connected again by breaking the existing model and going beyond it. By exploring how we interface with these technologies, we could step out of our habitual, almost machine-like behavior and finally find common ground between each other.
所以,上述這些 對我們有什麼意涵? 雖然科技正在造成這種孤立, 但我們也可以用科技 讓世界再次連結, 要做的是打破既有模型, 不要受限於它。 藉由探索我們能如何 和這些技術接合, 我們就能踏出我們習慣性 且幾乎是機械式的行為, 最終在彼此之間找到共同點。
Technology is never neutral. It provides a context and frames reality. It's part of the problem and part of the solution. We could use it to uncover our blind spots and retrain our perception and consequently, choose how we see each other.
科技從來就不是中立的。 它能提供情境,也能修飾現實。 它是問題的一部分, 也是解決方案的一部分。 我們可以用科技 來發掘我們的盲點, 並重新訓練我們的感知, 這麼一來,我們就能選擇 我們如何看待彼此。
Thank you.
謝謝。
(Applause)
(掌聲)