Today I'm here, actually, to pose you a question. What is life? It has been really puzzling me for more than 25 years, and will probably continue doing so for the next 25 years. This is the thesis I did when I was still in undergraduate school. While my colleagues still treated computers as big calculators, I started to teach computers to learn. I built digital lady beetles and tried to learn from real lady beetles, just to do one thing: search for food. And after very simple neural network -- genetic algorithms and so on -- look at the pattern. They're almost identical to real life. A very striking learning experience for a twenty-year-old.
Danas sam ovdje, zapravo, da bih vam postavio pitanje. Što je život? Razmišljao sam o tom pitanju više od 25 godina i vrlo vjerojatno ću razmišljati i sljedećih 25 godina. Ovu tezu postavio sam još kao student. Dok su se moji kolege odnosili prema računalima kao kalkulatorima, ja sam računala počeo podučavati da uče. Izradio sam digitalne bubamare i pokušao ih, od pravih bubamara, naučiti samo jednu stvar: tražiti hranu. Nakon veoma jednostavne neuralne mreže -- genetičkih algoritama i tako dalje -- pogledajte uzorak. Gotovo je identičan stvarnom. Izrazito nevjerojatno iskustvo učenja za dvadesetogodišnjaka.
Life is a learning program. When you look at all of this wonderful world, every species has its own learning program. The learning program is genome, and the code of that program is DNA. The different genomes of each species represent different survival strategies. They represent hundreds of millions of years of evolution. The interaction between every species' ancestor and the environment.
Život je program za učenje. Kada pogledate sav taj čudesan svijet, svaka vrsta ima svoj program za učenje. Program za učenje je genom, a kôd tog programa je DNK. Različiti genomi svake vrste predstavljaju različite strategije preživljavanja. Oni predstavljaju stotine milijuna godina evolucije. Interakcije pretka svake vrste i okoliša.
I was really fascinated about the world, about the DNA, about, you know, the language of life, the program of learning. So I decided to co-found the institute to read them. I read many of them. We probably read more than half of the prior animal genomes in the world. I mean, up to date.
Bio sam uistinu očaran svijetom, DNK, znate, jezikom života, programom učenja. Stoga sam odlučio biti suosnivač instituta kako bih ih proučavao. Proučio sam ih mnogo. Proučili smo vjerojatno više od polovine prethodnih životinjskih genoma na svijetu. Mislim, dosadašnjih.
We did learn a lot. We did sequence, also, one species many, many times ... human genome. We sequenced the first Asian. I sequenced it myself many, many times, just to take advantage of that platform. Look at all those repeating base pairs: ATCG. You don't understand anything there. But look at that one base pair. Those five letters, the AGGAA. These five SNPs represent a very specific haplotype in the Tibetan population around the gene called EPAS1. That gene has been proved -- it's highly selective -- it's the most significant signature of positive selection of Tibetans for the higher altitude adaptation. You know what? These five SNPs were the result of integration of Denisovans, or Denisovan-like individuals into humans.
Naučili smo mnogo. Također smo sekvencirali jednu vrstu mnogo, mnogo puta ... ljudski genom. Sekvencirali smo prvog Azijata. Sekvencirao sam sebe, mnogo, mnogo puta, samo kako bih iskoristio tu platformu. Pogledajte te ponavljajuće parove baza: ATCG. Tu ne razumijete ništa. Ali pogledajte taj par baza. Tih pet slova, AGGAA. Ovih pet SNP-ova predstavljaju veoma karakterističan haplotip u tibetanskoj populaciji oko gena zvanog EPAS1. Taj gen je dokazan -- visoko je selektivan -- to je najvažniji potpis pozitivne selekcije u Tibetanaca za adaptaciju na velike visine. Znate što? Ovih pet SNP-ova rezultat su integracije Denisovanaca, ili Denisovancima sličnih jedinki u ljudsku rasu.
This is the reason why we need to read those genomes. To understand history, to understand what kind of learning process the genome has been through for the millions of years. By reading a genome, it can give you a lot of information -- tells you the bugs in the genome -- I mean, birth defects, monogenetic disorders. Reading a drop of blood could tell you why you got a fever, or it tells you which medicine and dosage needs to be used when you're sick, especially for cancer.
Iz tog razloga moramo proučavati te genome. Kako bi se razumjela povijest, kako bi se razumjelo koje oblike procesa učenja je prošao genom kroz milijune godina. Proučavanjem genoma, on nam može dati mnogo informacija, govori nam greške u genomu, mislim, urođene greške, monogenetske poremećaje. Proučavanje kapi krvi može nam reći zašto imamo vrućicu, ili nam govori koji lijek i u kojoj dozi treba biti upotrijebljen kada smo bolesni, posebice za tumore.
A lot of things could be studied, but look at that: 30 years ago, we were still poor in China. Only .67 percent of the Chinese adult population had diabetes. Look at now: 11 percent. Genetics cannot change over 30 years -- only one generation. It must be something different. Diet? The environment? Lifestyle? Even identical twins could develop totally differently. It could be one becomes very obese, the other is not. One develops a cancer and the other does not. Not mentioning living in a very stressed environment.
Mnogo stvari se može proučiti, ali pogledajte ovo: prije 30 godina, u Kini smo još bili siromašni. Samo 0.67 posto odrasle populacije Kineza imalo je dijabetes. Pogledajte sada: 11 posto. Genetika se ne može promijeniti u 30 godina -- u samo jednoj generaciji. Mora postojati nešto drugo. Prehrana? Okoliš? Način života? Čak se i jednojajčani blizanci mogu razviti potpuno različito. Može se desiti da jedan postane veoma pretio, a drugi ne. Jedan razvije tumor, a drugi ne. Da ni ne spominjem život u vrlo stresnoj okolini.
I moved to Shenzhen 10 years ago ... for some reason, people may know. If the gene's under stress, it behaves totally differently. Life is a journey. A gene is just a starting point, not the end. You have this statistical risk of certain diseases when you are born. But every day you make different choices, and those choices will increase or decrease the risk of certain diseases. But do you know where you are on the curve? What's the past curve look like? What kind of decisions are you facing every day? And what kind of decision is the right one to make your own right curve over your life journey? What's that?
Prije 10 godina preselio sam u Shenzhen iz određenih razloga, neki bi mogli znati. Ako je gen pod stresom, ponaša se sasvim drugačije. Život je putovanje. Gen je samo polazište, ne završetak. Kada se rodite, imate određeni statistički rizik za određenu bolest. Ali, svaki dan radite drugačije odabire i ti će odabiri smanjiti ili povećati rizik za određenu bolest. No, znate li gdje se nalazite na krivulji? Kako izgleda krivulja prošlosti? S kakvim se odlukama suočavate svakodnevno? I koja je odluka ispravna da biste napravili svoju ispravnu krivulju kroz vlastiti životni put? Što je to?
The only thing you cannot change, you cannot reverse back, is time. Probably not yet; maybe in the future.
Jedina stvar koju ne možete promijeniti, ne možete vratiti natrag, je vrijeme. Vjerojatno još ne; možda u budućnosti.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
Well, you cannot change the decision you've made, but can we do something there? Can we actually try to run multiple options on me, and try to predict right on the consequence, and be able to make the right choice? After all, we are our choices.
Dakle, ne možete promijeniti odluke koje ste napravili ali, možemo li nešto tu učiniti? Možemo li, zapravo, na sebi isprobati brojne mogućnosti, zatim pokušati ispravno predvidjeti posljedice i biti u mogućnosti učiniti pravi izbor? Napokon, mi jesmo svoji izbori.
These lady beetles came to me afterwards. 25 years ago, I made the digital lady beetles to try to simulate real lady beetles. Can I make a digital me ... to simulate me? I understand the neural network could become much more sophisticated and complicated there. Can I make that one, and try to run multiple options on that digital me -- to compute that? Then I could live in different universes, in parallel, at the same time. Then I would choose whatever is good for me.
Kasnije sam se sjetio tih bubamara. Prije 25 godina, stvorio sam digitalne bubamare kako bi simulirale prave bubamare. Mogu li stvoriti digitalnog sebe... kako bih simulirao sebe? Shvaćam da bi neuralna mreža mogla postati mnogo sofisticiranija i složenija. Mogu li uspjeti u tome i isprobati brojne mogućnosti na digitalnom "ja" -- izračunati to? Tada bih mogao živjeti u različitim svjetovima, paralelno, u isto vrijeme. Tada bih mogao odabrati što god je dobro za mene.
I probably have the most comprehensive digital me on the planet. I've spent a lot of dollars on me, on myself. And the digital me told me I have a genetic risk of gout by all of those things there. You need different technology to do that. You need the proteins, genes, you need metabolized antibodies, you need to screen all your body about the bacterias and viruses covering you, or in you. You need to have all the smart devices there -- smart cars, smart house, smart tables, smart watch, smart phone to track all of your activities there. The environment is important -- everything's important -- and don't forget the smart toilet.
I vjerojatno imati najiscrpnije digitalno "ja" na planetu. Mnogo sam dolara potrošio na sebe. I digitalno "ja" reklo mi je kako genetički imam rizik za giht prema svemu ovome ovdje. Da to postignete, trebate drukčiju tehnologiju. Trebate proteine, gene, trebate metabolizirana antitijela, trebate pregledati cijelo tijelo na bakterije i viruse koji vas prekrivaju ili su u vama. Trebate imati sve moguće pametne uređaje, pametne automobile, pametnu kuću, pametne stolove, pametni sat, pametni telefon kako biste pratili sve svoje aktivnosti. Okoliš je bitan -- sve je bitno -- i ne zaboravite pametni zahod.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
It's such a waste, right? Every day, so much invaluable information just has been flushed into the water. And you need them. You need to measure all of them. You need to be able to measure everything around you and compute them.
Kakav gubitak, zar ne? Toliko vrijednih informacija, svakoga dana, jednostavno se baca u vodu. A trebate ih. Trebate ih sve ispitati. Trebate biti u mogućnosti ispitati sve oko vas i izračunati to.
And the digital me told me I have a genetic defect. I have a very high risk of gout. I don't feel anything now, I'm still healthy. But look at my uric acid level. It's double the normal range. And the digital me searched all the medicine books, and it tells me, "OK, you could drink burdock tea" -- I cannot even pronounce it right --
I digitalni "ja" rekao mi je kako imam genetski nedostatak: Imam veoma visok rizik za giht. Trenutno ne osjećam ništa. Još uvijek sam zdrav. Ali vidite razinu mokraćne kiseline. Duplo je veća od normalne. I digitalni "ja" pretražio je sve medicinske knjige i kaže mi: "U redu, mogao bi piti čaj od čička" -- Ne mogu to ni pravilno izgovoriti.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
That is from old Chinese wisdom. And I drank that tea for three months. My uric acid has now gone back to normal. I mean, it worked for me.
To je iz stare kineske mudrosti. I tri sam mjeseca pio taj čaj. Moja mokraćna kiselina sada se vratila na normalu. MIslim, na mene je to djelovalo.
All those thousands of years of wisdom worked for me. I was lucky. But I'm probably not lucky for you. All of this existing knowledge in the world cannot possibly be efficient enough or personalized enough for yourself. The only way to make that digital me work ... is to learn from yourself. You have to ask a lot of questions about yourself: "What if?" --
Sve te tisuće godina mudrosti djelovale su na mene. Imao sam sreće. Ali za vas, vjerojatno, nisam sretan. Svo to postojeće znanje na svijetu nikako ne može biti dovoljno učinkovito ili dovoljno personalizirano za vas. Jedini način da taj digitalni "ja" radi... je da učimo od sebe samih. Morate postavljati mnoga pitanja o sebi: "Što ako?"
I'm being jet-lagged now here. You don't probably see it, but I do. What if I eat less? When I took metformin, supposedly to live longer? What if I climb Mt. Everest? It's not that easy. Or run a marathon? What if I drink a bottle of mao-tai, which is a Chinese liquor, and I get really drunk? I was doing a video rehearsal last time with the folks here, when I was drunk, and I totally delivered a different speech.
Hvata me umor od vremenskih zona. Vi vjerojatno ne primjećujete, ali ja da. Što ako bih manje jeo? Što ako uzmem metformin kako bih, navodno, duže živio? Da se popnem na Mt. Everest? To nije tako jednostavno. Ili da otrčim maraton? Što ako bih popio bocu mao-taija, što je kinesko žestoko piće, i jako se napio? Prošli puta sam radio video probu s ljudima ovdje, kada sam bio pijan i održao sam posve drugačiji govor.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
What if I work less, right? I have been less stressed, right? So that probably never happened to me, I was really stressed every day, but I hope I could be less stressed. These early studies told us, even with the same banana, we have totally different glucose-level reactions over different individuals.
Što ako bih radio manje, je li tako? Bio sam manje pod stresom, je li tako? To mi se vjerojatno nikada nije desilo, stvarno sam bio pod stresom svaki dan, ali se nadam da bih mogao biti manje pod stresom. Te rane studije su nam pokazale, čak i s istom bananom, imamo posve različite razine glukoze kod različitih pojedinaca.
How about me? What is the right breakfast for me? I need to do two weeks of controlled experiments, of testing all kinds of different food ingredients on me, and check my body's reaction. And I don't know the precise nutrition for me, for myself.
A što je sa mnom? Što je pravilan doručak za mene? Trebam raditi dva tjedna kontroliranih eksperimenata, isprobavati na sebi sve moguće vrste sastojaka hrane i provjeravati reakciju svog tijela. I ne znam točnu prehranu za sebe, za sebe osobno.
Then I wanted to search all the Chinese old wisdom about how I can live longer, and healthier. I did it. Some of them are really unachievable. I did this once last October, by not eating for seven days. I did a fast for seven days with six partners of mine. Look at those people. One smile. You know why he smiled? He cheated.
Onda sam htio pretražiti svu staru kinesku mudrost, o tome kako mogu duže i zdravije živjeti. Učinio sam to. Neke od njih su uistinu neizvedive. Odradio sam jednu prošlog listopada, tako da nisam jeo sedam dana. Postio sam sedam dana sa šestoricom svojih partnera. Pogledajte te ljude. Jedan se smije. Znate li zašto? Varao je.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
He drank one cup of coffee at night, and we caught it from the data.
Pio je noću jednu šalicu kave i mi smo to saznali iz podataka.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
We measured everything from the data.
Izmjerili smo sve iz podataka.
We were able to track them, and we could really see -- for example, my immune system, just to give you a little hint there. My immune system changed dramatically over 24 hours there. And my antibody regulates my proteins for that dramatic change. And everybody was doing that. Even if we're essentially totally different at the very beginning. And that probably will be an interesting treatment in the future for cancer and things like that.
Mogli smo ih pratiti i uistinu smo mogli vidjeti -- na primjer, moj imunološki sustav, samo da vam malo natuknem. Tada se moj imunološki sustav dramatično promijenio tijekom 24 sata. I moja protutijela prilagođavaju moje proteine za takve dramatične promjene. I svatko je to radio. Iako smo bili posve drugačiji na samom početku. I to će u budućnosti vjerojatno biti zanimljiva terapija za karcinom i slične stvari.
It becomes very, very interesting. But something you probably don't want to try, like drinking fecal water from a healthier individual, which will make you feel healthier. This is from old Chinese wisdom. Look at that, right? Like 1,700 years ago, it's already there, in the book. But I still hate the smell.
Postaje veoma, veoma zanimljivo. No, nešto vjerojatno ne želite isprobati, na primjer, piti fekalnu vodu zdravijeg pojedinca, od čega ćete se osjećati zdravije. To je iz stare kineske mudrosti. Pogledajte to, u redu? Prije 1700 godina, već postoji, u knjizi. Ali i dalje mrzim taj smrad.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
I want to find out the true way to do it, maybe find a combination of cocktails of bacterias and drink it, it probably will make me better. So I'm trying to do that.
Želim otkriti kako to učiniti na pravi način, možda pronaći kombinaciju koktela bakterija i popiti ih, vjerojatno će mi biti bolje. Stoga pokušavam to učiniti.
Even though I'm trying this hard, it's so difficult to test out all possible conditions. It's not possible to do all kinds of experiments at all ... but we do have seven billion learning programs on this planet. Seven billion. And every program is running in different conditions and doing different experiments. Can we all measure them?
Iako se trudim tako jako, tako je teško ispitati sve moguće uvjete. Uopće nije moguće napraviti sve vrste eksperimenata, ali mi imamo sedam milijardi programa za učenje na ovom planetu. Sedam milijardi. I svaki program radi u drugačijim uvjetima i radi drugačije eksperimente. Možemo li ih sve izmjeriti?
Seven years ago, I wrote an essay in "Science" to celebrate the human genome's 10-year anniversary. I said, "Sequence yourself, for one and for all." But now I'm going to say, "Digitalize yourself for one and for all." When we make this digital me into a digital we, when we try to form an internet of life, when people can learn from each other, when people can learn from their experience, their data, when people can really form a digital me by themselves and we learn from it, the digital we will be totally different with a digital me.
Prije sedam godina napisao sam esej u časopisu "Science", u čast proslave 10. godišnjice ljudskog genoma. Rekao sam: "Sekvencirajte se, za jednoga i za sve." Ali, sada ću reći: "Digitalizirajte se za jednoga i za sve." Kada pretvorimo to digitalno "ja" u digitalno "mi", kada pokušamo oblikovati internet života, kada ljudi budu mogli učiti jedni od drugih, kada ljudi budu mogli učiti iz svog iskustva, svojih podataka, kada ljudi uistinu budu mogli sami oblikovati svoje digitalno "ja" i mi učimo od njega, digitalno "mi" bit će sasvim drugačije s digitalnim "ja".
But it can only come from the digital me. And this is what I try to propose here. Join me -- become we, and everybody should build up their own digital me, because only by that will you learn more about you, about me, about us ... about the question I just posed at the very beginning: "What is life?"
Ali ono jedino može proizaći iz digitalnog "ja". I to je ono što ovdje pokušavam predložiti. Pridružite mi se -- postanite "mi" i svi bi trebali izraditi vlastito digitalno "ja", jer jedino tako ćete naučiti više o sebi, o meni, o nama, o pitanju koje sam postavio na samom početku: "Što je život?"
Thank you.
Hvala vam.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)
Chris Anderson: One quick question for you. I mean, the work is amazing. I suspect one question people have is, as we look forward to these amazing technical possibilities of personalized medicine, in the near-term it feels like they're only going to be affordable for a few people, right? It costs many dollars to do all the sequencing and so forth. Is this going to lead to a kind of, you know, increasing inequality? Or do you have this vision that the knowledge that you get from the pioneers can actually be pretty quickly disseminated to help a broader set of recipients?
Chris Anderson: Jedno pitanje za vas, na brzinu. Mislim, rad je zapanjujuć. Jedno je pitanje, koje pretpostavljam da ljudi imaju, gledajući prema tim zapanjujućim tehničkim mogućnostima personalizirane medicine, najjednostavnije rečeno, izgleda kao da će biti dostupne nekolicini ljudi, je li tako? Mnogo dolara stoji to sekvenciranje i ostalo. Hoće li to dovesti do neke vrste, znate, rastuće nejednakosti? Ili imate viziju da će se znanje dobiveno od začetnika svega ovoga, zapravo moći prilično brzo proširiti, kako bi se pomoglo široj grupi primatelja?
Jun Wang: Well, good question. I'll tell you that seven years ago, when I co-founded BGI, and served as the CEO of the company there, the only goal there for me to do was to drive the sequencing cost down. It started from 100 million dollars per human genome. Now, it's a couple hundred dollars for a human genome. The only reason to do it is to get more people to benefit from it. So for the digital me, it's the same thing. Now, you probably need, you know, one million dollars to digitize a person. I think it has to be 100 dollars. It has to be free for many of those people that urgently need that.
Jun Wang: Pa, dobro pitanje. Reći ću vam da je prije sedam godina, kada sam suosnovao BGI i služio kao glavni izvršni direktor te tvrtke, moj jedini cilj bio smanjiti cijenu sekvenciranja. Počelo je sa 100 milijuna dolara po ljudskom genomu. Sada je nekoliko stotina dolara za ljudski genom. Jedini razlog svega ovoga je postići da više ljudi ima koristi od toga. Jednako je tako i s digitalnim "ja". Sada, vjerojatno trebate, znate, milijun dolara kako biste digitalizirali osobu. Mislim da to treba biti 100 dolara. Treba biti besplatno za one mnoge ljude kojima je to hitno potrebno.
So this is our goal. And it seems that with all this merging of the technology, I'm thinking that in the very near future, let's say three to five years, it will come to reality. And this is the whole idea of why I founded iCarbonX, my second company. It's really trying to get the cost down to a level where every individual could have the benefit.
Dakle, to je naš cilj. Čini se da zbog svog tog integriranja tehnologije, mislim da će u vrlo bliskoj budućnosti, recimo za tri do pet godina, to postati stvarnost. Ovo je poanta mog osnivanja iCarbonX-a, moje druge tvrtke. Uistinu pokušati smanjiti cijenu do razine na kojoj bi svaki pojedinac mogao imati koristi.
CA: All right, so the dream is not elite health services for few, it's to really try and actually make overall health care much more cost effective --
CA: Dobro, stoga san nije elitna zdravstvena usluga za nekolicinu, već stvarno pokušati i zapravo učiniti cjelokupno zdravstvo mnogo isplativijim --
JW: But we started from some early adopters, people believing ideas and so on, but eventually, it will become everybody's benefit.
JW: Iako smo započeli s nekoliko ranih korisnika, ljudi koji su vjerovali u ideje itd. naposljetku, to će postati korist za svakoga.
CA: Well, Jun, I think it's got to be true to say you're one of the most amazing scientific minds on the planet, and it's an honor to have you.
CA: Pa, Jun, mislim da je istina ako kažemo da ste jedan od najnevjerojatnijih znanstvenih umova na planetu i čast je imati vas.
JW: Thank you.
JW: Hvala vam.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)