Today, we know and track virtually nothing that’s happening in our own brains.
如今,我们完全不了解 自己大脑内发生着什么,
But in a future that is coming much faster than you realize, all of that is about to change.
也无法去追踪。 但这一切将会在未来改变, 而且这个未来 来得比你预期的还快很多。
We're now familiar with sensors in our smart watches to our rings, that track everything from our heartbeats to our footsteps, breaths, body temperature, even our sleep. Now, consumer neurotech devices are being sold worldwide to enable us to track our own brain activity. As companies from Meta to Microsoft, Snap and even Apple begin to embed brain sensors in our everyday devices like our earbuds, headphones, headbands, watches and even wearable tattoos, we're reaching an inflection point in brain transparency.
我们都很熟悉智能手表、 戒指中内嵌的传感器, 它们会追踪各种信息, 包括心跳、步数、呼吸、 体温,甚至睡眠。 如今,全球各地都有 出售消费型神经科技设备, 让我们能够追踪自己的大脑活动。 随着各大企业,从 Meta 到微软、Snap,甚至是苹果公司 都开始将大脑传感器 嵌入日常使用的设备中, 如耳塞式耳机、头戴式耳机、 头带、手表,甚至是穿戴式纹身, 我们正在迎来 大脑透明度的转折点, 这还只是一些我们耳熟能详的企业,
And those are just some of the company names we're familiar with. There are so many more. Consumer neurotech devices are moving from niche products with limited applications to becoming the way in which we'll learn about our own brain activity, our controller for virtual reality and augmented reality. And one of the primary ways we'll interact with all of the rest of our technology. Even conservative estimates of the neurotech industry put it at more than 38 billion dollars by 2032. This new category of technology presents unprecedented possibility, both good and bad.
还有更多其他的。 消费类神经科技设备 从搭载有限应用的小众商品 逐渐变为我们了解 自己大脑活动的方式, 我们对虚拟现实和 增强现实的控制器, 以及我们与所有其他科技 互动的主要方式之一。 连针对神经科技行业的保守估计, 都认为到 2032 年时,其市值 会超过 380 亿美元。 这一全新类别的科技 蕴含着前所未有的可能性, 有好也有坏。
Consider how our physical health and well-being are increasing while neurological disease and suffering continue to rise. 55 million people around the world are struggling with dementia, with more than 60 to 70 percent of them suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Nearly a billion people struggle with mental health and drug use disorders. Depression affects more than 300 million. Consumer neurotech devices could finally enable us to treat our brain health and wellness as seriously as we treat the rest of our physical well-being.
思考一下,我们的 身体健康和幸福在提升的同时, 神经疾病和痛苦也随之增加。 全球 5500 万人 正受到痴呆症的折磨, 其中超过 60% 至 70% 的人 患有阿尔茨海默症。 近 10 亿人饱受心理疾病和 药物使用障碍的折磨。 有超过 3 亿受抑郁症影响。 消费类神经科技设备 终于让我们可以 像照顾自己的身体健康那样认真地 关注自己的大脑健康。
But making our brains transparent to others also introduces extraordinary risks. Which is why, before it's too late to do so, we must change the basic terms of service for neurotechnology in favour of individual rights. I say this not just as a law professor who believes in the power of law, nor just a philosopher trying to flesh out norms, but as a mother who's been personally and profoundly impacted by the use of neurotechnology in my own life.
但将我们的大脑全然展示给别人, 也会带来不小的风险。 这也就是为什么 我们得在为时太晚以前, 改变神经科技的基本服务条款, 以个人权利为首。 我这么说不仅仅是以 相信法律效力的法学教授身份, 也不仅仅是以想要 为规范添砖加瓦的哲学家身份, 更是以一位在个人生活中 切身、深刻受到神经科技的使用 影响的母亲的身份。
On Mother's Day in 2017, as my daughter Calista lay cradled in my arms, she took one last beautiful breath. After a prolonged hospitalization, complications following infections claimed her life. The harrowing trauma that she endured and we witnessed stretched into weeks. And I was left with lasting trauma that progressed into post-traumatic stress disorder. Sleep escaped me for years. As each time I closed my eyes, I relived everything, from the first moments that I was pushed out of the emergency room to her gut-wrenching cries. Ultimately, it was the help of a talented psychologist, using exposure therapy, and my use of neurofeedback that enabled me to sleep through the night. For others who are suffering from traumatic memories, an innovative new approach using decoded neurofeedback, or DecNef, may offer reprieve. This groundbreaking approach uses machine-learning algorithms to identify specific brain-activity patterns, including those associated with traumatic memories. Participants then play a game that enables them to retrain their brain activity on positive associations instead. If I had had DecNef available to me at the time, I might have overcome my PTSD more quickly without having to relive every sound, terror and smell in order to do so.
2017 年的母亲节, 我怀抱着我的女儿 卡莉斯塔(Calista), 看着她做出了最后一次美丽的呼吸。 在漫长的住院后, 并发症伴随感染夺走了她的生命。 我们见证了她所承受的痛苦创伤, 这一切持续了数周。 她给我留下了无法磨灭的创伤, 恶化成了创伤后应激障碍(PTSD), 很多年来,我都无法入睡。 每当我闭上眼睛,就会重温这一切, 从我被推出急诊室的那一瞬间, 到她令人心碎的哭声。 最终,在一位有才华的 心理学家的帮助下, 通过暴露疗法和神经反馈技术 让我能在夜晚入睡。 对于其他饱受痛苦回忆折磨的人们, 使用解码神经反馈的新方式, 也称为 “DecNef” 能让得到暂时的缓解。 这个开创性的方式 通过机器学习算法 识别特定的大脑活动模式, 包括那些与痛苦回忆相关的活动。 然后参与者会玩一个游戏, 让他们重新训练大脑活动 改建积极的关联。 如果当时我可以使用 DecNef, 也许我就能更快地克服 创伤后应激障碍, 而且不用重新经历 所有的声音、恐惧和气味,
I'm not the only one. Sarah described herself as being at the end of her life, no longer in a life worth living, because of her severe and intractable depression. Then, using implanted brain sensors that reset her brain activity like a pacemaker for the brain, Sarah reclaimed her will to live.
我不是个例。 萨拉(Sarah)说她 已经走到了人生的尽头, 已经没有活下去的意义, 都是因为她难以治愈的重度抑郁。 通过植入性的大脑传感器, 重置了她的大脑活动, 就像是个给大脑用的心脏起搏器, 萨拉重获了活下去的意志。
While implanted neurotechnology advances have been extraordinary, it's the everyday brain sensors that are embedded in our ordinary technology that I believe will impact the majority of our lives. Like the one third of adults and nearly one quarter of children who are living with epilepsy for whom conventional anti-seizure medications fail. Now, researchers from Israel to Spain have developed brain sensors using the power of AI in pattern recognition and consumer electroencephalography to enable the detection of epileptic seizures minutes to up to an hour before they occur, sending potentially life-saving alerts to a mobile device.
虽然植入式神经科技的 进步令人惊叹, 但我认为嵌入我们平常科技的 日常所用的大脑传感器 才是影响我们大部分生活的因素。 有三分之一的成人 和将近四分之一的儿童癫痫患者 是无法依靠传统的 抗癫痫药物治疗的。 如今有以色列、西班牙的研究者 已经开发了大脑传感器, 利用 AI 模式识别的能力 和消费型脑电图 让癫痫在发作前数分钟, 甚至是一小时以前就能被监测到, 向移动端设备发送 可能可以救命的警报。
Regular use of brain sensors could even enable us to detect the earliest stages of the most aggressive forms of brain tumors, like glioblastoma, where early detection is crucial to saving lives. The same could hold true for Parkinson's disease, to Alzheimer's, traumatic brain injury, ADHD, and even depression.
定期使用大脑传感器 甚至可以让我们 检测到一些最凶险的脑瘤, 如胶质母细胞瘤的早期阶段, 而早期诊断对拯救生命至关重要。 这也适用于帕金森病、阿尔茨海默症、 创伤性脑损伤、ADHD(多动症), 甚至是抑郁症。
We may even change our brains for the better. The brain training game industry, worth a staggering 6.5 billion dollars in 2021, was for years met with controversy because of unsupported scientific claims about their efficacy. But now some brain-training platforms like Cognizant have proven powerful in improving brain processing speeds, memory, reasoning and even executive functioning when played repeatedly over time. When paired with neurofeedback devices for learning reinforcement, this could revolutionize how we learn and adapt to change. Other breakthroughs could be transformational for the human experience. Today, most human brain studies are based on a very small number of participants engaged in very specific tasks in a controlled laboratory environment. With widespread use of brain sensors, the data we could have to learn about the human brain would exponentially increase. With sufficiently large datasets of long-term, real-world data from people engaged in everyday activity, we just might address everything from neurological disease and suffering to creating transformational possibilities for the human experience.
我们甚至可以改良我们的大脑。 大脑训练游戏产业 在 2021 年市值已高达 65 亿美元, 多年以来备受争议, 由于它们宣称的功效并没有科学依据。 但一些大脑训练的平台, 如高知特(Cognizant)已证明 通过反复玩游戏,将有效改善 大脑的处理速度、记忆力、逻辑思维, 甚至是执行功能。 与用于学习强化的 神经反馈设备搭配使用, 将彻底革新我们学习、 应对变化的方法。 其他突破会为人类体验 带来革命性改变。 如今,大多数的人类大脑研究 基于非常少量的参与者 在受控的实验室环境下 参与非常特定的任务产生的数据。 随着大脑传感器的广泛使用, 我们可以用于了解人类大脑的数据 就会呈现指数式增长。 有了足够大的数据集 承载着长期、真实的数据, 取自人们的日常活动, 我们有可能可以解决一切, 从神经疾病和痛苦 到为人类体验创造出 颠覆性的新可能。
But all of this will only be possible if people can confidently share their brain data without fear that it will be misused against them. You see, the brain data that will be collected and generated by these devices won't be collected in traditional laboratory environments or in clinical research studies run by physicians and scientists. Instead, it will be the sellers of these new devices, the very companies who've been commodifying our personal data for years. Which is why we can't go into this new era naive about the risks or complacent about the challenges that the collection and sharing our brain data will pose. Scientific hurdles can and will be addressed in time, but the social hurdles will be the most challenging.
但要让这一切都成为可能, 人们必须有信心地 分享自己的大脑数据, 不会担心它会被滥用,对他们不利。 这些设备会收集、生成的大脑数据 是无法在传统的实验室环境 或由医师、科学家组织的 临床研究中收集的。 反而是这些新型设备的厂商 在进行收集, 也正是这些年来 用我们个人数据盈利的公司。 这也就是为什么我们不可以 在对风险一无所知, 或对收集、分享我们大脑数据 带来的挑战不以为然的情况下 走进这个新时代。 科研上的困难可以被及时解决, 但社会上的困难才是最有挑战性的。
Unlike the technologies of the past that track and hack the human brain, brain sensors provide direct access to the part of ourselves that we hold back, that we don't express through our words and our actions. Brain data in many instances will be more sensitive than the personal data of the past, because it reflects our feelings, our mental states, our emotions, our preferences, our desires, even our very thoughts. I would never have wanted the data that was collected as I worked through the trauma of my personal loss to have been commodified, shared and analyzed by others.
与以往追踪、 入侵人类大脑的技术不同, 大脑传感器让别人能直接存取 我们大脑有所保留的部分, 我们未通过言语和行动表达的部分。 很多情况下的大脑数据会比 以往的个人数据更加敏感, 因为它反映了我们的感受、 精神状态、情绪、 偏好、欲望,甚至是每一个想法。 我可不想我在度过 由失去亲人造成的创伤之际 收集的数据 还被人当商品出售、 分享、分析。
These aren't just hypothetical risks. Take Entertek, a Hangzhou-based company, who has collected millions of instances of brain activity data as people have engaged in mind-controlled car racing, sleeping, working, even using neurofeedback with their devices. They've already entered into partnerships with other companies to share and analyze that data. Unless people have individual control over their brain data, it will be used for microtargeting or worse, instead of treating dementia. Like the employees worldwide who've already been subject to brain surveillance in the workplace to track their attention and fatigue, to governments, developing brain biometrics, to authenticate people at borders, to interrogate criminal suspects' brains and even weapons that are being crafted to disable and disorient the human brain. Brain wearables will have not only read but write capabilities, creating risks that our brains can be hacked, manipulated, and even subject to targeted attacks. We must act quickly to safeguard against the very real and terrifying risks to our innermost selves.
这些都不只是假想的风险。 举个例子,杭州的公司 回车科技(Entertek) 收集了上亿大脑活动的实例数据, 来自于人们用意念控制赛车、 睡觉、工作, 甚至是通过神经反馈 使用设备的时候。 它已和其他公司达成合作, 分享、分析这些数据。 除非人们全权拥有 大脑数据的控制权, 它都有可能会被用于 精准投放或更糟糕的用途, 而不是用于治疗痴呆。 世界各地的员工 在工作时被迫当作大脑监控的对象, 来追踪他们的注意力和疲劳, 有政府在开发大脑生物信息识别 以便在海关核对身份, 还有审问犯罪嫌疑人的大脑, 甚至还在开发能使人类大脑 失效或错乱的武器。 大脑的可穿戴式设备 不仅可读,还可写, 为我们的大脑带来了被破解、操纵, 甚至是遭到特定攻击的风险。 我们必须立即行动起来, 保护我们最深处的自己 免受切切实实又骇人听闻的、 风险的侵扰。
Recognizing a human right to cognitive liberty would offer those safeguards. Cognitive liberty is a right from interference by others, but it is also a right to self-determination over our brains and mental experiences to enable human flourishing. To achieve this, we need to recognize three interrelated human rights and update our understanding of them to secure to us a right to mental privacy, to safeguard us from interference with our automatic reactions, our emotions and our thoughts. Freedom of thought as an absolute human right to protect us from interception, manipulation and punishment of our thoughts. And self-determination to secure self-ownership over our brains and mental experiences, to access and change them if we want to do so. There are important efforts already underway from the UN to UNESCO, in nations worldwide, over rights and regulations around neurotechnologies. But those rights need to be better aligned with a broader set of digital rights. Cognitive liberty is an update to liberty in the digital age as an umbrella concept of human flourishing across digital technologies. Because the right way forward isn't through metaverse rights or AI rights or neurotech rights and the like. It's to recognize that these technologies don't exist in silos, but in combination, affecting our brains and mental experiences.
承认人类具有认知自由的权利 就是一种保护措施。 认知自由是一种 需要他人介入的权利, 但它也是对自己的大脑 和精神体验的自主权, 让人类得以获得健康幸福。 为了达到这一目标, 我们得认可三项互相关联的人权, 更新我们对其的理解, 保障我们的精神隐私权, 保护我们不会受到下意识反应、 情绪和思绪的干扰。 思想自由是一项明确 保护我们的思想不会受到拦截、 操纵和惩罚的人权。 自主权 让我们完全掌控 自己的大脑和精神体验, 如果愿意的话, 可以访问,也可以修改。 这些都是正在进行的尝试, 从联合国到联合国教科文组织, 遍布世界各国, 都在争取神经科技相关的 权利和法规。 但这些权利得更好地 配合广泛的数字权利。 认知自由是数字时代的新版自由, 作为一个总括概念涵盖了 人类在各种数字科技下的蓬勃发展。 因为前进的正确方式 并非通过“元宇宙权” 或“AI 权”、 “神经科技权”等等。 关键在于认识到这些技术 不是独立存在的, 而是合而为一, 影响着我们的大脑和精神体验。
We are literally at a moment before. And I mean a moment. Consumer brain wearables have already arrived, and the commodification of our brains has already begun. It's now just a question of scale. We haven't yet passed the inflection point where most of our brains can be directly accessed and changed by others. But it is about to happen, giving us a final moment to make a change so that we don't look back in a few years' time and lament the world we've left behind. We can and should be hopeful and deliberate about the choices we make now to secure a right to self-determination over our brains and mental experiences. The possibilities, if we do so, are limited only by our imagination.
我们就差临门一脚了, 近在眼前了。 消费型大脑可穿戴式设备已经问世, 大脑的商品化已经开始, 只是规模的问题。 我们还没有跨过拐点, 跨过之后,我们大脑的大部分 可以直接被别人访问、修改。 但这很快就会发生了, 我们还有最后一点时间做出改变, 让我们不会在多年以后回顾, 只能哀叹我们留下的世界。 我们可以,也应当对我们现在 做出的决定保持积极、审慎的态度, 保障我们对自己的 大脑及精神体验的自主权。 如果我们这么做的话, 未来能够限制住可能性的 就只有我们的想象力了。
Thank you.
谢谢。
(Applause)
(掌声)