Today, we know and track virtually nothing that’s happening in our own brains. But in a future that is coming much faster than you realize, all of that is about to change.
現今我們完全不了解也沒有去追蹤 自己腦內的狀況。 但這一切在未來將會改變, 且這個未來將會 來得比你預期的還要快很多。
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.
現在我們很熟悉在智慧手錶 和戒指中有內建的感測器, 什麼都能追蹤,從我們的 心跳到我們的步數、 呼吸、體溫,甚至睡眠。 現在,世界各地都有販售 消費者神經科技裝置, 讓我們能夠追蹤自己的腦活動。 隨著各大企業,從 Meta 到微軟、 Snap,甚至蘋果 開始將腦感測器 置入我們日常的裝置中, 比如耳塞式耳機、頭戴式耳機、 頭帶、手錶,甚至可穿戴的紋身, 我們即將來到大腦透明度的轉折點。
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.
剛才舉例的只是大家熟悉的 企業,還有更多其他的。 消費者神經科技裝置 正在從應用有限的利基產品 轉變成讓我們了解 自己腦活動的方式、 我們操控虛擬實境 和擴增實境的控制器, 以及我們和所有 其他科技互動的主要方法之一。 就連針對神經科技產業的保守估計 都認為到 2032 年時市值 會超過三百八十億美金。 這種新類型的科技帶來了 前所未有的機會, 有好的也有壞的。
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.
想想看,我們的身體健康持續提升, 同時神經疾病和痛苦卻也不斷增加。 全世界有五千五百萬人 為失智症所苦, 當中有超過 60% 到 70% 患有阿茲海默症。 近十億人要面對心理健康方面的問題 和藥物使用障礙。 受憂鬱症影響的人有超過三億人。 消費者神經科技裝置 終於讓我們可以認真 看待我們的大腦健康, 就像我們認真看待身體健康那樣。
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.
但把我們的大腦透明公開給別人看, 也會帶來非常大的風險。 這就是為什麼,在還沒太遲的時候, 我們必須要改變神經科技相關的 基本服務條款,以個人權利為重。 我不僅是以相信法律力量的 法律教授身分這麼說, 也不僅是以試圖確立 規範的哲學家身分這麼說, 還有母親的身分, 身為母親,我人生中神經科技的使用 對我有很切身的深刻影響。
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 年的母親節, 我雙手抱著我的女兒卡莉斯塔時, 她做出了最後一次美麗的呼吸。 住院很長一段時間之後, 感染造成的併發症要了她的命。 我們目擊了她所承受的痛苦創傷, 這一切持續了數週, 我則留下了持久的創傷, 後來演變成創傷後壓力症候群。 很多年的時間,我都無法入眠。 每當我閉上我的眼睛, 我就會重溫這一切,從最初, 我被推出急診室, 到她讓人心碎的哭聲。 最終,幫助我的 是一位很有才的心理學家 所採用的暴露治療法 以及我自己使用神經反饋技術 讓我能在夜晚入睡。 對於其他為創傷記憶所苦的人, 使用解碼神經反饋 (DecNef)的創新方法 可能可提供暫時的緩解。 這種開創性的方法 用機器學習演算法來辨識 特定的大腦活動模式, 包括和創傷記憶有關的那些模式。 接著受試者要玩一個遊戲, 讓他們能重新訓練他們的 大腦活動,改建立正向的關聯。 如果我當時就能使用 DecNef, 我可能可以更快克服 我的創傷後壓力症候群, 且不需要重溫所有的聲音、 恐懼,和氣味就能夠做到。
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.
我不是唯一的一個人。 莎菈描述她自己 已經走到生命的盡頭, 因為她嚴重且棘手的憂鬱症 讓她覺得不再值得活下去。 接著,她植入了大腦感測器, 就像大腦裝了心律調節器一樣, 能重設她的大腦活動, 莎菈重此找回了活下去的意志。
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.
雖然植入式神經科技的 進步非常不凡, 但其實嵌入在我們一般 技術中的日常大腦感測器 在我看來才最會影響到我們的生活。 比如,有三分之一的成人 以及近四分之一的孩童患有癲癇 且傳統的抗癲癇藥物對他們無效。 現在,從以色列到西班牙的 研究者都已經開發出大腦感測器 透過用人工智慧做模式辨識 以及消費者腦電圖技術 在癲癇發作的幾分鐘前 到最多一小時前 就能先偵測出來, 將可能可以救命的警報 發送到行動裝置。
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.
定期使用大腦感測器 甚至可以讓我們能夠偵測到 最具侵襲性的腦瘤的最初階段, 比如膠質母細胞瘤, 早期發現對於拯救 病人生命是至關重要。 同樣的道理也可以套用到 帕金森氏症、阿茲海默症、 創傷性腦損傷、 過動症,甚至憂鬱症。
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.
我們甚至可以改善我們的大腦。 大腦訓練遊戲產業的市值驚人, 2021 年的價值為六十五億美金, 多年來該產業一直很爭議,因為 其宣稱功效背後的科學 沒有證據支持。 但現在,有些大腦訓練平台, 如 Cognizant, 已經證明能非常有效地 改善大腦處理速度、 記憶力、推理能力, 甚至執行功能,透過 重複玩遊戲就能做到。 若和神經反饋裝置結合來增強學習, 就有可能顛覆我們學習 和適應改變的方式。 其他的突破,也可能會 大大改變人類的體驗。 現今大部分的人腦研究 根據非常少數的受試者 在受控制的實驗室環境中 進行非常特定的工作任務。 若能普及運用大腦感測器, 我們能用來了解人腦的資料量 就會呈現指數增加。 若有夠大的資料集, 長時間累積人類進行 日常活動的真實世界資料, 我們可能可以處理所有問題, 從神經疾病和痛苦, 為人類體驗創造出更多 會帶來轉變的可能性,
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.
但要讓這一切成真, 必須要讓大家能有信心分享 他們的大腦資料,不會害怕 這些資料被濫用而對他們不利。 要知道,這些裝置 所收集和產生的大腦資料 並不是在傳統實驗室環境中收集的, 也不是在醫生和科學家 進行的臨床研究中收集的, 而是被銷售這些新裝置的業者收集, 被這些年來將我們的個人資料 變成商品的那些企業收集。 這就是為什麼當我們 步入這個新時代時, 不能天真看待這些風險, 也不能自鳴得意地面對 收集和分享我們大腦資料時 會帶來的挑戰。 我們能夠也會即時克服 科學方面的障礙, 但最具挑戰性的是社會方面的障礙。
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.
和過去追蹤與駭入人腦的技術不同, 大腦感測器讓別人能直接存取 我們自己有所保留的部分, 那些沒透過言語和行為 表現出來的部分。 在許多情況下,大腦資料 會比過去的個人資料更敏感,因為 這些資料反映出 我們的感覺、心理狀況、 情緒、好惡、慾望, 甚至我們的想法。 我絕對不會希望 在度過個人的喪親傷痛時的資料 被他人收集變成商品、 被分享出去、被分析。
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.
這些風險並不是假設性的。 以杭州的天祥集團為例, 它就已經收集了 數百萬個大腦活動資料的實例, 資料來自於有人參與 用意念控制的賽車、睡覺、工作, 甚至是使用他們的裝置 來做神經反饋。 他們已經和其他企業進行合作, 分享和分析那些資料。 除非每個人都能掌控 自己的大腦資料, 不然這些資料會被用來做 精準投放或更糟的事, 而不是治療失智症。 比如,世界各地都有些員工 在工作場所被當作大腦監控的對象, 來追蹤他們注意力和疲勞, 有政府在發展大腦生物特徵辨識, 以在邊界做身分驗證, 還有審問刑事嫌疑犯的大腦, 甚至還有武器 可以被設計來讓人腦 無法運作或混淆。 大腦可配戴裝置將不只 能夠讀取,還能寫入, 讓我們的大腦面臨風險, 可能會被駭入、 操控,甚至成為攻擊針對的目標。 我們必須快點做出 保護措施,對抗我們 最內在的自我要面臨的可怕真實風險。
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.
承認「認知自由」的人權 就是一種保護措施。 認知自由是一種免受 他人干擾的權利, 也是一種自我決定的權利, 對我們的大腦和心智體驗的 自主權,能讓人類繁榮。 要實現它, 我們必須要承認三項 相互關聯的人權, 並更新我們對它們的了解, 以確保我們擁有心智隱私權, 保護我們的自動反應、 情緒,及思想 不被干預。 思想自由這項絕對的人權 能保護我們的思想 不被截取、操控,和懲罰。 還有自主權, 可以確保我們擁有 我們的大腦和心智體驗; 如果我們想要存取和改變 它們時也可以辦得到。 已經有人在做重要的努力, 從聯合國到到聯合國 教科文組織,在世界各國, 處理神經科技的權利和規定議題。 但那些權利必須要更密切 配合更廣泛的數位權利。 認知自由是在數位時代的新版自由, 它是種整體的概念,促進人類 在各種數位科技中的繁榮。 因為向前邁進的正確方式並非 透過元宇宙權利、人工智慧權利, 或神經科技權利等等。 重點在於了解這些科技並不單獨存在, 它們結合在一起影響 我們的大腦和心智體驗。
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.
我們真的馬上就要面臨這些了。 真的是馬上。 消費者腦部可配戴裝置已經問世了, 且我們大腦被商品化的 現象已經開始了。 現在要問的只是規模會多大而已。 我們還沒過轉折點, 轉折點指的是別人可以直接 存取和改變多數人的大腦。 但這很快就會發生了, 我們還有最後一點點 時間可以做改變, 避免在幾年後我們 再回顧過去,只能悲嘆 我們留下的世界。 我們可以也應該對我們現在 做出的選擇抱有希望並深思熟慮, 選擇去確保我們能擁有自己 大腦和心智體驗的自主權。 如果我們這麼做,能夠限制住 可能性的,就只有我們的想像力了。
Thank you.
謝謝。
(Applause)
(掌聲)