I have a question. Can a computer write poetry? This is a provocative question. You think about it for a minute, and you suddenly have a bunch of other questions like: What is a computer? What is poetry? What is creativity? But these are questions that people spend their entire lifetime trying to answer, not in a single TED Talk. So we're going to have to try a different approach.
我有一个问题, 电脑可以写诗吗? 这是个有争议的问题。 你稍微想一下, 脑海里突然就会浮现出 很多其他的问题: 例如,什么是电脑? 什么是诗? 什么是创造力? 但这些问题, 很多人穷尽一生才能试着给出答案, 单单一场 TED 演说并不能回答。 所以,我们必须用不一样的方法,
So up here, we have two poems. One of them is written by a human, and the other one's written by a computer. I'm going to ask you to tell me which one's which. Have a go:
上面这里有两首诗, 其中一首是人类写的, 另一首是电脑写的。 我会让各位来分辨哪首是谁写的, 我们开始吧:
Poem 1: Little Fly / Thy summer's play, / My thoughtless hand / Has brush'd away. Am I not / A fly like thee? / Or art not thou / A man like me?
1号诗:小苍蝇,你夏天的游戏, 给我的手,无心地抹去。 我岂不像你,是一只苍蝇, 你岂不像我,是一个人?
Poem 2: We can feel / Activist through your life's / morning / Pauses to see, pope I hate the / Non all the night to start a / great otherwise (...)
2号诗:我们可以感受到, 激进派在妳每日生活的清晨出没 暂且停下感受,那我憎恶的教皇 并非每晚都能开始,一个伟大的其他可能...
Alright, time's up. Hands up if you think Poem 1 was written by a human. OK, most of you. Hands up if you think Poem 2 was written by a human. Very brave of you, because the first one was written by the human poet William Blake. The second one was written by an algorithm that took all the language from my Facebook feed on one day and then regenerated it algorithmically, according to methods that I'll describe a little bit later on. So let's try another test. Again, you haven't got ages to read this, so just trust your gut.
好的,时间到。 认为1号诗是人写的请举手, 好的,你们大部分都是。 认为2号诗是人写的请举手, 你们很勇敢, 因为第一首诗是由诗人William Blake所写, 第二首诗是由一个演算法所写出来的, 选取了我脸书一天的信息流里的文法, 然后,用演算法重新制作出来的, 按照我稍后会提到的方法。 我们来做另一个测验, 我再次说明, 你不用花太多时间去读它, 所以,相信你的直觉。
Poem 1: A lion roars and a dog barks. It is interesting / and fascinating that a bird will fly and not / roar or bark. Enthralling stories about animals are in my dreams and I will sing them all if I / am not exhausted or weary.
1号诗:狮吼,狗吠, 鸟飞,却不吼也不吠,这真迷人且有趣呐 我梦里有着关于动物的迷人故事 如果我不筋疲力尽或疲惫不堪 我会为他们歌颂。
Poem 2: Oh! kangaroos, sequins, chocolate sodas! / You are really beautiful! Pearls, / harmonicas, jujubes, aspirins! All / the stuff they've always talked about (...)
2号诗:喔!袋鼠、亮片、 巧克力苏打!你们真漂亮! 珍珠、口琴、枣子、阿斯匹林! 所有他们进场谈论的素材(...)
Alright, time's up. So if you think the first poem was written by a human, put your hand up. OK. And if you think the second poem was written by a human, put your hand up. We have, more or less, a 50/50 split here. It was much harder.
好的,时间到。 如果你认为第一首诗是人写的, 请举手。 好的。 如果你认为第二首诗是人写的, 请举手。 我们这里大约是50/50比例, 这题比较难一点。
The answer is, the first poem was generated by an algorithm called Racter, that was created back in the 1970s, and the second poem was written by a guy called Frank O'Hara, who happens to be one of my favorite human poets.
答案是, 第一首诗是一个名叫Racter的 电脑演算法 在1970年所创造的, 第二首诗是一位叫 Frank O'Hara的家伙写的, 他刚好是我最喜欢 的“ 人类诗人 ”其中之一,
(Laughter)
(笑声)
So what we've just done now is a Turing test for poetry. The Turing test was first proposed by this guy, Alan Turing, in 1950, in order to answer the question, can computers think? Alan Turing believed that if a computer was able to have a to have a text-based conversation with a human, with such proficiency such that the human couldn't tell whether they are talking to a computer or a human, then the computer can be said to have intelligence.
所以,我们为这首诗 做了「图灵测试」。 「图灵测试」在1950年, 由Alan Turing做第一次发表, 是为了回答一个问题: 「电脑会思考吗?」 Alan Turing相信,如果电脑能够 和人类进行一场文字交流, 流畅到让人无法分辨 对方是人还是一台电脑, 那么这台电脑可以被称呼为 拥有人工智慧。
So in 2013, my friend Benjamin Laird and I, we created a Turing test for poetry online. It's called bot or not, and you can go and play it for yourselves. But basically, it's the game we just played. You're presented with a poem, you don't know whether it was written by a human or a computer and you have to guess. So thousands and thousands of people have taken this test online, so we have results.
所以在2013年,我的朋友 Benjamin Laird和我, 我们创造了一个 在线的针推诗的图灵测试, 叫做「bot or not」(是不是机器人), 你可以上线自己玩玩看。 但基本上,它就是我们刚刚玩的游戏, 你会看到一首诗, 你不知道它是人写的还是电脑写的, 然后你必须猜一猜。 好几千人已经在线上做测验, 所以,我们有一个结论,
And what are the results? Well, Turing said that if a computer could fool a human 30 percent of the time that it was a human, then it passes the Turing test for intelligence. We have poems on the bot or not database that have fooled 65 percent of human readers into thinking it was written by a human. So, I think we have an answer to our question. According to the logic of the Turing test, can a computer write poetry? Well, yes, absolutely it can. But if you're feeling a little bit uncomfortable with this answer, that's OK. If you're having a bunch of gut reactions to it, that's also OK because this isn't the end of the story.
那结论是什么呢? Turing说如果电脑可以骗过30%的人, 那它就可以被当作人, 它就通过了图灵测试的智力部分。 我们在 bot or not 资料库里的诗集 已经骗过65% 的人, 让他们认为里面的诗是人写的。 所以,我认为我们的问题有答案了, 根据图灵测试的逻辑, 电脑可以写诗吗? 是的,它绝对可以。 但,如果你觉得对这答案 有点让你不太舒服, 也没关系, 如果你对此有一些直觉的反应, 这也没关系,因为故事还没有结束。
Let's play our third and final test. Again, you're going to have to read and tell me which you think is human.
我们来玩第三个 最后一个测验, 我再说明一下,你们要读完后, 告诉我哪一个是人写的。
Poem 1: Red flags the reason for pretty flags. / And ribbons. Ribbons of flags / And wearing material / Reasons for wearing material. (...)
1号诗:红旗之所以漂亮 除了红色,还有缎带 旗上的缎带及耐磨的材质 耐磨材料之所以(...)
Poem 2: A wounded deer leaps highest, / I've heard the daffodil I've heard the flag to-day / I've heard the hunter tell; / 'Tis but the ecstasy of death, / And then the brake is almost done (...)
2号诗:受伤的鹿跳最高, 我听见水仙的诉说, ¶ 我今天听旗子的话, 我听到猎人的故事; 这是对死亡的狂喜, 而伤害几乎已经造成(...)
OK, time is up. So hands up if you think Poem 1 was written by a human. Hands up if you think Poem 2 was written by a human. Whoa, that's a lot more people. So you'd be surprised to find that Poem 1 was written by the very human poet Gertrude Stein. And Poem 2 was generated by an algorithm called RKCP. Now before we go on, let me describe very quickly and simply, how RKCP works. So RKCP is an algorithm designed by Ray Kurzweil, who's a director of engineering at Google and a firm believer in artificial intelligence. So, you give RKCP a source text, it analyzes the source text in order to find out how it uses language, and then it regenerates language that emulates that first text.
好的,时间到。 认为1号诗是人写的请举手, 认为2号诗是人写的请举手, 哇!多很多人! 你会很惊讶地发现, 1号诗由一位纯正的人类诗人 Gertrude Stein所写的, 而2号诗是一个叫 RKCP演算法所创造的, 在我们要继续以前, 让我简单快速描述一下 RKCP是如何运作的。 RKCP是Ray Kurzweil 所设计的演算法, 他是一位谷歌的工程师主管, 也是一位人工智慧的坚定支持者。 那么,你给 RKCP一个源程序正文, 为了找出要如何使用这个语言, 它会分析来源文字, 然后,它会重新创造一段话来模仿源文字。
So in the poem we just saw before, Poem 2, the one that you all thought was human, it was fed a bunch of poems by a poet called Emily Dickinson it looked at the way she used language, learned the model, and then it regenerated a model according to that same structure. But the important thing to know about RKCP is that it doesn't know the meaning of the words it's using. The language is just raw material, it could be Chinese, it could be in Swedish, it could be the collected language from your Facebook feed for one day. It's just raw material. And nevertheless, it's able to create a poem that seems more human than Gertrude Stein's poem, and Gertrude Stein is a human.
所以,我们刚刚看到的诗, 你们认为是人类写的2号诗, 它被灌入了很多一位名叫 Emily Dickinson诗人的诗, 它取用了这位诗人的语言, 学习她的模式, 然后它依据同样的结构 重制一首诗出来。 但我们对RKCP最需要了解的是, 它不明白它自己用的文字意义, 语言只是它的原料, 它可以是中文,瑞典文, 它可以是你脸书上一天的文字。 它就只是个原料而已。 然而,它能够写一首 比Gertrude Stein写的还要更有人味的诗, 但Gertrude Stein才是人啊...
So what we've done here is, more or less, a reverse Turing test. So Gertrude Stein, who's a human, is able to write a poem that fools a majority of human judges into thinking that it was written by a computer. Therefore, according to the logic of the reverse Turing test, Gertrude Stein is a computer.
所以,我们刚刚做的 差不多就是,反向图灵测试。 所以Gertrude Stein这位人类, 可以写出让大部分人 误认为是电脑写出来的诗。 所以,根据图灵测试的反向逻辑, Gertrude Stein这人是个电脑. . . (笑声)
(Laughter)
Feeling confused? I think that's fair enough.
感觉很困惑吗? 我认为这情有可原。
So far we've had humans that write like humans, we have computers that write like computers, we have computers that write like humans, but we also have, perhaps most confusingly, humans that write like computers.
目前为止,我们有人可以写出 像是人写出的诗、 我们有电脑可以写出 像是电脑写出的诗、 我们有电脑可以写出 像是人写出的诗, 但我们同时也有会让我们最容易混淆的 写诗像写得像电脑写的人。
So what do we take from all of this? Do we take that William Blake is somehow more of a human than Gertrude Stein? Or that Gertrude Stein is more of a computer than William Blake?
所以,我们从这里面了解到什么呢? 我们会认为William Blake 比Gertrude Stein更像是个人吗? 或者Gertrude Stein比 William Blake更像是个电脑?
(Laughter)
(笑声)
These are questions I've been asking myself for around two years now, and I don't have any answers. But what I do have are a bunch of insights about our relationship with technology.
这些问题是这两年来, 我一直在问我自己, 但我没有任何答案, 但我真的有领悟到很多有关于 我们与科技的关系。
So my first insight is that, for some reason, we associate poetry with being human. So that when we ask, "Can a computer write poetry?" we're also asking, "What does it mean to be human and how do we put boundaries around this category? How do we say who or what can be part of this category?" This is an essentially philosophical question, I believe, and it can't be answered with a yes or no test, like the Turing test. I also believe that Alan Turing understood this, and that when he devised his test back in 1950, he was doing it as a philosophical provocation.
所以,我的第一个领悟是, 为了一些原因, 我们把人与诗结合一起, 所以,当我们问,"电脑会写诗吗?" 我们也在问, 人的定义是什么? 我们要如何在这些类别之间划出界限? 我们要如何分辨谁或是什么东西 是属于这一类的? " 我相信,本质上这是一道哲学的问题, 而且,这不是像图灵测试这样 “对“或”错”的测试来回答 我也相信, Alan Turing在1950年发明这个理论时, 也了解这一点, 他当时引发了一个哲学上的争议。
So my second insight is that, when we take the Turing test for poetry, we're not really testing the capacity of the computers because poetry-generating algorithms, they're pretty simple and have existed, more or less, since the 1950s. What we are doing with the Turing test for poetry, rather, is collecting opinions about what constitutes humanness. So, what I've figured out, we've seen this when earlier today, we say that William Blake is more of a human than Gertrude Stein. Of course, this doesn't mean that William Blake was actually more human or that Gertrude Stein was more of a computer. It simply means that the category of the human is unstable. This has led me to understand that the human is not a cold, hard fact. Rather, it is something that's constructed with our opinions and something that changes over time.
我的第二个领悟是, 当我们在为诗做图灵测试时, 我们并不是真的在测试电脑的能力, 因为用演算法作诗相当简单, 而且它们大约在1950年代 早就已经存在了。 我们现在为诗做的图灵测试, 反而,比较像是在收集关于 什么是构成人性的条件的看法。 所以,我发现, 稍早我们今天看到的, 我们说William Blake 比Gertrude Stein更像个人, 当然,这并不代表 William Blake比较有人性 或者Gertrude Stein比较像电脑。 这只能单纯的说明, 对人类的界定是不稳定的。 这让我明白了一件事, 就是人性不是冷的、死板的事实, 反倒是一种由我们 的意见所构成的东西, 而这个东西会随着时间而改变。
So my final insight is that the computer, more or less, works like a mirror that reflects any idea of a human that we show it. We show it Emily Dickinson, it gives Emily Dickinson back to us. We show it William Blake, that's what it reflects back to us. We show it Gertrude Stein, what we get back is Gertrude Stein. More than any other bit of technology, the computer is a mirror that reflects any idea of the human we teach it.
所以我最后的领悟是, 电脑,或多或少只是 一面反映出我们展示给它的人类思想的镜子。 我们向它展示Emily Dickinson, 它就展示Emily Dickinson给我们, 我们向它展示William Blake, 它同样也会显示给我们, 我们向它展示Gertrude Stein, 我们得到的回应仅是Gertrude Stein。 还有其他更多的科技也是, 电脑只是一面镜子, 它只是展示我们教给他的任何东西。
So I'm sure a lot of you have been hearing a lot about artificial intelligence recently. And much of the conversation is, can we build it? Can we build an intelligent computer? Can we build a creative computer? What we seem to be asking over and over is can we build a human-like computer?
所以,我确定你们大部分人都曾听过 很多有关人工智慧的事情。 而大部分的对话就类似: 「我们该建造它吗?」 「我们可以建立一个智慧型电脑吗?」 「我们可以建立一个创造型电脑吗?」 我们一次又一次的被问到, 我们可以建立一个 类似人类的电脑吗?
But what we've seen just now is that the human is not a scientific fact, that it's an ever-shifting, concatenating idea and one that changes over time. So that when we begin to grapple with the ideas of artificial intelligence in the future, we shouldn't only be asking ourselves, "Can we build it?" But we should also be asking ourselves, "What idea of the human do we want to have reflected back to us?" This is an essentially philosophical idea, and it's one that can't be answered with software alone, but I think requires a moment of species-wide, existential reflection.
但就我们刚刚看到的, 人类不是一个科学事实, 人类是一个会不断地变化、串联想法、 随时间改变的物种。 所以,当我们开始要努力克服 未来人工智慧的这个想法时, 我们不应该只问我们自己, 我们可以建造它吗?」 我们还得问我们自己, 「我们希望可以得到什么样的人性回应?」 这绝对是个哲学想法, 而且不是单靠软件就可以回答出来的, 但我认为,这需要一个各类物种 共存的反应时刻,
Thank you.
谢谢各位。
(Applause)
(掌声)