So, there's about seven and a half billion of us. The World Health Organization tells us that 300 million of us are depressed, and about 800,000 people take their lives every year. A tiny subset of them choose a profoundly nihilistic route, which is they die in the act of killing as many people as possible. These are some famous recent examples. And here's a less famous one. It happened about nine weeks ago. If you don't remember it, it's because there's a lot of this going on. Wikipedia just last year counted 323 mass shootings in my home country, the United States. Not all of those shooters were suicidal, not all of them were maximizing their death tolls, but many, many were.
世界上大約有七十五億人口 世界衛生組織告訴我們 有三億人有憂鬱症 而且每年有八十萬人自殺 當中一小群人採取 一種極端虛無主義的路線 就是他們死的時候 也要盡可能殺死愈多人愈好 這些是近期知名的案子 這個案子則比較少人知道 它發生在九個星期前 如果你不記得它 那是因為很多類似的事不斷上演 根據維基百科,光是去年 就有 323 起大規模槍擊事件 發生在我的祖國:美國 並非所有兇手都有自殺傾向 並非所有兇手都想 把死亡人數衝到最高 但許多兇手的確是如此
An important question becomes: What limits do these people have? Take the Vegas shooter. He slaughtered 58 people. Did he stop there because he'd had enough? No, and we know this because he shot and injured another 422 people who he surely would have preferred to kill. We have no reason to think he would have stopped at 4,200. In fact, with somebody this nihilistic, he may well have gladly killed us all. We don't know. What we do know is this: when suicidal murderers really go all in, technology is the force multiplier.
關鍵的問題變成是: 這些兇手殺人有沒有限度? 比如,拉斯維加斯槍擊案兇手 他屠殺了 58 人 他停下來,是因為殺夠了嗎? 我們知道不是如此 因為他還射傷另外 422 人 他當時肯定想殺掉這些人 我們沒理由認為 他會在殺了 4200 人時停手 事實上,這麼虛無主義的人 他可能很樂意殺光我們 我們不知道 我們確實知道一點: 有自殺傾向的兇手賭上一切時 科技加強了殺傷力
Here's an example. Several years back, there was a rash of 10 mass school attacks in China carried out with things like knives and hammers and cleavers, because guns are really hard to get there. By macabre coincidence, this last attack occurred just hours before the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut. But that one American attack killed roughly the same number of victims as the 10 Chinese attacks combined. So we can fairly say, knife: terrible; gun: way worse. And airplane: massively worse, as pilot Andreas Lubitz showed when he forced 149 people to join him in his suicide, smashing a plane into the French Alps.
這裡有個案例 幾年前,中國爆發了一連串 共十起大規模學校攻擊事件 武器包括刀子、鐵槌、切肉刀 因為在中國很難取得槍枝 恐怖的巧合是 最後一次攻擊的發生時間 只比康乃狄克州紐敦大屠殺早幾小時 但這場美國攻擊事件的受害人數 大約等同那十起中國攻擊事件 受害人數的加總 所以,我們可以公平地說 刀子:很可怕;槍枝:更糟糕 飛機:糟糕透頂了 因為飛行員安德烈亞斯·盧比茨 證明了他可以強迫 149 個人 陪他一起自殺 將一架飛機開去撞法國阿爾卑斯山
And there are other examples of this. And I'm afraid there are far more deadly weapons in our near future than airplanes, ones not made of metal. So let's consider the apocalyptic dynamics that will ensue if suicidal mass murder hitches a ride on a rapidly advancing field that for the most part holds boundless promise for society. Somewhere out there in the world, there's a tiny group of people who would attempt, however ineptly, to kill us all if they could just figure out how. The Vegas shooter may or may not have been one of them, but with seven and a half billion of us, this is a nonzero population. There's plenty of suicidal nihilists out there. We've already seen that. There's people with severe mood disorders that they can't even control. There are people who have just suffered deranging traumas, etc. etc. As for the corollary group, its size was simply zero forever until the Cold War, when suddenly, the leaders of two global alliances attained the ability to blow up the world.
還有像這樣的其他案例 我擔心不久的將來 還會出現比飛機更致命的武器 不是用金屬做的 我們來想一下 如果有自殺傾向的兇手 利用一個快速進步的科技 會造成什麼樣的大災難 而且這個科技還為社會帶來無限前景 在世界的某處有一小群人 不論做法多笨拙,也會嘗試 殺光我們所有人 只要他們想出辦法來 拉斯維加斯槍擊案兇手 可能是這種人,也可能不是 但世界上有七十五億人 絕對會有這種人存在 外面有不少自殺傾向的虛無主義者 我們已經看過了 有些人具有嚴重的情緒失調 他們自己甚至無法控制 也有人受到精神上的創傷等等 這類的人 在冷戰時期前,人數始終是零 突然間,世界兩大聯盟的領導人 擁有可以炸掉全世界的能力
The number of people with actual doomsday buttons has stayed fairly stable since then. But I'm afraid it's about to grow, and not just to three. This is going off the charts. I mean, it's going to look like a tech business plan.
從那之後,擁有末日按鈕的人數 就一直維持不變 但我擔心這個人數要開始成長了 而且不只從兩人變成三人 這人數將會爆表 看起來像科技公司的商業計畫一樣
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
And the reason is, we're in the era of exponential technologies, which routinely take eternal impossibilities and make them the actual superpowers of one or two living geniuses and -- this is the big part -- then diffuse those powers to more or less everybody.
而且理由是 我們身處在指數成長的科技時代 這個時代會一直挑戰永遠不可能的事 然後把這些事轉變成天才般的超能力 而且,重點是: 接著會將那些超能力 普及到每個人身上
Now, here's a benign example. If you wanted to play checkers with a computer in 1952, you literally had to be that guy, then commandeer one of the world's 19 copies of that computer, then used your Nobel-adjacent brain to teach it checkers. That was the bar. Today, you just need to know someone who knows someone who owns a telephone, because computing is an exponential technology.
舉一個無害的例子 在 1952 年,如果你想要 用電腦玩西洋跳棋 你就一定得是那個傢伙 然後一定要使用那種電腦 而世界上僅有十九台 再用你聰明絕頂的大腦來教它下棋 你要面對這些限制 現今,你只需要認識某個人 而他又認識有手機的人即可 因為運算是一種指數成長的科技
So is synthetic biology, which I'll now refer to as "synbio." And in 2011, a couple of researchers did something every bit as ingenious and unprecedented as the checkers trick with H5N1 flu. This is a strain that kills up to 60 percent of the people it infects, more than Ebola. But it is so uncontagious that it's killed fewer than 50 people since 2015. So these researchers edited H5N1's genome and made it every bit as deadly, but also wildly contagious. The news arm of one of the world's top two scientific journals said if this thing got out, it would likely cause a pandemic with perhaps millions of deaths. And Dr. Paul Keim said he could not think of an organism as scary as this, which is the last thing I personally want to hear from the Chairman of the National Science Advisory Board on Biosecurity. And by the way, Dr. Keim also said this --
合成生物學也是如此 接下來我會簡稱為「合生學」 2011 年,幾位研究員 做了一件事情 和西洋跳棋的把戲一樣巧妙且空前 但應用在 H5N1 流感上 被這類病毒感染的人 高達六成會死亡 致死率比伊波拉還高 但它的傳染性不強 所以從 2015 年之後 死亡人數不到五十個 這些研究員編輯 H5N1 基因組 讓它維持原本的致命性 還能廣泛傳染 世界前兩大科學期刊之一的 新聞部門指出 如果這東西流出去 會造成一場大規模流行病疫情 可能會有數百萬人死亡 保羅‧克伊姆博士說 他想不出比這更可怕的有機體 我最不想從國家生物安全科學 顧問委員會主席口中聽到這話 順便一提,克伊姆博士也說過—— 【我不認為炭疽比這更可怕】
["I don't think anthrax is scary at all compared to this."]
而他也是一位炭疽專家 【我不認為炭疽比這更可怕】
And he's also one of these.
(笑聲)
[Anthrax expert] (Laughter)
Now, the good news about the 2011 biohack is that the people who did it didn't mean us any harm. They're virologists. They believed they were advancing science. The bad news is that technology does not freeze in place, and over the next few decades, their feat will become trivially easy. In fact, it's already way easier, because as we learned yesterday morning, just two years after they did their work, the CRISPR system was harnessed for genome editing. This was a radical breakthrough that makes gene editing massively easier -- so easy that CRISPR is now taught in high schools. And this stuff is moving quicker than computing. That slow, stodgy white line up there? That's Moore's law. That shows us how quickly computing is getting cheaper. That steep, crazy-fun green line, that shows us how quickly genetic sequencing is getting cheaper. Now, gene editing and synthesis and sequencing, they're different disciplines, but they're tightly related. And they're all moving in these headlong rates. And the keys to the kingdom are these tiny, tiny data files. That is an excerpt of H5N1's genome. The whole thing can fit on just a few pages. And yeah, don't worry, you can Google this as soon as you get home. It's all over the internet, right? And the part that made it contagious could well fit on a single Post-it note. And once a genius makes a data file, any idiot can copy it, distribute it worldwide or print it. And I don't just mean print it on this, but soon enough, on this.
在 2011 年有關生物駭客的好消息是 做這件事的人並不是為了傷害我們 他們是病毒學家 他們相信自己將科學向前推進 壞消息是,這項科技 並沒有適時停下來 而且接下來幾十年 一般人要做到他們的壯舉 會變得輕而易舉 事實上,現在就已經容易許多了 因為昨天早上我們得知 在他們研究兩年後 CRISPR 系統就被用來 做基因組編輯 這是一項根本性的突破 讓基因編輯變得簡單許多 簡單到現在連高中都在教 CRISPR 了 這東西的進展速度比電腦運算更快 上面那條緩慢下降的白線是什麼? 那是摩爾定律 它代表電腦運算成本下降有多快 而那條誇張陡峭的綠線 代表基因定序成本下降有多快 基因編輯、合成和定序 它們是不同的學科,但它們息息相關 它們都以驚人的速度在發展 進入這個王國的鑰匙 就是這些極小的資料檔案 這是 H5N1 基因組當中的一段 整個基因組的長度大概會佔幾張頁面 別擔心,你回家就可以趕快搜尋一下 網路上到處都有,對吧? 讓它變成有傳染性的那一部分 可以放進一張便利貼 只要有位天才做出一個資料檔案 任何白痴都能複製它 將它發佈到全世界 或把它列印出來 我指的不僅是印在這上面 不用多久,也可以印在這上面
So let's imagine a scenario. Let's say it's 2026, to pick an arbitrary year, and a brilliant virologist, hoping to advance science and better understand pandemics, designs a new bug. It's as contagious as chicken pox, it's as deadly as Ebola, and it incubates for months and months before causing an outbreak, so the whole world can be infected before the first sign of trouble. Then, her university gets hacked. And of course, this is not science fiction. In fact, just one recent US indictment documents the hacking of over 300 universities. So that file with the bug's genome on it spreads to the internet's dark corners. And once a file is out there, it never comes back -- just ask anybody who runs a movie studio or a music label. So now maybe in 2026, it would take a true genius like our virologist to make the actual living critter, but 15 years later, it may just take a DNA printer you can find at any high school. And if not? Give it a couple of decades.
我們來假想一個情境 比如 2026 年,隨便挑一年 一位優秀的病毒學家希望科學再進步 為了進一步暸解流行病 因此設計了一種新的病菌 它的傳染性不輸給水痘 致命程度和伊波拉一樣 它醞釀數個月才會爆發 所以,發現任何危險徵兆前 全世界可能已經被感染了 然後,她的大學被駭客入侵 當然,這不是科幻小說 事實上,美國最近有份起訴書 記載超過三百間大學被駭客侵入 附帶病菌基因組的檔案 便散播到網路的黑暗角落 一旦檔案流出去,就再也回不來了 去問電影或唱片公司的人 他們知道這種事 也許在 2026 年 要像病毒學家這樣的天才 才能製造出活生生的異常生物 但十五年之後 可能只要使用任何高中都有的 DNA 列印機就可以辦到 如果不是這樣? 再過幾十年後仍然會成真
So, a quick aside: Remember this slide here? Turn your attention to these two words. If somebody tries this and is only 0.1 percent effective, eight million people die. That's 2,500 9/11s. Civilization would survive, but it would be permanently disfigured. So this means we need to be concerned about anybody who has the faintest shot on goal, not just geniuses. So today, there's a tiny handful of geniuses who probably could make a doomsday bug that's .1-percent effective and maybe even a little bit more. They tend to be stable and successful and so not part of this group. So I guess I'm sorta kinda barely OK-ish with that. But what about after technology improves and diffuses and thousands of life science grad students are enabled? Are every single one of them going to be perfectly stable? Or how about a few years after that, where every stress-ridden premed is fully enabled? At some point in that time frame, these circles are going to intersect, because we're now starting to talk about hundreds of thousands of people throughout the world. And they recently included that guy who dressed up like the Joker and shot 12 people to death at a Batman premiere. That was a neuroscience PhD student with an NIH grant.
讓我打個岔 記得這張投影片嗎? 把注意力放在這兩個字上面: 【或許】 如果有人試圖利用這種方式殺人 儘管成功機率只有 0.1% 就有八百萬人會死亡 等同九一一事件發生兩千五百次 文明會存活下來 但它會受到永久性傷害 這就表示我們得要擔心 任何有一丁點機會 達成這個目標的人 不能只擔心那些天才 現今,只有一小群天才 才有可能做出末日病菌 那大概是 0.1% 的成功機率 或稍微高一點 這些通常是穩定且成功的人 所以不屬於這個族群 【想殺光所有人的一群人】 所以我還勉強可以接受 【想殺光所有人的一群人】 但是如果科技進步了 而且普及了 數千名生命科學研究生 都能夠做得到呢? 但是每一個研究生都很穩定嗎? 如果再過個幾年 每個壓力大的醫學院預科生 也都能做到呢? 到時候,某個時間點 這些圓圈將會有交集 因為我們在談的是全世界數十萬人 最近,這類人當中 有一位穿著像是小丑 在蝙蝠俠首映會上射殺了十二個人 他是一位神經科學博士生 拿了國家衛生研究院的獎助金
OK, plot twist: I think we can actually survive this one if we start focusing on it now. And I say this, having spent countless hours interviewing global leaders in synbio and also researching their work for science podcasts I create. I have come to fear their work, in case I haven't gotten that out there yet --
好吧,劇情有所翻轉了: 如果我們現在開始重視這個問題 是有機會安全度過 我會這麼說,而且已經花了無數小時 訪問全世界的合生學領導人 為了我所創立的播客節目 我也去研究他們的成果 我開始對研究成果感到擔憂 即便我還沒完全弄懂
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
but more than that, to revere its potential. This stuff will cure cancer, heal our environment and stop our cruel treatment of other creatures. So how do we get all this without, you know, annihilating ourselves?
但不只如此,我更敬畏它的潛力。 這些研究可以治療癌症 改善我們的環境 阻止我們用殘酷的方式對待其他生物 我們要如何做到這些成果 同時不要毀滅我們自己?
First thing: like it or not, synbio is here, so let's embrace the technology. If we do a tech ban, that would only hand the wheel to bad actors. Unlike nuclear programs, biology can be practiced invisibly. Massive Soviet cheating on bioweapons treaties made that very clear, as does every illegal drug lab in the world.
首先:不論你們喜不喜歡 合生學的時代來臨了 所以,我們就擁抱這項科技吧 如果我們頒佈科技禁令 那只會把掌控權交到壞人手上 這不像核能計畫 生物學可以用看不見的方式進行 蘇聯大量違反生化武器協定 就是很好的證明 其他的例子還有 世界各地的非法藥品實驗室
Secondly, enlist the experts. Let's sign them up and make more of them. For every million and one bioengineers we have, at least a million of them are going to be on our side. I mean, Al Capone would be on our side in this one. The bar to being a good guy is just so low. And massive numerical advantages do matter, even when a single bad guy can inflict grievous harm, because among many other things, they allow us to exploit the hell out of this: we have years and hopefully decades to prepare and prevent. The first person to try something awful -- and there will be somebody -- may not even be born yet.
第二,召募專家 把他們簽下來,愈多愈好 每一百萬零一名生物工程師當中 至少一百萬名是站在我們這邊的 這件事上,連黑幫老大 也會站在我們這邊 成為好人的標準非常低 在人數上有大量優勢還是很重要 即使是只有一個壞蛋 造成巨大傷害的情況下 因為其中一個好處 就是使我們能夠利用這點: 我們還有數年,希望有數十年 可以做好準備和預防 第一個嘗試去做恐怖事的人 將來會做這件事的人 可能還沒出生
Next, this needs to be an effort that spans society, and all of you need to be a part of it, because we cannot ask a tiny group of experts to be responsible for both containing and exploiting synthetic biology, because we already tried that with the financial system, and our stewards became massively corrupted as they figured out how they could cut corners, inflict massive, massive risks on the rest of us and privatize the gains, becoming repulsively wealthy while they stuck us with the $22 trillion bill.
接著,整個社會要一同努力 所有人必須要參與 因為我們不能要求一小群專家 既要負責遏制合成生物學 又要利用合成生物學 因為我們對金融體制試過這個做法 我們的財務管理者變得非常腐敗 他們想出走捷徑的方式 讓我們其他人承受非常大的風險 並將利益放進自己的口袋裡 用令人反感的手段致富 同時丟給我們 一張 22 兆美元的帳單
And more recently --
更近期——
(Applause)
(掌聲)
Are you the ones who have gotten the thank-you letters? I'm still waiting for mine. I just figured they were too busy to be grateful.
你們是有收到感謝信的人嗎? 我還在等我的信 我覺得他們是太忙所以沒空感恩
And much more recently, online privacy started looming as a huge issue, and we basically outsourced it. And once again: privatized gains, socialized losses. Is anybody else sick of this pattern?
再更近期 網路隱私這個重大議題開始出現 而我們基本上就是把它外包 而且同樣的是: 利益放進個人口袋,社會來分攤虧損 還有人也對這種事感到厭倦嗎?
(Applause)
(掌聲)
So we need a more inclusive way to safeguard our prosperity, our privacy and soon, our lives. So how do we do all of this?
我們需要用更包容的方式 來維護我們的繁榮 我們的隱私 不久後,還要維護我們的性命 我們要怎麼做到這一切?
Well, when bodies fight pathogens, they use ingenious immune systems, which are very complex and multilayered. Why don't we build one of these for the whole damn ecosystem? There's a year of TED Talks that could be given on this first critical layer. So these are just a couple of many great ideas that are out there.
當身體要對抗病原體時 身體會使用很精巧的免疫系統 這種系統非常複雜、多層次 我們何不為整個生態建造這種系統? 針對第一項重要的醫學層面 就可以辦一整年的 TED 演說 外面有許多很棒的點子 這些只是其中一部分
Some R and D muscle could take the very primitive pathogen sensors that we currently have and put them on a very steep price performance curve that would quickly become ingenious and networked and gradually as widespread as smoke detectors and even smartphones. On a very related note: vaccines have all kinds of problems when it comes to manufacturing and distribution, and once they're made, they can't adapt to new threats or mutations. We need an agile biomanufacturing base extending into every single pharmacy and maybe even our homes. Printer technology for vaccines and medicines is within reach if we prioritize it.
靠著研發能力 可以改良目前非常原始的 病原體感測器 將其價格降低,效能大幅提升 這很快就會變得精巧 而且可以連上網路 漸漸和煙霧偵測器 甚至是智慧手機一樣普遍 我做一個相關的補充: 疫苗在製造和配送上 有各式各樣的問題 而且一旦疫苗被做出來了 就無法適應新的威脅或突變 我們需要有彈性的生化製造基地 能延伸到每一間藥房 或甚至我們的家中 疫苗及藥物的列印技術 已經快要實現了 如果我們把它列為第一優先順序
Next, mental health. Many people who commit suicidal mass murder suffer from crippling, treatment-resistant depression or PTSD. We need noble researchers like Rick Doblin working on this, but we also need the selfish jerks who are way more numerous to appreciate the fact that acute suffering will soon endanger all of us, not just those afflicted. Those jerks will then join us and Al Capone in fighting this condition. Third, each and every one of us can be and should be a white blood cell in this immune system. Suicidal mass murderers can be despicable, yes, but they're also terribly broken and sad people, and those of us who aren't need to do what we can to make sure nobody goes unloved.
接著,心理健康層面 許多犯下大規模自殺式攻擊的人 都有肢體傷殘、難治型憂鬱症 或是創傷後壓力症候群 在這個議題上,我們需要 優秀的研究者如瑞克‧杜布林 但同時也需要讓許多自私的混蛋 領悟到劇烈的苦難 很快就會危及到我們所有人 而不是只有那些相關的人 那些混蛋接著會攜手黑幫老大和我們 一起對抗這個情形 第三,我們每個人 在這個免疫系統之中都可以 也應該成為白血球 大規模自殺式攻擊的兇手相當的卑劣 但是他們也是相當傷心絕望的人 而我們需要竭盡所能 讓每個人都感受到關愛
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Next, we need to make fighting these dangers core to the discipline of synthetic biology. There are companies out there that at least claim they let their engineers spend 20 percent of their time doing whatever they want. What if those who hire bioengineers and become them give 20 percent of their time to building defenses for the common good? Not a bad idea, right?
接著我們需要對抗 危害合生學核心原則的事物 外面有些公司至少聲稱 他們讓工程師擁有五分之一的時間 去做他們想做的事情 如果那些雇用生物工程師的人 變成工程師 花掉他們五分之一的時間 為公共利益建立防禦機制好嗎? 這是個不錯的點子吧?
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Then, finally: this won't be any fun. But we need to let our minds go to some very, very dark places, and thank you for letting me take you there this evening. We survived the Cold War because every one of us understood and respected the danger, in part, because we had spent decades telling ourselves terrifying ghost stories with names like "Dr. Strangelove" and "War Games." This is no time to remain calm. This is one of those rare times when it's incredibly productive to freak the hell out --
最後:這一切不會太有趣 但是我們需要去思考 一些非常灰暗的地方 而且我感謝大家 讓我今晚能夠帶著各位省思 我們度過了冷戰 因為我們每個人都瞭解 而且敬畏戰爭的威脅 一部分是因為我們 曾用了幾十年的時間 告訴我們自己一些相當驚悚的鬼故事 像是《奇愛博士》 還有《戰爭遊戲》 現在沒有時間保持冷靜 這是一個罕見的時代 搞出一堆嚇死人的鬼東西
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to come up with some ghost stories and use our fear as fuel to fight this danger.
這是為了想出一些鬼故事 利用我們的恐懼 作為對抗危險的動力
Because, all these terrible scenarios I've painted -- they are not destiny. They're optional. The danger is still kind of distant. And that means it will only befall us if we allow it to.
因為我所描繪的糟糕情境 並不是注定要發生的 而是取決於我們的選擇 這個威脅還距離我們有些遠 但是如果我們放任它 那麼災難將會降臨在我們頭上
Let's not.
我們千萬別這麼做
Thank you very much for listening.
非常感謝大家的聆聽
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