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电子人的颂歌

英文部分选自经济学人190727 Books and arts版块

A life in science

倾注一生，只为科学

In praise of cyborgs

电子人的颂歌

A distinguished centenarian scientist prophesies the future

杰出百岁科学家的未来预言

Novacene: The Coming Age of Hyperintelligence. By James Lovelock with Bryan Appleyard. The MIT Press; 160 pages; $22.95. Allen Lane; £14.99

《新星世：超智能时代的到来》（书），由詹姆斯·洛夫洛克和布赖恩·阿普尔亚德合著。麻省理工出版社；160页；$22.95。企鹅出版社；£14.99。

“My father was, in many ways, a hunter-gatherer,” recalls James Lovelock on the patio of his cottage above Chesil Beach, on England’s south coast. In a poor household, the elder Lovelock not only scrabbled to feed the family, but taught young Jim the virtue of respecting nature and Earth. As a scientist, Mr Lovelock went on to develop Gaia theory, the idea that Earth is a single, complex, selfregulating system. Though initially rejected by life scientists, it became the main way many people conceive of the planet.

“很多时候，我父亲靠狩猎谋生”，詹姆斯·洛夫洛克在位于英国南岸切西尔海海岸的乡舍露台上回忆道。在贫寒的家庭中，老洛夫洛克不仅要赡养家庭，还教导年幼的吉姆要尊重自然和地球。作为科学家，洛夫洛克先生建立了盖亚理论，该理论认为地球是一个单一又复杂且具有自我调节能力的系统。尽管最初盖亚理论遭到生命科学家的质疑，但它最终成为人类认知地球的主要方式。

注：盖亚假说（Gaia Hypothesis）是由詹姆斯·洛夫洛克在1972年提出的一个假说。简单地说，盖亚假说是指在生命与环境的相互作用之下，能使得地球适合生命持续的生存与发展。

That is just one of his many contributions to science. Mr Lovelock honed a method to look for life on other planets while at nasa in the 1960s. He found and quantified cfcs in the atmosphere in the 1970s, which led eventually to a ban on the harmful chemicals. His nomination to Britain’s Royal Society in 1974 cited a plethora of work in biology, chemistry and physics—all before the popularisation of the theory for which he is best-known (it is named after Gaia, the ancient Greek goddess of Earth).

盖亚理论只是洛夫洛克先生对于科学的贡献之一。20世纪60年代在NASA工作期间，他发明了一种探索地球外生命的方式；70年代，他发现并量化了大气中的氟利昂，这最终催生了对有害化学物质的使用禁令。1974年他被提名为英国皇家学会成员，以表彰他在生物学、化学和物理学方面的卓越贡献随后他最著名的盖亚理论才开始普及（盖亚一词来源于古希腊的大地女神）。

To coincide with his 100th birthday, he has published a slim book on artificial intelligence (AI), written with Bryan Appleyard, a journalist. It is mind-stretching stuff. Mr Lovelock thinks the world is leaving the Anthropocene(ie, the current geological age, when human activity has a dominant impact on the planet), for the Novacene, in which “cyborgs” (AI systems) will play the central role.

一百岁生辰当天，他和记者布赖恩·阿普尔亚德合著出版了一本关于人工智能的简易手册。这本书观点新颖。洛夫洛克先生认为，世界正在由人类时代（目前人类主宰地球的时代）向新星世过渡，那时“电子人”（人工智能系统）会成为地球的主宰。

注：Anthropocene --- "人类世或称人类纪"一词是荷兰大气化学家、诺贝尔奖获得者P·克鲁岑(CRUTZEN)提出，是从地质学词汇借用而来，作为地质学时代系统中最新的一个分期的概念。作为人类活动干涉自然环境和改变自然环境,成为一项地质营力的表征，一个人类成为重要的、时常占主导地位的环境因素的地质时代。

This is the next step in natural selection, he argues, because cyborgs can reproduce and evolve. They can think thousands of times faster than humans: they are as cleverer than people as people are than plants. Don’t panic, Mr Lovelock counsels, terrifying as this sounds. Cyborgs will have an incentive to conserve humans rather than wipe them out, since they will need life-forms to help cool the planet for their own survival—though mortals may be relegated to the status of pets and play-things. Cyborgs may “exhibit collections of live humans”, he writes, just as today people “go to Kew Gardens [in London] to watch the plants”.

他认为这是自然选择法则的下一步，因为电子人能够繁衍和进化。他们的思考速度比人类快数千倍：他们比人类聪明，就好比人类比植物聪明得多。洛夫洛克先生说，尽管听起来很可怕，但不要恐慌，。电子人更愿意与人类共处而不是消灭人类，因为它们在地球上生存，需要别的生物来帮助降温——不过，到时候人类可能会沦落为电子人的宠物和玩偶。他在书中写到，电子人可能会举办 “人类藏品展”，就像如今人类举办的“英国皇家植物园观赏”一样。

In the end, ai systems may save humankind as well as themselves. Besides climate change, Mr Lovelock fears other natural ways that Gaia—the principle that maintains the balance in the planet’s climate— could be destroyed, such as a severe volcanic eruption. Keeping the planet cool will make it more resilient to such threats, he contends; so, as well as preserving organic life, the cyborgs will probably enact other kinds of geoengineering that lower Earth’s temperature. Hence the Novacene is to be welcomed, not feared. “Whatever harm we have done to the Earth, we have, just in time, redeemed ourselves by acting simultaneously as parents and midwives to the cyborgs. They alone can guide Gaia through the astronomical crises now imminent,” Mr Lovelock writes.

最终，人工智能大概率会在拯救人类的同时拯救自身。除了气候变化，洛夫洛克先生担心维系地球气候平衡的“盖亚”准则可能会被其他自然灾害摧毁，比如严重的火山爆发。他认为，保持低温，能让地球在遭遇威胁以后，尽快自我修复；因此，电子人在保护有机生命的同时，也有可能会实施其它地质工程使地球降温。因此新星世将大受欢迎，而非让人恐惧。 “无论人类将如何破坏地球环境，我们已经通过发明电子人来获得救赎。。只有他们能够引导盖亚度过迫在眉睫的天文危机”， 洛夫洛克先生写到。

As a thinker, he defies categorisation. He adamantly favours nuclear energy and rejects the Green movement as utopian. He considers work on autonomous weapons to be as foolish as it is deadly. He attributes his originality to a decision to abandon academia for independent research, which allowed his curiosity to roam. In “Novacene”, his most impassioned argument is that humans are cursed by language because it forces causal, linear thinking at the expense of intuition, which is a truer way to understand the reality of the world.

作为思想家，他敢于打破分类壁垒。他坚定地支持核能，反对不切实际的绿色运动。他认为，研究自主武器的想法极为愚蠢，无异于自寻死路。他把自己的创新思维归因于远离学术界，并开展独立研究，这让他的好奇心自由驰骋。在《新星世》中他最激昂的观点认为，人类被语言诅咒，因为语言摒弃了直觉，强推因果和逻辑思维，而直觉才是真正理解世界本质的方式。

He expands on this point on his seaside patio. Most of his own inventions came from intuition, he reflects on a warm summer day, not from following the logical steps from known science. A statue of Gaia stares back at him blankly from his garden. But it gets hot, and Mr Lovelock goes inside to escape the sun.

他坐在海边的露台上，阐述了这个观点。在一个温暖的夏日，他回想到，自己大部分的创造，都来源于直觉而不是在现有理论的基础上进行逻辑推导。花园里，盖亚的雕像茫然地回望着他。天气渐热，洛夫洛克先生踱步屋内，任世外太阳高悬。

翻译组：

Frank，男，小硕，经济学人的死侍

Helga，女，笔译民工，经济学人爱好者

校核组：

Alex，男，工科研究生，文学与科学爱好者，经济学人忠实读者

Helen，女，坐标武汉，职业翻译，翻硕已毕业英语二笔二口，爱好陶笛洞箫古诗词

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