在1966年預測2000年的生活

One of the highlights of the past fortnight’s jollity was a six-minute clip, placed by the BBC Archive on social media. A class of teenagers in 1966 attempted to predict what life would be like in the year 2000.

英國廣播公司(BBC)檔案部在社交媒體上發佈的一段6分鐘視頻短片，成了最近節日氣氛的亮點之一。視頻中，一個班級的青少年在1966年試着預測2000年的生活會是什麼樣的。

The footage from Tomorrow’s World, a BBC television programme, was viewed close to half a million times in its first four days online and attracted about 4,000 comments. It is fascinating for anyone interested in futurology.

這段來自BBC《明日世界》(Tomorrow’s World)節目的短片，上線四天內的點播量接近50萬次，吸引了4000多條評論。對於那些對未來學感興趣的人，這段視頻令人神往。

The children of 1966 were a profoundly gloomy lot. Pessimists outnumber optimists by six to one. The miserabilists are principally worried about a nuclear apocalypse, which several regard as inevitable.

1966年的那羣孩子們對未來非常沮喪。悲觀派遠超樂觀派，比例爲6：1。悲觀派主要擔心核末日，其中有幾個人認爲那是不可避免的。

Overpopulation is mentioned repeatedly, as is unemployment caused by automation and computers (“Something has to be done about it,” says one). Factory farming comes up, as does boredom occasioned by uniformity, rationing — and the prospect of having to live on food pills.

他們反覆提及人口過剩的問題，以及自動化和計算機帶來的失業問題。（其中一個孩子說，“必須對此採取一些行動。”）他們還提到了工廠化農場，還有因整齊劃一統一和配給造成的無趣——以及必須依靠食物丸爲食的前景。

Climate change is fretted over, after a fashion, by two children. A boy argues that orbiting satellites are interfering with the weather and will cause sea levels to rise “by 300ft to 600ft”. A girl believes the sun will burn out and start an ice age.

兩個孩子勉強算是對氣候變化感到不安。其中一個男孩認爲，在軌衛星干擾了天氣，將造成海平面上升“300至600英尺”。一個女孩認爲，太陽將燃燒殆盡，在地球上開啓一個冰河期。

Another boy takes a different tack: “People will be regarded more as statistics than as actual people.” Another imagines: “I may be at the funeral of a computer, or if something goes wrong with a nuclear bomb, coming back from hunting while living in a cave.” I like that.

另一個男孩採取了截然不同的思路：“人們將在更大程度上被視爲統計數字，而不是實實在在的人。”另一個孩子想象道：“我可能會去參加一個計算師的葬禮，或者如果一枚核彈出了問題，我會在洞穴內生活，外出打獵謀生。”我喜歡這個想法。

The outnumbered optimists speak of racial harmony, of rich and poor still existing but getting on fine, of medical advances, and of better architecture (“more rounded and less boxy”). One girl’s optimism is non-specific: “People think the earth will explode but it won’t,” she says.

人數處於劣勢的樂觀派談到了種族和諧，提到富人和窮人仍會存在，但兩個羣體和諧相處，還提到了更好的建築設計（“房子會更圓，而不那麼像方盒子”）。有一個女孩的樂觀比較籠統：“人們認爲地球會爆炸，但不會的，”她說道。

For the most part, those viewing the clips have taken from it exactly what they wished.

大體上，看過這段視頻的人都找到了合乎自己願望的內容。

If their big worry is climate change, they seize on the 1966 interviewees’ mention of the weather as being super-perceptive. The child who says we will all be mere statistics by 2000 — not a particularly brilliant point — is hailed as a veritable seer by those who believe we are all helpless subjects of Google and Amazon.

如果他們最大的擔憂是氣候變化，他們便會抓住1966年的受訪者提到天氣這一點，認爲他們的觀察力超級敏銳。那個說我們到2000年都將只是統計數字——並非特別精闢的一點——的孩子，被那些認爲我們都是受谷歌(Google)和亞馬遜(Amazon)擺佈的可憐蟲的人譽爲真正的先知。

“These kids are so right,” says one Twitter commentator. “Pretty much spot on with nearly everything they said!”

“這些孩子說得太對了，”一名Twitter用戶評論稱，“他們所說的幾乎一切都說到了點子上！”

“Some very clever kids,” writes someone else on Facebook, “that can see what the future for animals and mankind is going to be very clearly. They can even think for themselves.”

“真的是一些非常聰明的孩子，”有人在Facebook上寫道，“非常清楚地看到動物和人類的未來。他們甚至可以獨立思考。”

The Tomorrow’s World children seem serious and articulate, but their speculation mirrors only the stock dismal concerns of the day. I am of a similar age to those 1966 teenagers. As children, we were aware of the nuclear arms race, as I recollect, but we were mostly talking about “Americanisation” and of politics. Also missing is much of the era’s upbeat stuff on space exploration, technological marvels and cultural changes.

《明日世界》裏的孩子似乎認真而且善於表達，但他們的猜測反映的只是當時典型的悲觀擔憂。我和那些1966年的青少年年齡相仿。我記得，小時候的我們知道當時有一場核軍備競賽，但我們討論的大多是“美國化”和政治。另外視頻中還缺少對當時的正面事物的討論，比如空間探索、科技奇蹟以及文化變化。

As for the children’s predictions proving accurate, I am afraid I do not agree — albeit as a perennial optimist and enthusiast for the 21st century.

至於孩子們的預測被證明準確，我不能認同——儘管我一直是個樂觀者，對21世紀充滿熱情。

The boy concerned about automation and its effect on jobs — a hot topic today — may seem unusually prescient. Perhaps he was and thought about it all on his own. But again, automation was widely discussed in newspapers and on television in the 1960s. Even aged 11, I remember family discussions about it.

那個擔心自動化及其對就業影響——當今的熱議話題——的男孩可能看似非常有先見之明。或許他確實如此，並且說的完全是自己的想法。但是同樣地，自動化是上世紀60年代報紙和電視上廣泛討論的話題。即使當時我只有11歲，但我仍然記得當時家裏有關自動化的討論。

An important book in 1966 was the University of Massachusetts economist Ben Seligman’s Most Notorious Victory: Man in an Age of Automation. Among its chapter headings: “Work Without Men” and “The Trauma We Await”. President Lyndon B Johnson even established a priority National Commission on Technology, Automation, and Economic Progress in 1964.

馬薩諸塞大學(University of Massachusetts)經濟學家本?塞利格曼(Ben Seligman)所著的《最臭名昭著的勝利：自動化時代的人類》(Most Notorious Victory: Man in an Age of Automation)是1966年頗爲重要的一本書。該書的章節標題包括：“無人工作”(Work Without Men)和“我們等待的創傷”(The Trauma We Await)。時任美國總統林登?B?約翰遜(Lyndon B. Johnson)甚至在1964年成立了科技、自動化和經濟進步國家委員會，並將其放在優先地位。

For me, the Tomorrow’s World clip has highlighted how we should be wary of basing prognostication on what is currently fashionable. Modish concerns rarely turn out to be on the money.

對我而言，《明日世界》這段視頻突顯了我們應該如何警惕根據當前潮流進行預測。趕時髦的擔憂很少被證明是真正的先見之明。

The late Adrian Berry, a British science writer and Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, the Royal Geographical Society and the British Interplanetary Society, went so far as to argue that humans fret over imaginary dangers, and that the degree of panic tends to be in inverse proportion to real peril.

已故的英國科學作家阿德里安?貝里(Adrian Berry)是皇家天文學會(Royal Astronomical Society)、皇家地理學會(Royal Geographical Society)以及英國星際航行協會(British Interplanetary Society)的成員。他甚至認爲，人類對想象中的危險感到擔憂，而恐慌程度往往與真正的危險成反比。

My nomination, then, for the leading misplaced fear of 2018 is artificial intelligence, which has dominated the future-gazing agenda for the past year.

那麼，我提名的2018年頭號無厘頭擔憂是人工智能(AI)——過去一年AI主導着未來預測的議程。

There are many reasons for believing AI will not turn out be the monster so many fear. Frontline AI experts I have met, such as Ralf Herbrich, Amazon’s head of machine learning, believe claims made for the technology are overblown. AI, Mr Herbrich and many others say, is machine learning, which in turn is advanced pattern recognition — and is neither designed nor capable of “taking over the world”.

有很多理由相信AI不會像很多人所擔心的那樣變成可怕的怪物。我見過的第一線AI專家——比如亞馬遜的機器學習主管拉爾夫?赫布里希(Ralf Herbrich)——相信，針對這項技術提出的說法誇大其詞了。赫布里希以及其他許多人都表示，AI就是機器學習，而後者是高級模式識別；“接管世界”既不是設計宗旨，也超出它的能力。

Without meaning to be flippant, a good reason for not giving today’s popular concern about AI much credence is precisely that it is a popular concern. If you are predicting what will really trouble us in the future, I commend you to look elsewhere.

我不想顯得油嘴滑舌，但是，之所以不要太相信當今流行的對AI的擔憂，正是因爲這是一個流行的擔憂。如果你想預測未來的真正麻煩，我建議你把目光投向其他領域。