TEDxSeattleU
Ken Jennings: Watson, Jeopardy and me, the obsolete know-it-all
肯.詹宁斯：沃森，“危险”游戏和我-过气的“百事通”
Filmed:
Readability: 3.6
1,338,700 views
“百事通” 肯.詹宁斯以记忆百科知识为职业。他是美国“危险”电视游戏大赛的常胜冠军。但是2001年，在对抗超级计算机-沃森的竞赛中，他输了。在这个演说中，他诙谐且谦卑地向我们讲述了他在最擅长的游戏中被计算机打败的感受，并且以此说明人类传统知识的重要性。(录制于TEDx西雅图大学)
Ken Jennings - Know-it-all
Ken Jennings holds the record for most consecutive wins on the classic American trivia game show, Jeopardy. Full bio
Ken Jennings holds the record for most consecutive wins on the classic American trivia game show, Jeopardy. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
00:12
In two weeks time, that's the ninth anniversary
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再过两个星期，就是我第一次上电视
00:15
of the day I first stepped out onto that hallowed "Jeopardy" set.
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玩‘危险’ 游戏的九周年纪念。
00:19
I mean, nine years is a long time.
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九年是个很漫长的时间。
00:21
And given "Jeopardy's" average demographics,
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鉴于‘危险’观众的平均年龄，
00:23
I think what that means
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我想这意味着
00:24
is most of the people who saw me on that show are now dead.
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大多数在那个节目上看到我的人现在已经死了。
00:27
(Laughter)
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（笑声）
00:29
But not all, a few are still alive.
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但并不是所有的观众都过世了，还有人健在。
00:31
Occasionally I still get recognized at the mall or whatever.
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偶尔仍然有人 在商场或其它地方认出我。
00:33
And when I do, it's as a bit of a know-it-all.
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他们仍记得我是‘万事通’。
00:36
I think that ship has sailed, it's too late for me.
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我认为木已成舟，为时已晚。
00:38
For better or for worse, that's what I'm going to be known as,
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不管我喜欢不喜欢，我就这么被定型了
00:41
as the guy who knew a lot of weird stuff.
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永远是那个知道很多稀奇古怪事情的家伙。
00:44
And I can't complain about this.
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我对此并无怨言。
00:46
I feel like that was always sort of my destiny,
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我觉得那好似始终都是我的命运
00:49
although I had for many years been pretty deeply in the trivia closet.
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尽管多年来我一直沉迷在掌握百科知识。
00:52
If nothing else, you realize very quickly as a teenager,
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别的不说，作为一名少年，你很快就意识到
00:55
it is not a hit with girls to know Captain Kirk's middle name.
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知道科克船长的中名，并不能吸引女孩们的眼球。
00:58
(Laughter)
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（笑声）
00:59
And as a result, I was sort of the deeply closeted kind of know-it-all for many years.
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也因此，有很多年,我一直是活在自己世界里的‘万事通’。
01:03
But if you go further back, if you look at it, it's all there.
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但是，如果倒转时光，你就会发现，其实线索都在
01:07
I was the kind of kid who was always bugging Mom and Dad
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我小时候就总是缠着妈妈爸爸
01:10
with whatever great fact I had just read about --
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打听任何我那时刚刚读到任何信息— —
01:13
Haley's comet or giant squids
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哈雷彗星或巨型鱿鱼
01:14
or the size of the world's biggest pumpkin pie or whatever it was.
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或是世界上最大的南瓜饼，不管什么事儿。
01:18
I now have a 10-year-old of my own who's exactly the same.
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我现在有个 10 多岁的孩子， 和我像极了。
01:21
And I know how deeply annoying it is, so karma does work.
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现在我知道被人无休止地追问是多么讨厌的事儿，真是报应。
01:26
(Laughter)
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（笑声）
01:27
And I loved game shows, fascinated with game shows.
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我喜欢游戏节目，迷上了游戏节目。
01:30
I remember crying on my first day of kindergarten back in 1979
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我记得，在 1979 年， 上幼儿园的第一天，我大哭
01:33
because it had just hit me, as badly as I wanted to go to school,
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因为我意识到，虽然我喜欢上学，
01:36
that I was also going to miss "Hollywood Squares" and "Family Feud."
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但也会错过‘好莱坞广场’和‘家庭宿怨’两个游戏节目。
01:39
I was going to miss my game shows.
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我会错过我的游戏节目。
01:43
And later, in the mid-'80s,
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后来，在八十年代中期，
01:45
when "Jeopardy" came back on the air,
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‘危险游戏’又重新开播，
01:47
I remember running home from school every day to watch the show.
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我记得每天从学校跑回家观看。
01:51
It was my favorite show, even before it paid for my house.
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早在我用这个节目支付的报酬购买房子之前，它就是我最喜欢的电视游戏节目。
01:56
And we lived overseas, we lived in South Korea where my dad was working,
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再说，当时，我们在海外居住，在韩国，我爸爸工作的地方，
01:59
where there was only one English language TV channel.
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那里只有一个英语电视频道。
02:01
There was Armed Forces TV,
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电视上有武装部队节目
02:02
and if you didn't speak Korean, that's what you were watching.
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如果你不会说韩语，那就是唯一看得懂的电视台。
02:05
So me and all my friends would run home every day and watch "Jeopardy."
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所以，我和我所有的朋友， 每天跑回家看‘危险’游戏。
02:08
I was always that kind of obsessed trivia kid.
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我总是那种痴迷百科知识的孩子。
02:11
I remember being able to play Trivial Pursuit against my parents back in the '80s
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我记得，在八十年代，和父母玩儿‘琐细的追求’，
02:16
and holding my own, back when that was a fad.
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当时是很时髦的， 我水平不错，可以抗衡我父母。
02:19
There's a weird sense of mastery you get
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当你知道一些妈妈和爸爸不知道的冷僻事儿，
02:21
when you know some bit of boomer trivia that Mom and Dad don't know.
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就会有种奇妙的优越感。
02:24
You know some Beatles factoid that Dad didn't know.
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当你知道一些爸爸都不知道的关于披头士的传闻，
02:28
And you think, ah hah, knowledge really is power --
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你会想，啊哈，知识就是力量
02:31
the right fact deployed at exactly the right place.
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知识的力量就在于恰到好处地运用正确的知识。
02:38
I never had a guidance counselor
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从来没有那个指导顾问告诉我
02:40
who thought this was a legitimate career path,
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主修百科知识
02:42
that thought you could major in trivia
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或者是前专业游戏节目参赛者
02:45
or be a professional ex-game show contestant.
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可以当作正当的职业。
02:48
And so I sold out way too young.
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我太年青，受人左右。
02:50
I didn't try to figure out what one does with that.
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没有试图搞清楚如何发挥特长，
02:52
I studied computers because I heard that was the thing,
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而是随大流，学了计算机，
02:54
and I became a computer programmer --
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当了计算机程序员，表现尚可，
02:56
not an especially good one,
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虽然并不是特别突出。
02:58
not an especially happy one at the time when I was first on "Jeopardy" in 2004.
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2004年，第一次上电视游戏节目‘危险’
那时的我对生活也不满意
那时的我对生活也不满意
03:03
But that's what I was doing.
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可是当时那就是我的职业
03:04
And it made it doubly ironic -- my computer background --
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我的电脑背景 是个双重讽刺。
03:07
a few years later, I think 2009 or so,
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几年后，我记得大概是2009年，
03:11
when I got another phone call from "Jeopardy" saying,
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‘危险‘游戏节目组 给我打电话说，
03:14
"It's early days yet, but IBM tells us
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"现在为时尚早，但 IBM 告诉我们，
03:16
they want to build a supercomputer to beat you at 'Jeopardy.'
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他们想要建造一台超级计算机，与你竞赛‘危险’游戏。
03:21
Are you up for this?"
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你接受吗?"
03:23
This was the first I'd heard of it.
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这是我第一次听说人机竞赛。
03:24
And of course I said yes, for several reasons.
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当然，我答应了。原因有几个，
03:27
One, because playing "Jeopardy" is a great time.
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第一，因为我享受玩‘危险’。
03:29
It's fun. It's the most fun you can have with your pants on.
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它充满乐趣。除了做爱，玩‘危险’是最令人开心的。
03:33
(Laughter)
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（笑声）
03:35
And I would do it for nothing.
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我可以分文不收。
03:36
I don't think they know that, luckily,
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幸好，我想他们不知道，
03:38
but I would go back and play for Arby's coupons.
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可是麦当劳优惠券就足以让我去了。
03:41
I just love "Jeopardy," and I always have.
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我就是爱玩‘危险’，我一直都是这样。
03:43
And second of all, because I'm a nerdy guy and this seemed like the future.
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还有因为我是个书呆子，而这看似是我的未来。
03:48
People playing computers on game shows
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我一直认为 人机在电视游戏节目上对抗
03:50
was the kind of thing I always imagined would happen in the future,
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是未来的趋势
03:53
and now I could be on the stage with it.
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而且现在，我真的可以和计算机玩游戏了， 在电视上，
03:54
I was not going to say no.
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我怎么能说不呢。
03:55
The third reason I said yes
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第三个原因，
03:56
is because I was pretty confident that I was going to win.
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是因为,我很有信心自己会赢。
03:59
I had taken some artificial intelligence classes.
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我上过一些人工智能课。
04:01
I knew there were no computers that could do what you need to do to win on "Jeopardy."
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我知道没有计算机具备玩‘危险’需要的能力。
04:05
People don't realize how tough it is to write that kind of program
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‘危险’中的线索是用人类语言表述的， 比如英语，
04:09
that can read a "Jeopardy" clue in a natural language like English
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它含有双关、 相似字、 隐语，
04:12
and understand all the double meanings, the puns, the red herrings,
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编写计算程序来解谜这样的线索
04:16
unpack the meaning of the clue.
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是十分艰难的。
04:18
The kind of thing that a three- or four-year-old human, little kid could do,
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三、四岁小孩子能做的事
04:23
very hard for a computer.
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对计算机来说是很难的。
04:25
And I thought, well this is going to be child's play.
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所以，我以为我会赢的轻而易举。
04:28
Yes, I will come destroy the computer and defend my species.
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是的，我会打败计算机，捍卫我的种群。
04:33
(Laughter)
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（笑声）
04:35
But as the years went on,
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但随着岁月的流逝，
04:37
as IBM started throwing money and manpower and processor speed at this,
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IBM 开始投入大笔金钱、人力和高速芯片。
04:40
I started to get occasional updates from them,
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他们偶尔给我一些最新动态，
04:43
and I started to get a little more worried.
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我开始多一点担心。
04:44
I remember a journal article about this new question answering software that had a graph.
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我记得有一篇杂志文章，专门讨论这台玩文字游戏的计算机，并附了一个图表，
04:50
It was a scatter chart showing performance on "Jeopardy,"
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是一个散点图，绘制‘危险’参赛者的成绩
04:54
tens of thousands of dots representing "Jeopardy" champions up at the top
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在图表的顶部，数以万计的圆点代表‘危险’冠军的成绩
04:58
with their performance plotted on number of --
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他们的成绩是由- 我本想说是-答对问题的数目，
05:00
I was going to say questions answered, but answers questioned, I guess,
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但我觉得应该是被“质疑”的答案，
05:04
clues responded to --
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反正就是将参赛者给予的答案— —
05:06
versus the accuracy of those answers.
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与那些答案的准确性来做衡量。
05:09
So there's a certain performance level that the computer would need to get to.
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所以，计算机性能必须要达到一定水平
05:12
And at first, it was very low.
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刚开始时，它是非常低的。
05:14
There was no software that could compete at this kind of arena.
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没有哪个软件可以在这样的舞台上竞争。
05:17
But then you see the line start to go up.
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但是，后来那条线开始上升。
05:19
And it's getting very close to what they call the winner's cloud.
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而它非常接近所谓的“优胜者区域"
05:22
And I noticed in the upper right of the scatter chart
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我注意到在散点图的右上角
05:24
some darker dots, some black dots, that were a different color.
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有一些较暗的点，一些黑点，那是另一种颜色。
05:30
And thought, what are these?
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我想，这是什么？
05:31
"The black dots in the upper right represent 74-time 'Jeopardy' champion Ken Jennings."
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"中右上角的黑点代表 74 次‘危险’冠军肯.詹宁斯"。
05:35
And I saw this line coming for me.
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那条代表计算机的线，朝我而来。
05:37
And I realized, this is it.
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我意识到，这下完了。
05:38
This is what it looks like when the future comes for you.
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这看起来就像大限将近。
05:40
(Laughter)
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（笑声）
05:42
It's not the Terminator's gun sight;
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它不是终结者的瞄准器 ；
05:45
it's a little line coming closer and closer to the thing you can do,
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这是一条细线，逼近你的智力
05:49
the only thing that makes you special, the thing you're best at.
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你的特长，最擅长的事。
05:52
And when the game eventually happened about a year later,
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最终，大约一年后，游戏开播。
05:57
it was very different than the "Jeopardy" games I'd been used to.
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它和以往‘危险’游戏非常不同。
06:00
We were not playing in L.A. on the regular "Jeopardy" set.
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通常我们在洛杉矶玩，
06:02
Watson does not travel.
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但电脑沃森不能旅行。
06:04
Watson's actually huge.
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实际上，沃森体积庞大。
06:05
It's thousands of processors, a terabyte of memory,
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它有数以千计的芯片，内存高达一兆兆字节，
06:10
trillions of bytes of memory.
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数万亿字节的内存。
06:11
We got to walk through his climate-controlled server room.
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我们要走进有气候控制的服务器室。
06:14
The only other "Jeopardy" contestant to this day I've ever been inside.
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直到今天 沃森是里面唯一一个‘危险’选手。
06:17
And so Watson does not travel.
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所以，沃森不能旅行。
06:21
You must come to it; you must make the pilgrimage.
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你必须来见它 ；您必须来”朝拜“。
06:25
So me and the other human player
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所以我和其他人类玩家
06:27
wound up at this secret IBM research lab
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集聚在这个秘密的 IBM 研究实验室
06:30
in the middle of these snowy woods in Westchester County
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在威彻斯特县的雪域森林中
06:33
to play the computer.
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和电脑玩‘危险’游戏。
06:34
And we realized right away
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我们马上意识到
06:36
that the computer had a big home court advantage.
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沃森有巨大的主场优势
06:39
There was a big Watson logo in the middle of the stage.
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在舞台中央，有一个大的沃森徽标。
06:41
Like you're going to play the Chicago Bulls,
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就好像你要和芝加哥公牛队比赛，
06:44
and there's the thing in the middle of their court.
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在他们的球场，会有一个公牛队的标志。
06:46
And the crowd was full of IBM V.P.s and programmers
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观众席上，坐满了 IBM 副总裁和程序员
06:50
cheering on their little darling,
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给他们的小宝贝加油，
06:52
having poured millions of dollars into this
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在投入数以百万计的美元后
06:54
hoping against hope that the humans screw up,
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他们希望人类输
06:57
and holding up "Go Watson" signs
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他们高举"沃森加油"的标语,
06:59
and just applauding like pageant moms every time their little darling got one right.
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就像选美妈妈一样，每次他们亲爱的小闺女答对一个问题，他们就鼓掌。
07:03
I think guys had "W-A-T-S-O-N" written on their bellies in grease paint.
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我看到男员工们用油脂漆在他们的肚子上写上"W-A-T-S-O-N（沃森）"的名字。
07:09
If you can imagine computer programmers with the letters "W-A-T-S-O-N" written on their gut,
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想象一下，计算机程序员将"W-A-T-S-O-N（沃森）"写在肚皮上，
07:15
it's an unpleasant sight.
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怪恶心的。
07:16
But they were right. They were exactly right.
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但，他们对了。他们完全正确。
07:19
I don't want to spoil it, if you still have this sitting on your DVR,
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如果你还没看过这次比赛的录像，我不想扫兴，
07:22
but Watson won handily.
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但沃森赢得轻而易举。
07:25
And I remember standing there behind the podium
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我记得站在舞台的后面
07:28
as I could hear that little insectoid thumb clicking.
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当我听到那小昆虫机器人敲击蜂音器。
07:31
It had a robot thumb that was clicking on the buzzer.
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机器人有一个拇指，可以敲击蜂鸣器。
07:34
And you could hear that little tick, tick, tick, tick.
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你能听到嘀嗒、 嘀嗒、 嘀嗒、 嘀嗒。
07:38
And I remember thinking, this is it.
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我记得当时在想，完了。
07:41
I felt obsolete.
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我过时了。
07:42
I felt like a Detroit factory worker of the '80s
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我觉得自己像个八十年代底特律工厂的工人
07:45
seeing a robot that could now do his job on the assembly line.
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眼睁睁看着生产线上的机器人代替他工作。
07:48
I felt like quiz show contestant was now the first job that had become obsolete
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我觉得，在当下，知识测验节目参赛者也已经，
07:53
under this new regime of thinking computers.
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被这个具有思维能力的计算机淘汰了。
07:57
And it hasn't been the last.
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这样的事还会再重演。
07:59
If you watch the news, you'll see occasionally --
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如果你看新闻，偶尔，你会看到— —
08:02
and I see this all the time --
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我是经常看到这样的新闻的 — —
08:03
that pharmacists now, there's a machine that can fill prescriptions automatically
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比如药剂师，现在有一种机器，可以自动按处方配药
08:08
without actually needing a human pharmacist.
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不需要药剂师的干预。
08:11
And a lot of law firms are getting rid of paralegals
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很多的律师事务所律师解雇专职助手
08:13
because there's software that can sum up case laws and legal briefs and decisions.
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因为软件可以总结案件、法律摘要和决定。
08:17
You don't need human assistants for that anymore.
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他们不再需要人类助理了。
08:20
I read the other day about a program where you feed it a box score
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前几天，我读到一篇关于程序的报道，如果你给它输入
08:23
from a baseball or football game
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足球手或棒球员的个人成绩表，
08:25
and it spits out a news article as if a human had watched the game
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它就能吐出一篇新闻文章，就好像它真看过比赛
08:27
and was commenting on it.
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然后像人一样的点评那场比赛。
08:29
And obviously these new technologies can't do as clever or creative a job
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很明显，这些新技术与被取代的人类比起来
08:33
as the humans they're replacing,
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它们不能做创造性的工作，也没有人类聪明
08:34
but they're faster, and crucially, they're much, much cheaper.
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但它们速度更快，至关重要的是，它们非常、非常便宜。
08:38
So it makes me wonder what the economic effects of this might be.
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所以，这使得我很好奇:这些技术的究竟如何影响经济。
08:43
I've read economists saying that, as a result of these new technologies,
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我听经济学家说过，这些新的技术，
08:46
we'll enter a new golden age of leisure
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会给我们带来一个新的休闲黄金时代，
08:48
when we'll all have time for the things we really love
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我们都有时间来做我们真正感兴趣的事情
08:51
because all these onerous tasks will be taken over by Watson and his digital brethren.
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因为这些麻烦的任务都将由像沃森一样的计算机来接管。
08:58
I've heard other people say quite the opposite,
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其他人的意见正好相反，
08:59
that this is yet another tier of the middle class
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正是一帮中产阶层
09:02
that's having the thing they can do taken away from them by a new technology
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他们能做的事正被新的技术夺走
09:07
and that this is actually something ominous,
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这是很不幸的，
09:08
something that we should worry about.
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我们应该为此担忧。
09:10
I'm not an economist myself.
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我本人不是经济学家。
09:11
All I know is how it felt to be the guy put out of work.
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但我知道，失去工作的感受。
09:15
And it was friggin' demoralizing. It was terrible.
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那是沉重的精神打击，十分可怕。
09:18
Here's the one thing that I was ever good at,
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玩‘危险’是我最擅长的，
09:20
and all it took was IBM pouring tens of millions of dollars and its smartest people
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但是， 如果 IBM 注入数以千万计的美元， 雇用其最聪明的人，
09:24
and thousands of processors working in parallel
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使用成千上万的处理器，
09:27
and they could do the same thing.
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那么，他们就可以将我取而代之。
09:29
They could do it a little bit faster and a little better on national TV,
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‘沃森’可以在全国电视上做得更快一点、更 好一点，
09:32
and "I'm sorry, Ken. We don't need you anymore."
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IBM就会对我说，"很抱歉，肯，我们不需要你了“。
09:35
And it made me think, what does this mean,
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我开始思考，如果我们开始外包、
09:39
if we're going to be able to start outsourcing,
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不仅仅只是低级的思维功能
09:40
not just lower unimportant brain functions.
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这意味着什么。
09:44
I'm sure many of you remember a distant time
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我肯定你们很多人还记得，很久以前，
09:46
when we had to know phone numbers, when we knew our friends' phone numbers.
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我们必须记忆电话号码，在脑子里记住朋友们的电话号码。
09:49
And suddenly there was a machine that did that,
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突然间，发明了一种机器， 代我们记忆电话号码，
09:51
and now we don't need to remember that anymore.
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现在，我们不需要再记得这些了。
09:54
I have read that there's now actually evidence
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我读到证据证明 使用导向工具（如 GPS）的人，
09:55
that the hippocampus, the part of our brain that handles spacial relationships,
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他们的海马体-处理空间关系的那一部分大脑组织，
10:00
physically shrinks and atrophies
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会萎缩退化。
10:02
in people who use tools like GPS,
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使用工具如GPS的人
10:04
because we're not exercising our sense of direction anymore.
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因为我们不再使用我们的方向感，
10:07
We're just obeying a little talking voice on our dashboard.
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而只是，被动的服从那个会说话的仪器指挥。
10:09
And as a result, a part of our brain that's supposed to do that kind of stuff
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结果，负责方向感的大脑组织
10:12
gets smaller and dumber.
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缩小、变笨。
10:13
And it made me think, what happens when computers are now better
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我在想，如果我们完全依赖计算机来记忆和思维，
10:17
at knowing and remembering stuff than we are?
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那将是怎样的情景？
10:21
Is all of our brain going to start to shrink and atrophy like that?
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整个大脑都会萎缩退化吗？
10:25
Are we as a culture going to start to value knowledge less?
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我们的文化会看轻知识的价值吗？
10:29
As somebody who has always believed in the importance of the stuff that we know,
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这种可能的趋势令人恐惧，
10:32
this was a terrifying idea to me.
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因为我一直重视知识的力量。
10:40
The more I thought about it, I realized, no, it's still important.
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我越是深思熟虑，越是意识到， 不！知识仍然很重要。
10:45
The things we know are still important.
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我们的知识，仍然很重要。
10:47
I came to believe there were two advantages
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我相信， 比起那些只会说
10:50
that those of us who have these things in our head have
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“噢，等等。我用谷歌搜一下" 的人，
10:54
over somebody who says, "Oh, yeah. I can Google that. Hold on a second."
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脑子里有知识的人，至少有两个优点。
10:58
There's an advantage of volume, and there's an advantage of time.
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一个是信息量的优势，一个是时间的优势。
11:01
The advantage of volume, first,
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首先是信息量的优势。
11:03
just has to do with the complexity of the world nowadays.
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现今的世界十分复杂，
11:05
There's so much information out there.
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因而信息量也大。
11:07
Being a Renaissance man or woman,
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我们不能和文艺复兴时代的男女相比，
11:08
that's something that was only possible in the Renaissance.
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那是一个特殊的时代，不可再现。
11:10
Now it's really not possible
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在当今的时代，实在是不可能
11:11
to be reasonably educated on every field of human endeavor.
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掌握所有领域的知识。
11:14
There's just too much.
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那太强人所难了。
11:16
They say that the scope of human information
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据说，人类信息的范围，
11:19
is now doubling every 18 months or so,
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人类信息的总和，
11:21
the sum total of human information.
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差不多每 18 个月翻一倍。
11:23
That means between now and late 2014,
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这意味着，如用千兆字节来计算，
11:27
we will generate as much information, in terms of gigabytes,
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从现在到 2014年底所生成的信息量，
11:30
as all of humanity has in all the previous millenia put together.
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将等同于人类所有之前产生的信息量的总和。
11:34
It's doubling every 18 months now.
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而且，人类的总信息量，每隔18个月增加一倍。
11:36
This is terrifying because a lot of the big decisions we make
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这是很可怕的， 因为很多重大决定的抉择，
11:40
require the mastery of lots of different kinds of facts.
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需要掌握的很多不同种类的資訊。
11:43
A decision like where do I go to school? What should I major in?
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比如，我去哪所学校上学？我应该主修哪个方向？
11:48
Who do I vote for?
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我投票给哪个候选人？
11:49
Do I take this job or that one?
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我选择这份或那份工作？
11:51
These are the decisions that require correct judgments
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我们需要了解多种大量的資訊，
11:55
about many different kinds of facts.
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才能做出正确的判断。
11:57
If we have those facts at our mental fingertips,
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如果我们的大脑里有这些知识，
11:59
we're going to be able to make informed decisions.
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我们就能够作出精明的決定。
12:01
If, on the other hand, we need to look them all up,
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另一方面，假如，我们需要查看搜寻这些信息，
12:04
we may be in trouble.
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我们可能会有麻烦。
12:06
According to a National Geographic survey I just saw,
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国家地理最近的一项调查显示
12:08
somewhere along the lines of 80 percent
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在美国总统选举中，
12:10
of the people who vote in a U.S. presidential election about issues like foreign policy
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以外交政策为主要考量的投票人中，大约80%的人，
12:14
cannot find Iraq or Afghanistan on a map.
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不能在地图上指出伊拉克或阿富汗。
12:17
If you can't do that first step,
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如果你连这点常识都没有，
12:20
are you really going to look up the other thousand facts you're going to need to know
255
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你真的会去查询几千条其它信息，
12:23
to master your knowledge of U.S. foreign policy?
256
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来充实美国外交政策方面的知识吗？
12:26
Quite probably not.
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我想，你是不会的。
12:27
At some point you're just going to be like,
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有一天，你会说，
12:28
"You know what? There's too much to know. Screw it."
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"算了吧！太多了，去它的吧！"。
12:30
And you'll make a less informed decision.
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你会做出不明智的决定。
12:32
The other issue is the advantage of time that you have
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另外，如果你对这些事情廖若指掌，
12:35
if you have all these things at your fingertips.
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你就有时间的优势。
12:37
I always think of the story of a little girl named Tilly Smith.
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我常想到，一个叫蒂莉史密斯的小女孩的故事。
12:41
She was a 10-year-old girl from Surrey, England
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她来自英国萨里郡，10 岁，
12:43
on vacation with her parents a few years ago in Phuket, Thailand.
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3333
几年前，她与父母去泰国普吉岛度假。
12:47
She runs up to them on the beach one morning
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一个早晨，在海滩上，她跑向父母，
12:48
and says, "Mom, Dad, we've got to get off the beach."
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并说，"妈妈，爸爸，我们得离开海滩."
12:51
And they say, "What do you mean? We just got here."
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他们说，"什么意思？我们刚刚到这里"。
12:54
And she said, "In Mr. Kearney's geography class last month,
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她说，"上个月，在地理课上，卡尼先生提过，
12:57
he told us that when the tide goes out abruptly out to sea
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如果有不正常的退潮，
13:00
and you see the waves churning way out there,
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而且波涛剧烈翻腾，
13:01
that's the sign of a tsunami, and you need to clear the beach."
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这是海啸的标志，应该尽快离开海滩。
13:06
What would you do if your 10-year-old daughter came up to you with this?
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如果你10 岁的女儿跟你说这个，你会怎样？
13:08
Her parents thought about it,
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她的父母想了想，
13:09
and they finally, to their credit, decided to believe her.
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最后，她的父母决定相信她，他们真不错。
13:11
They told the lifeguard, they went back to the hotel,
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他们告知了救生员，并回到了酒店，
13:13
and the lifeguard cleared over 100 people off the beach, luckily,
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3884
幸运的是，救生员将海滩上的 100 多人清场，
13:17
because that was the day of the Boxing Day tsunami,
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2905
那天就发生了节礼日海啸。
13:20
the day after Christmas, 2004,
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2004年圣诞节后的第一天，
13:22
that killed thousands of people in Southeast Asia and around the Indian Ocean.
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东南亚和印度洋周边，成千上万的人遇难。
13:26
But not on that beach, not on Mai Khao Beach,
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2474
但迈考海滩幸免，
13:28
because this little girl had remembered one fact from her geography teacher a month before.
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因为这个小女孩，想起了一个月前从地理老师那里学来的知识，
13:33
Now when facts come in handy like that --
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当知识派上用场的时候--
13:35
I love that story because it shows you the power of one fact,
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3615
我喜欢这个故事，因为它显示了知识的力量，
13:39
one remembered fact in exactly the right place at the right time --
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活学活用，恰当其时，
13:43
normally something that's easier to see on game shows than in real life.
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2745
通常在游戏节目上比在现实生活中更容易看到这样的例子。
13:46
But in this case it happened in real life.
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但在这个故事里，它发生在现实生活中。
13:48
And it happens in real life all the time.
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1619
这样的例子在现实生活中时常发生。
13:50
It's not always a tsunami, often it's a social situation.
289
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2214
它并不总是一场海啸，通常是社交场合。
13:52
It's a meeting or job interview or first date
290
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4713
可能是一个会议、工作面试或第一次约会，
13:57
or some relationship that gets lubricated
291
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1674
两人意识到他们分享一些共同的信息，
13:58
because two people realize they share some common piece of knowledge.
292
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人际关系因而开始升温。
14:02
You say where you're from, and I say, "Oh, yeah."
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你说你从哪儿来，或你的母校，或你的工作，
14:04
Or your alma mater or your job,
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1633
我说，"噢，是的"。
14:06
and I know just a little something about it,
295
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可能我知道只是些支离破碎的信息，
14:08
enough to get the ball rolling.
296
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当这足够让我们的谈话进行下去。
14:09
People love that shared connection that gets created
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当对方知道一点儿关于你的情况，
14:11
when somebody knows something about you.
298
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你更容易和他建立关系。
14:13
It's like they took the time to get to know you before you even met.
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就好像你们还未见过面他就花了时间先认识你
14:18
That's often the advantage of time.
300
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1412
这往往是时间的优势。
14:19
And it's not effective if you say, "Well, hold on.
301
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依靠计算机就不会有这种效果。假如你说，“好，等一等，
14:20
You're from Fargo, North Dakota. Let me see what comes up.
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你来自北达科塔州的法戈，让我查查有什么相关资讯。
14:26
Oh, yeah. Roger Maris was from Fargo."
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1902
哦，是的。罗杰 • 马里斯也来自法戈。"
14:28
That doesn't work. That's just annoying.
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这不起作用，只能令人生厌。
14:31
(Laughter)
305
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2447
（笑声）
14:33
The great 18th-century British theologian and thinker, friend of Dr. Johnson,
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伟大的18世纪英国神学家和思想家，也是约翰逊博士的朋友
14:39
Samuel Parr once said, "It's always better to know a thing than not to know it."
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塞缪尔 · 帕尔曾经说过，"知道一件事总比不知道强"。
14:45
And if I have lived my life by any kind of creed, it's probably that.
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如果我有任何生活信条的话，就应该是这个。
14:50
I have always believed that the things we know -- that knowledge is an absolute good,
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我一直相信我们所知道的知识 — — 知识绝对是好事，
14:55
that the things we have learned and carry with us in our heads
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我们已经学到的知识，记忆在我们的头脑里的知识，
14:58
are what make us who we are,
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造就我们个人，
15:00
as individuals and as a species.
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这是人类之所以为万物之灵。
15:03
I don't know if I want to live in a world where knowledge is obsolete.
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我不知道我是否想要生活在一个知识没有价值的世界。
15:07
I don't want to live in a world where cultural literacy has been replaced
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我不想生活在
15:10
by these little bubbles of specialty,
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一个文化素养被专精知识所取代的的世界，
15:12
so that none of us know about the common associations
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一个没有共享的知识的世界，
15:16
that used to bind our civilization together.
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没有那些将人类联系在一起的文明。
15:18
I don't want to be the last trivia know-it-all
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我不想成为最后的‘百事通’
15:20
sitting on a mountain somewhere,
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独坐在一座山上的某处，
15:22
reciting to himself the state capitals and the names of "Simpsons" episodes
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背诵州首府城市名和"辛普森一家"的电视剧情节，
15:26
and the lyrics of Abba songs.
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或是Abba曲的歌词。
15:30
I feel like our civilization works when this is a vast cultural heritage that we all share
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我觉得要延续我们的文明，分享丰富的文化遗产，
15:34
and that we know without having to outsource it to our devices,
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只能依赖我们的智力，
15:37
to our search engines and our smartphones.
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而不是依靠计算机、搜索引擎和智能手机。
15:40
In the movies, when computers like Watson start to think,
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在电影中，当像沃森一样的计算机开始思考时，
15:44
things don't always end well.
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事情总是没有好下场。
15:47
Those movies are never about beautiful utopias.
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这些电影总是讲恐怖故事，
15:51
It's always a terminator or a matrix or an astronaut getting sucked out an airlock in "2001."
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要么是终结者、要么是黑客帝国、
要么就是电影“2001”，宇航员被卡在闸门里 。
要么就是电影“2001”，宇航员被卡在闸门里 。
15:57
Things always go terribly wrong.
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总之事情总会变得非常糟糕。
16:00
And I feel like we're sort of at the point now
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我感觉现在的情形和这差不多。
16:02
where we need to make that choice of what kind of future we want to be living in.
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我们需要做出选择，我们想要什么样的未来。
16:06
This is a question of leadership,
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这是一个关于领导的问题
16:07
because it becomes a question of who leads the future.
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因为问题就是让谁来领导我们的未来
16:11
On the one hand, we can choose between a new golden age
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一方面，我们可以选择一个新的黄金时代
16:17
where information is more universally available
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信息随处可取，
16:21
than it's ever been in human history,
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前所未有的便利，
16:22
where we all have the answers to our questions at our fingertips.
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所有问题的答案都在我们的指掌。
16:25
And on the other hand,
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另一方面，
16:26
we have the potential to be living in some gloomy dystopia
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我们也有可能造就一个黑暗又混论的社会
16:29
where the machines have taken over
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机器主宰我们，
16:31
and we've all decided it's not important what we know anymore,
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我们已经决定了解知识已经不重要
16:34
that knowledge isn't valuable because it's all out there in the cloud,
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知识没有价值，因为都可在网络上查询，
16:37
and why would we ever bother learning anything new.
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我们没有必要学习任何新的东西。
16:43
Those are the two choices we have. I know which future I would rather be living in.
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这是我们的两个选择。我知道我宁愿生活在哪一种未来。
16:46
And we can all make that choice.
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我们都可以做这个选择
16:49
We make that choice by being curious, inquisitive people who like to learn,
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好奇心强、好学的人们所选择的就是这种未来，
16:52
who don't just say, "Well, as soon as the bell has rung and the class is over,
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他们不会说，"哈，下课铃一响，课堂结束，
16:55
I don't have to learn anymore,"
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我就不需要再学习了，"
16:56
or "Thank goodness I have my diploma. I'm done learning for a lifetime.
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或者说 "谢天谢地终于拿到毕业证。我这辈子学够了。
17:00
I don't have to learn new things anymore."
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我不需要再学习新的东西了"。
17:02
No, every day we should be striving to learn something new.
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不，我们每一天都应当努力学习新的知识。
17:05
We should have this unquenchable curiosity for the world around us.
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对于这个的世界，我们应该抱有无尽的好奇心。
17:09
That's where the people you see on "Jeopardy" come from.
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‘危险’参赛选手都有这种特征。
17:12
These know-it-alls, they're not Rainman-style savants
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这些‘百事通’，他们不是像电影‘雨人’里面的学者一样，
17:15
sitting at home memorizing the phone book.
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坐在家里，死背电话簿。
17:17
I've met a lot of them.
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我见过很多选手。
17:19
For the most part, they are just normal folks
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在很多方面，他们和普通人没有不同，
17:20
who are universally interested in the world around them, curious about everything,
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但他们普遍兴趣广泛，好奇心强，
17:24
thirsty for this knowledge about whatever subject.
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求知欲强。
17:28
We can live in one of these two worlds.
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我们有这两个世界可以选择。
17:30
We can live in a world where our brains, the things that we know,
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一个，我们的大脑，我们的知识，
17:33
continue to be the thing that makes us special,
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使我们有别其他物种，
17:35
or a world in which we've outsourced all of that to evil supercomputers from the future like Watson.
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另一个，我们可以完全依赖邪恶的超级计算机，像沃森。
17:42
Ladies and gentlemen, the choice is yours.
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女士们先生们，选择是你的。
17:44
Thank you very much.
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非常感谢。
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Ken Jennings - Know-it-allKen Jennings holds the record for most consecutive wins on the classic American trivia game show, Jeopardy.
Why you should listen
Ken Jennings loves facts. When he was a kid he followed his parents around reciting whatever new fact he had learned -- "Haley's comet or giant squids or the size of the world's biggest pumpkin pie or whatever it was" -- to no end. And his natural curiosity paid off. Today Jennings holds the record for most consecutive wins on the trivia game show Jeopardy, with an astounding 74 wins. (At one point Jennings also held the Guinness World Record for "Most cash won on a game show." Not bad for a trivia nerd.)
In 2011 Jennings participated in the IBM Challenge, which featured him and Jeopardy rival Brad Rutter in a match against IBM supercomputer Watson. Jennings came in second. Watson was first. But Jennings wasn't disappointed in his performance, As he wrote of his loss, "I don't have 2,880 processor cores and 15 terabytes of reference works at my disposal. ... My puny human brain, just a few bucks worth of water, salts, and proteins, hung in there just fine against a jillion-dollar supercomputer."
In 2012 Jennings published the book Because I Said So!: The Truth Behind the Myths, Tales, and Warnings Every Generation Passes Down to Its Kids.
Ken Jennings | Speaker | TED.com