Is it just me, or are there other people here that are a little bit disappointed with democracy?
就我一个，还是在座的还有其他人，对我们的民主有些小失望？
So let's look at a few numbers.
我们来看一组数据。
If we look across the world, the median turnout in presidential elections over the last 30 years has been just 67 percent.
如果我们看整个世界，在过去三十年里参加总统选举投票的中位数只有百分之六十七。
Now, if we go to Europe and we look at people that participated in EU parliamentary elections,
我们如果转向欧洲，看看参与欧盟议会选举的人数，
the median turnout in those elections is just 42 percent.
投票的中位数只有百分之四十二。
Now let's go to New York, and let's see how many people voted in the last election for mayor.
我们如果转向纽约，看看多少人参加了上次市长选举投票。
We will find that only 24 percent of people showed up to vote.
我们发现只有百分之二十四的人出去投了票。
What that means is that, if "Friends" was still running, Joey and maybe Phoebe would have shown up to vote.
这就意味着，如果“老友记”还在放的话，只有乔伊和或许菲比会去投。
And you cannot blame them because people are tired of politicians.
你没法怪他们，因为人们已经对政客厌倦了。
And people are tired of other people using the data that they have generated to communicate with their friends and family,
而且人们也很厌倦其他人用他们和他们的朋友和家人沟通时产生的数据，
to target political propaganda at them.
针对他们做政治宣传。
But the thing about this is that this is not new.
但这也不是什么新做法。
Nowadays, people use likes to target propaganda at you before they use your zip code or your gender or your age,
现在，人们用你的点赞对你聚焦宣传以前他们是用你的邮编或者你的性别或者你的年龄，
because the idea of targeting people with propaganda for political purposes is as old as politics.
因为针对性政治宣传和政治本身一样历史悠久。
And the reason why that idea is there is because democracy has a basic vulnerability.
这些做法之所以存在是因为民主有一个很基本的弱点。
This is the idea of a representative.
这就是代表这个概念。
In principle, democracy is the ability of people to exert power.
原则上，民主是人民行使权力的能力。
But in practice, we have to delegate that power to a representative that can exert that power for us.
但事实上，我们不得不把这个权力交给一个代表来替我们行使那个权力。
That representative is a bottleneck, or a weak spot.
那个代表就是一个瓶颈，一个短板。
It is the place that you want to target if you want to attack democracy
如果你想攻击民主的话，你就从那儿开始，
because you can capture democracy by either capturing that representative or capturing the way that people choose it.
如果你能俘获那个代表，或是俘获人们选出代表的方式，你就可以俘获民主本身。
So the big question is: Is this the end of history?
所以关键问题是：这是历史的终点吗？
Is this the best that we can do or, actually, are there alternatives?
我们已经没法做的更好，或者，实际上还有别的方法？
Some people have been thinking about alternatives,
很多人都在探索别的方法，
and one of the ideas that is out there is the idea of direct democracy.
现在有一个想法叫直接民主。
This is the idea of bypassing politicians completely and having people vote directly on issues, having people vote directly on bills.
这个想法主张完全跳过政客，让人们直接对议题投票，对法案直接投票。
But this idea is naive because there's too many things that we would need to choose.
但这个想法还是很天真，因为那样的话我们就有太多的东西要选择。
If you look at the 114th US Congress,
如果你看美国114届议会，
you will have seen that the House of Representatives considered more than 6,000 bills,
你就会发现众议院审议过6000多个法案，
the Senate considered more than 3,000 bills and they approved more than 300 laws.
参议院审议过3000多个法案，他们通过了300个立法。
Those would be many decisions that each person would have to make a week on topics that they know little about.
这就意味着，每个人一个星期里要对很多他们不了解的话题做决定。
So there's a big cognitive bandwidth problem if we're going to try to think about direct democracy as a viable alternative.
这就有个知识范围的问题，如果我们要把直接民主做为一种可能性的话。
So some people think about the idea of liquid democracy, or fluid democracy,
所以有些人在考虑液体民主，或流体民主，
which is the idea that you endorse your political power to someone, who can endorse it to someone else,
这就是你把你的政治权利交给别人，那个人再转交给另外一个人，
and, eventually, you create a large follower network in which, at the end,
这样最后你就建立了一个很大的跟随网络，再到最后，
there's a few people that are making decisions on behalf of all of their followers and their followers.
一小群人开始代表他们的跟随者以及跟随者的跟随者做决定。
But this idea also doesn't solve the problem of the cognitive bandwidth and,
但这个想法也没法解决知识范围的问题，
to be honest, it's also quite similar to the idea of having a representative.
而且实话说，这跟有个代表也差不多。
So what I'm going to do today is I'm going to be a little bit provocative, and I'm going to ask you, well:
所以，我今天想大胆些，让我来问你：
What if, instead of trying to bypass politicians, we tried to automate them?
如果我们不试图跨越政客，而是试图把他们自动化会怎么样？
The idea of automation is not new.
这个自动化的想法也不是刚出来的了。
It was started more than 300 years ago, when French weavers decided to automate the loom.
300年前就开始了，那时候法国织布工想要把织机自动化。
The winner of that industrial war was Joseph-Marie Jacquard.
那个工业战争的胜者叫约瑟夫·玛丽·雅卡尔。
He was a French weaver and merchant that married the loom with the steam engine to create autonomous looms.
他是个法国织布工和商人，他把织布机和蒸汽发动机联在一起来取得自动织机。
And in those autonomous looms, he gained control.
在那些自动织机里他取得了控制。
He could now make fabrics that were more complex and more sophisticated than the ones they were able to do by hand.
他可以做出比其他手工编织更复杂的布料。
But also, by winning that industrial war, he laid out what has become the blueprint of automation.
同时，通过赢得了那场工业战争，他也规划出了自动化的蓝图。
The way that we automate things for the last 300 years has always been the same:
我们自动化的方式过去300年里都是一样的：
we first identify a need, then we create a tool to satisfy that need, like the loom,
我们首先找到一个需求，然后我们制造一个工具满足那个需求，就象织布机，
in this case, and then we study how people use that tool to automate that user.
在这个例子里，然后我们研究人们是怎么用那个工具的，然后把那个人的工作自动化。
That's how we came from the mechanical loom to the autonomous loom, and that took us a thousand years.
这就是我们从机械织机演化到了自动织机，这足足花了我们一千年时间。
Now, it's taken us only a hundred years to use the same script to automate the car.
后来，我们只花了一百年时间，用同一个套路自动化了汽车。
But the thing is that, this time around, automation is kind of for real.
不过这一回，自动化是动真格的了。
This is a video that a colleague of mine from Toshiba shared with me that shows the factory that manufactures solid state drives.
这个录像是我在东芝的一个同事发给我们的，是制造固态硬盘的工厂。
The entire factory is a robot. There are no humans in that factory.
整个工厂就是一个机器人。工厂里没有工人。
And the robots are soon to leave the factories and become part of our world, become part of our workforce.
很快机器人就会走出工厂，成为我们世界的一部分，成为劳动大军的一部分。
So what I do in my day job is actually create tools that integrate data for entire countries
我的本职工作实际上是创造为整个国家整合数据的工具，
so that we can ultimately have the foundations that we need for a future in which we need to also manage those machines.
最终建立起我们需要的基础，在未来的日子里也可以管理这些机器。
But today, I'm not here to talk to you about these tools that integrate data for countries.
不过今天，我不是在这里跟你们谈这些为国家整合数据的工具的。
But I'm here to talk to you about another idea that might help us think about how to use artificial intelligence in democracy.
我在这里是想跟大家谈另外一个想法，或许能帮助我们考虑在民主上如何利用人工智能。
Because the tools that I build are designed for executive decisions.
因为我的工具是为行政决策设计的。
These are decisions that can be cast in some sort of term of objectivity -- public investment decisions.
这些决策是基于一定程度的客观性的--公共投资决定。
But there are decisions that are legislative,
但也有决定是立法有关的，
and these decisions that are legislative require communication among people that have different points of view,
这些和立法有关的决定就需要有各持己见的人们之间的沟通，
require participation, require debate, require deliberation.
需要参与，需要探讨，需要三思。
And for a long time, we have thought that, well, what we need to improve democracy is actually more communication.
很久以来，我们一直认为我们要改善民主的话就要加强沟通。
So all of the technologies that we have advanced in the context of democracy,
所以所有我们以民主为名开发的科技，
whether they are newspapers or whether it is social media, have tried to provide us with more communication.
无论是报纸还是社交媒体，都试图给我们提供更多的沟通。
But we've been down that rabbit hole, and we know that's not what's going to solve the problem.
但我们以前陷进过这种无底洞，我们知道这是解决不了问题的。

Because it's not a communication problem, it's a cognitive bandwidth problem.
因为这不是一个沟通的问题，而是一个知识范围的问题。
So if the problem is one of cognitive bandwidth, well,
所以如果问题是知识范围，那，
adding more communication to people is not going to be what's going to solve it.
给人们加上更多的沟通是解决不了问题的。
What we are going to need instead is to have other technologies
我们需要的是不同的科技
that help us deal with some of the communication that we are overloaded with.
来帮助分摊一些我们已经超负荷的沟通。
Think of, like, a little avatar, a software agent, a digital Jiminy Cricket... that basically is able to answer things on your behalf.
想象一下，比如，一个网络虚拟人，一个软件代理，一个电子杰明尼蟋蟀--基本上可以替你回答问题。
And if we had that technology, we would be able to offload some of the communication
如果我们有了那种科技，我们就可以卸下一些沟通的负担，
and help, maybe, make better decisions or decisions at a larger scale.
也许可以帮助我们做更好的决定或是范围更广的决定。
And the thing is that the idea of software agents is also not new. We already use them all the time.
而且软件代理的想法也不是新的。我们已经一直在使用它们了。
We use software agents to choose the way that we're going to drive to a certain location,
我们用软件代理来选择我们开车去某地该怎么走，
the music that we're going to listen to or to get suggestions for the next books that we should read.
我们想听什么音乐，或者建议我们接下来读什么书。
So there is an obvious idea in the 21st century
所以在二十一世纪有个显而易见的想法，
that was as obvious as the idea of putting together a steam engine with a loom at the time of Jacquard.
就跟雅卡尔时代把蒸汽发动机和织布机结合在一起的想法一样显而易见。
And that idea is combining direct democracy with software agents.
这个想法就是把直接民主和软件代理结合在一起。
Imagine, for a second, a world in which, instead of having a representative that represents you and millions of other people,
试想一下，在一个世界里，没有一个代表来代表你和一百多万其他人，
you can have a representative that represents only you, with your nuanced political views
你可以有一个代表只代表你自己，带着你的细微详尽的政治看法，
that weird combination of libertarian and liberal and maybe a little bit conservative on some issues and maybe very progressive on others.
那些自由意志派和自由派的奇特结合，或许对某些问题看法有点小保守，或许对其他问题看法又非常超前。
Politicians nowadays are packages, and they're full of compromises.
现在的政客都是打包的，他们充满了妥协。
But you might have someone that can represent only you,
但你可以有人只代表你一个人，
if you are willing to give up the idea that that representative is a human.
如果你不坚持那个代表一定是个人的话。
If that representative is a software agent, we could have a senate that has as many senators as we have citizens.
如果那个代表是个软件代理，我们的参议院里面的参议员可以和我们的公民一样多。
And those senators are going to be able to read every bill and they're going to be able to vote on each one of them.
那些参议员有能力读每个法案，他们可以对每个法案投票。
So there's an obvious idea that maybe we want to consider.
所以这是个很明显的想法我们可以考虑。
But I understand that in this day and age, this idea might be quite scary.
但我明白在这个时代，这个想法可能会显得很恐怖。
In fact, thinking of a robot coming from the future to help us run our governments sounds terrifying.
实际上，想想一个来自未来的机器人帮助我们管理政府，听起来就很可怕。
But we've been there before. And actually he was quite a nice guy.
但其实我们已经领略过了。实际上他人还不错的。
So what would the Jacquard loom version of this idea look like? It would be a very simple system.
那雅卡尔织布机版本的这个想法会是什么样呢？其实这个系统会很简单。
Imagine a system that you log in and you create your avatar, and then you're going to start training your avatar.
想象一个系统里你登录进去，然后你建虚拟身份，然后你开始训练你的虚拟身份。
So you can provide your avatar with your reading habits, or connect it to your social media,
你可以给它提供你的读书习惯，或者把它连到你的社交媒体上，
or you can connect it to other data, for example by taking psychological tests.
或者把它连到其他数据上，比如说做心理测试题。
And the nice thing about this is that there's no deception.
这样的好处在于一切都很真实。
You are not providing data to communicate with your friends and family that then gets used in a political system.
你没有和你的朋友家人沟通时提供数据，然后被政治系统利用。
You are providing data to a system that is designed to be used to make political decisions on your behalf.
你在给一个系统提供数据，用来代表你自己做政治决定。
Then you take that data and you choose a training algorithm, because it's an open marketplace
你然后拿着这数据再挑选一个培训程序，因为这是个开放式市场，
in which different people can submit different algorithms to predict how you're going to vote, based on the data you have provided.
不同的人可以提供不同的程序，根据你提供的数据来预测你如何投票。
And the system is open, so nobody controls the algorithms;
因为系统是开放式的，所以没有人能控制程序；
there are algorithms that become more popular and others that become less popular.
有的程序会变得很流行，有些会渐被遗忘。
Eventually, you can audit the system. You can see how your avatar is working.
最后，你可以审计这个系统。你可以看你虚拟身份做的如何。
If you like it, you can leave it on autopilot.
如果你喜欢，你可以留着它自动驾驶。
If you want to be a little more controlling,
如果你想多些控制权，
you can actually choose that they ask you every time they're going to make a decision, or you can be anywhere in between.
你可以选择每次它们做决定前都来先问你，或者你可以选择两者之间任何一点。
One of the reasons why we use democracy so little may be because democracy has a very bad user interface.
我们极少实施民主的原因之一，也许是因为民主有个很烂的用户界面。
And if we improve the user interface of democracy, we might be able to use it more.
如果我们能改善民主的用户界面，我们或许能用的多一些。
Of course, there's a lot of questions that you might have.
当然，你可能会有很多问题。
Well, how do you train these avatars? How do you keep the data secure?
嗯，你怎么培训这些虚拟身份？你如何保护数据？
How do you keep the systems distributed and auditable?
你如何让系统保持分散并且可以审计？
How about my grandmother, who's 80 years old and doesn't know how to use the internet?
还有我的八十岁的外婆，她不会上网怎么办？
Trust me, I've heard them all. So when you think about an idea like this,
相信我，这些问题我全听到过。所以当你考虑这样的想法，
you have to beware of pessimists because they are known to have a problem for every solution.
你得小心那些悲观者，因为他们出了名的没有问题创造问题。
So I want to invite you to think about the bigger ideas.
所以我鼓励你们思考更大的想法。
The questions I just showed you are little ideas because they are questions about how this would not work.
我刚刚提的那些问题都是小想法，因为它们都是关于这个想法怎么会砸锅。
The big ideas are ideas of: What else can you do with this if this would happen to work?
真正的大想法是：这个想法如果成功了的话，还适合做别的什么？
And one of those ideas is, well, who writes the laws?
还有一个大想法是，嗯，谁来负责立法？
In the beginning, we could have the avatars that we already have,
一开始的时候，我们可以用我们已经有了的虚拟身份，
voting on laws that are written by the senators or politicians that we already have.
来投选现有的由参议员或政客写的法案。
But if this were to work, you could write an algorithm that could try to write a law
但如果这个想法成功了的话，你可以写个程序来撰写一个法案，
that would get a certain percentage of approval, and you could reverse the process.
然后得到一定百分比的批准，你可以翻转这个流程。
Now, you might think that this idea is ludicrous and we should not do it,
你可能在想这个主意太荒谬了，我们不该去做，
but you cannot deny that it's an idea that is only possible in a world in which direct democracy and software agents are a viable form of participation.
但你不能否认当直接民主和软件代理成为一个可行的参与方式的时候，这个想法就变得可能。
So how do we start the revolution?
那我们怎样才能开始这场革命呢？
We don't start this revolution with picket fences or protests or by demanding our current politicians to be changed into robots.
我们不能从篱栅桩和游行开始，或者强求用机器人替代现在的政客。
That's not going to work. This is much more simple, much slower and much more humble.
那是没法成功的。这是更简单，更缓慢，也更加谦逊。
We start this revolution by creating simple systems like this in grad schools, in libraries, in nonprofits.
我们通过在研究生院，在图书馆，在非盈利组织建立象这样的简单的系统，来开始这场革命。
And we try to figure out all of those little questions and those little problems
然后我们想办法解决那些小问题和那些小挑战，
that we're going to have to figure out to make this idea something viable, to make this idea something that we can trust.
我们需要克服它们，好让这个想法成为现实，好让这个想法变得可信。
And as we create those systems that have a hundred people,
当我们建立起这些系统供几百人，
a thousand people, a hundred thousand people voting in ways that are not politically binding,
几千人，以及几十万人不以政治挂钩的形式投票的时候，
we're going to develop trust in this idea, the world is going to change,
我们就会对这个想法产生信任，这个世界会变化，
and those that are as little as my daughter is right now are going to grow up.
那些现在象我女儿一样小的会慢慢长大。
And by the time my daughter is my age, maybe this idea,
当我的女儿长到我现在的年纪时，也许这个想法，
that I know today is very crazy, might not be crazy to her and to her friends.
我知道今天听起来是很疯狂，也许对她和她的朋友们就不一定很疯狂。
And at that point, we will be at the end of our history, but they will be at the beginning of theirs. Thank you.
到了那个时候，我们会到达我们历史的终点，但她们才开始她们的。谢谢大家。