JP Rangaswami: Information is food

Translator: Timothy Covell Reviewer: Morton Bast

Translator: Zuzana Dziaková Reviewer: Zuzana Šplhová

I love my food.

Mám rád jedlo.

And I love information.

Mám rád aj informácie.

My children usually tell me

Deti mi hovoria,

that one of those passions is a little more apparent than the other.

že jednu z tých vášní na mne vidno viac.

(Laughter)

(smiech)

But what I want to do in the next eight minutes or so

Ale počas nasledujúcich ôsmich minút by som sa

is to take you through how those passions developed,

s vami chcel podeliť o to, ako sa tieto moje vášne rozvíjali,

the point in my life when the two passions merged,

až do chvíle môjho života, keď splynuli,

the journey of learning that took place from that point.

o ceste poznania, ktorá odvtedy nasledovala.

And one idea I want to leave you with today

Chcel by som vám dnes zanechať jednu myšlienku a tou je:

is what would would happen differently in your life

čo by sa vo vašom živote zmenilo,

if you saw information the way you saw food?

keby ste informácie vnímali rovnako ako jedlo.

I was born in Calcutta --

Narodil som sa v Kalkate.

a family where my father and his father before him

V rodine, v ktorej môj otec a pred ním jeho otec

were journalists,

boli novinári

and they wrote magazines in the English language.

a písali časopisy po anglicky.

That was the family business.

Bol to náš rodinný podnik.

And as a result of that,

Vďaka tomu

I grew up with books everywhere around the house.

som vyrastal v dome plnom kníh.

And I mean books everywhere around the house.

Knihy boli doslova všade.

And that's actually a shop in Calcutta,

V skutočnosti je to obchod v Kalkate,

but it's a place where we like our books.

ale je to miesto, v ktorom máme radi svoje knihy.

In fact, I've got 38,000 of them now

Popravde, teraz ich mám okolo 38 000,

and no Kindle in sight.

aj bez Kindle čítačky.

But growing up as a child with the books around everywhere,

Keď vyrastáte obklopení knihami,

with people to talk to about those books,

s ľuďmi, s ktorými sa o nich môžete porozprávať,

this wasn't a sort of slightly learned thing.

jednoducho to nie je niečo, čo by ste sa museli naučiť.

By the time I was 18, I had a deep passion for books.

Keď som mal 18, vášen pre knihy sa prehĺbila.

It wasn't the only passion I had.

Nebola to moja jediná vášeň.

I was a South Indian

Pochádzam z Južnej Indie,

brought up in Bengal.

a vyrástol som v Bengálsku.

And two of the things about Bengal:

Dve veci sú pre ľudí v Bengálsku typické.

they like their savory dishes

Zbožňujú svoje pikantné jedlá

and they like their sweets.

a sladkosti.

So by the time I grew up,

Takže počas dospievania

again, I had a well-established passion for food.

sa u mňa vytvorila hlboká vášeň pre jedlo.

Now I was growing up in the late '60s and early '70s,

Vyrastal som na konci 60tých a začiatku 70tých rokov,

and there were a number of other passions I was also interested in,

a vtedy som bol nadšený aj z iných vecí,

but these two were the ones that differentiated me.

ale tieto dve boli tie, ktorými som sa odlišoval od ostatných.

(Laughter)

(smiech)

And then life was fine, dandy.

Život bol skvelý, bombový.

Everything was okay,

Všetko bolo v poriadku,

until I got to about the age of 26,

až kým som nemal 26,

and I went to a movie called "Short Circuit."

keď som videl film "Číslo 5 žije".

Oh, some of you have seen it.

Niektorí z vás ho určite videli.

And apparently it's being remade right now

A znova ho natáčajú,

and it's going to be coming out next year.

premiéru by mal mať budúci rok.

It's the story of this experimental robot

Je to príbeh pokusného robota,

which got electrocuted and found a life.

ktorého zasiahol silný elektrický prúd a on ožil.

And as it ran, this thing was saying, "Give me input. Give me input."

Ako utekal, neustále opakoval "Zapojte ma. Zapojte ma."

And I suddenly realized that for a robot

Vtedy som si uvedomil, že pre robota

both information as well as food

informácie a jedlo

were the same thing.

znamenajú tú istú vec.

Energy came to it in some form or shape,

Energiu prijíma v istej forme a tvare,

data came to it in some form or shape.

a aj dáta prijíma v istej forme a tvare.

And I began to think,

Vtedy som začal premýšľať,

I wonder what it would be like

aké by to bolo,

to start imagining myself

predstaviť si sám seba,

as if energy and information were the two things I had as input --

keby energia a informácie boli dve veci, ktoré by som prijímal,

as if food and information were similar in some form or shape.

a keby jedlo a informácie mali podobnú formu a tvar.

I started doing some research then, and this was the 25-year journey,

Začal som s výskumom, ktorý bol 25ročnou výpravou

and started finding out

na ktorej som zistil,

that actually human beings as primates

že ľudia, ako primáty

have far smaller stomachs

majú oveľa menšie žalúdky,

than should be the size for our body weight

aké by mali vzhľadom na svoju váhu mať,

and far larger brains.

ale zároveň oveľa väčší ako mozog.

And as I went to research that even further,

A ako som skúmal hlbšie,

I got to a point where I discovered something

dostal som sa do bodu, keď som objavil niečo,

called the expensive tissue hypothesis.

čo sa nazýva hypotéza drahých tkanív.

That actually for a given body mass of a primate

Tá hovorí, že pre určitú telesnú hmotnosť primáta

the metabolic rate was static.

je rýchlosť metabolizmu statická.

What changed was the balance of the tissues available.

Mení sa iba rovnováha dostupných tkanív.

And two of the most expensive tissues in our human body

A dve najdrahšie tkanivá v ľudskom tele

are nervous tissue and digestive tissue.

sú nervové a tráviace tkanivá.

And what transpired was that people had put forward a hypothesis

A ako sa ukázalo, ľudia predložili hypotézu,

that was apparently coming up with some fabulous results by about 1995.

ktorá začala okolo roku 1995 začala vykazovať úžasné výsledky.

It's a lady named Leslie Aiello.

Bola to dáma menom Leslie Aiellová.

And the paper then suggested that you traded one for the other.

A táto práca naznačovala, že ste si vymieňali jednu za druhú.

If you wanted your brain for a particular body mass to be large,

Ak by ste chceli mať pri určitej váhe väčší mozog,

you had to live with a smaller gut.

museli by ste mať menší žálúdok.

That then set me off completely

A to ma podnietilo k tomu,

to say, Okay, these two are connected.

aby som povedal: "Ok, tieto dve sú prepojené."

So I looked at the cultivation of information as if it were food

Preto som sa pozrel na nadobúdanie informácii ako by to bolo jedlo

and said, So we were hunter-gathers of information.

a povedal: "Sme lovci a zberači informácií."

We moved from that to becoming farmers and cultivators of information.

A z nich sme sa postupne stali farmármi a pestovali informácie.

Does that really explain what we're seeing

Ale vysvetluje to

with the intellectual property battles nowadays?

zápasy o duševné vlastníctvo v dnešnej dobe?

Because those people who were hunter-gatherers in origin

Pôvodní lovci a zberači,

wanted to be free and roam and pick up information as they wanted,

chceli byť voľní, túľať sa a zbierať informácie podľa vlastnej vôle,

and those that were in the business of farming information

a ľudia zapojení do procesu vytvárania informácií,

wanted to build fences around it,

chceli prístup k informáciám obmedziť,

create ownership and wealth and structure and settlement.

vytvoriť vlastníctvo, majetok, štruktúru a dohodu.

So there was always going to be a tension within that.

Preto medzi nimi bude vždy napätie.

And everything I saw in the cultivation

A všetko nasvedčovalo tomu,

said there were huge fights amongst the foodies

že prebiehali obrovské boje o informácie

between the cultivators and the hunter-gatherers.

medzi roľníkmi a lovcami a zberačmi.

And this is happening here.

A to sa deje teraz tu.

When I moved to preparation, this same thing was true,

Keď sa jedlo pripravuje, platí to isté.

expect that there were two schools.

Akoby existovali dva smery.

One group of people said you can distill your information,

Jedny tvrdia, že informácie sa dajú destilovať,

you can extract value, separate it and serve it up,

extrahovať to podstatné, oddeliť a servírovať.

while another group turned around

ale iný ľudia povedali,

and said no, no you can ferment it.

nie, nie, môžeme to nechať kvasiť.

You bring it all together and mash it up

Všetko dáme dohromady, pomiešame

and the value emerges that way.

a to podstatné sa vynorí na povrch.

The same is again true with information.

Toto isté platí aj pre informácie.

But consumption was where it started getting really enjoyable.

Ale príjemná bola až konzumácia.

Because what I began to see then

Uvedomil som si,

was there were so many different ways people would consume this.

že je veľa spôsob ako jesť.

They'd buy it from the shop as raw ingredients.

Kúpite si v obchode prísady?

Do you cook it? Do you have it served to you?

Uvaríte si to? Niekto vám to naservíruje?

Do you go to a restaurant?

Pôjdete do reštaurácie?

The same is true every time as I started thinking about information.

A to isté platí aj pri informáciách.

The analogies were getting crazy --

Analógie sa išli zblázniť,

that information had sell-by dates,

že informácie mali svoje dátumy predaja,

that people had misused information that wasn't dated properly

že ľudia zneužili informácie, ktoré mali zle označený dátum

and could really make an effect on the stock market,

a tým mohli ovplyvniť aj burzu,

on corporate values, etc.

firemné hodnoty, atď.

And by this time I was hooked.

V tejto chvíly som už bol priam posadnutý.

And this is about 23 years into this process.

To je asi 23. rok v tomto procese.

And I began to start thinking of myself

Začal som premýšľať,

as we start having mash-ups of fact and fiction,

pri tomto miešaní faktu a fikcie,

docu-dramas, mockumentaries, whatever you call it.

doku-drám, akože dokumentárnych filmov, akokoľvek ich nazývate.

Are we going to reach the stage

Dostaneme sa niekedy do bodu,

where information has a percentage for fact associated with it?

keď informácie budú mať percentá podľa ich pravdivosti?

We start labeling information for the fact percentage?

Budeme označovať informácie percentami pravdivosti?

Are we going to start looking at what happens

Začneme potom situáciu,

when your information source is turned off, as a famine?

keď sa zdroj informácií vypne, volať hladomor?

Which brings me to the final element of this.

Čo ma privádza na koniec mojej prednášky.

Clay Shirky once stated that there is no such animal as information overload,

Clay Shirky raz povedal, že zaťaženie informáciami neexistuje.

there is only filter failure.

Existuje iba filter prehry.

I put it to you that information,

Takže ak sa pozrieme na informácie

if viewed from the point of food,

z rovnakého hľadiska ako na jedlo,

is never a production issue; you never speak of food overload.

nikdy nenastane problém v produkcii; nikdy nehovoríme o zaťažení jedlom.

Fundamentally it's a consumption issue.

V podstate hovoríme o probléme spotreby.

And we have to start thinking

A preto by sme mali začať uvažovať o tom,

about how we create diets within ourselves, exercise within ourselves,

ako vytvárame diéty, cvičenia,

to have the faculties to be able to deal with information,

aby sme mali schopnosti spracovať informácie

to have the labeling to be able to do it responsibly.

a zodpovedne ich označovať.

In fact, when I saw "Supersize Me," I starting thinking of saying,

Keď som videl film "Supersize Me", začal som premýšľať.

What would happen

Čo by sa stalo,

if an individual had 31 days nonstop Fox News?

keby niekto celých 31 dní pozeral správy na stanici Fox?

(Laughter)

(Smiech)

Would there be time to be able to work with it?

Mal by čas to všetko spracovať?

So you start really understanding

Vtedy začnete chápať,

that you can have diseases, toxins, a need to balance your diet,

že môžete mať rôzne choroby, toxíny, potrebu mať vyváženú stravu,

and once you start looking, and from that point on,

a hneď ako sa na to začnete pozerať, od toho momentu,

everything I have done in terms of the consumption of information,

všetko, čo som urobil kvôli spotrebe informácií,

the production of information, the preparation of information,

produkcii a príprave informácií,

I've looked at from the viewpoint of food.

som urobil vnímajúc to z hľadiska jedla.

It has probably not helped my waistline any

Pravdepodobne to nepomohlo mojej postave,

because I like practicing on both sides.

pretože na tom pracujem z oboch strán.

But I'd like to leave you with just that question:

Chcel by som vo Vás zanechať otázku:

If you began to think of all the information that you consume

Ak by ste začali premýšľať o informáciách, ktoré prijímate,

the way you think of food,

tak ako premýšľate o jedle,

what would you do differently?

čo by ste urobili inak?

Thank you very much for your time.

Veľmi pekne Vám ďakujem za Váš čas.

(Applause)

(Potlesk)