Frederic Kaplan: How I built an information time machine

Prevodilac: Vesna Savić Lektor: Mile Živković

This is an image of the planet Earth.

Ovo je slika planete Zemlje.

It looks very much like the Apollo pictures

Veoma podseća na poznate

that are very well known.

slike zemlje iz Apola.

There is something different;

Postoji razlika -

you can click on it,

možete da kliknete na nju,

and if you click on it,

i ako to učinite,

you can zoom in on almost any place on the Earth.

možete da uvećate skoro svako mesto na Zemlji.

For instance, this is a bird's-eye view

Na primer, ovo je pogled iz ptičje perspektive

of the EPFL campus.

kampusa Švajcarskog federalnog tehničkog instituta u Lozani (EPFL).

In many cases, you can also see

U mnogim slučajevima, možete da vidite

how a building looks from a nearby street.

i kako neka zgrada izgleda iz obližnje ulice.

This is pretty amazing.

Prilično je zapanjujuće.

But there's something missing in this wonderful tour:

Nešto nedostaje u ovom čudesnom obilasku:

It's time.

vreme.

i'm not really sure when this picture was taken.

Nisam baš siguran kada je ova slika uslikana.

I'm not even sure it was taken

Nisam čak siguran ni da li je uslikana

at the same moment as the bird's-eye view.

u istom trenutku kao i onaj prikaz iz ptičije perspektive.

In my lab, we develop tools

U mojoj laboratoriji, razvili smo alate

to travel not only in space

za putovanje ne samo kroz prostor

but also through time.

nego i vreme.

The kind of question we're asking is

Pitanje koje postavljamo je:

Is it possible to build something

da li je moguće napraviti nešto

like Google Maps of the past?

poput Guglovih mapa prošlosti?

Can I add a slider on top of Google Maps

Mogu li da dodam slajder iznad Guglovih mapa

and just change the year,

i samo promenim godinu

seeing how it was 100 years before,

kako bih video kako je bilo pre 100

1,000 years before?

ili 1000 godina?

Is that possible?

Da li je to moguće?

Can I reconstruct social networks of the past?

Mogu li da rekonstruišem društvene mreže prošlosti?

Can I make a Facebook of the Middle Ages?

Mogu li da napravim Fejzbuk srednjeg veka?

So, can I build time machines?

Mogu li da napravim vremeplov?

Maybe we can just say, "No, it's not possible."

Moglo bi se reći da je to nemoguće.

Or, maybe, we can think of it from an information point of view.

Ili, možda, možemo to sagledati sa informatičke tačke gledišta.

This is what I call the information mushroom.

Ovo ja nazivam informatičkom pečurkom.

Vertically, you have the time.

Vertikalno je vreme

and horizontally, the amount of digital information available.

a horizontalno količina dostupnih informacija.

Obviously, in the last 10 years, we have much information.

Očito je u poslednjih 10 godina puno informacija.

And obviously the more we go in the past, the less information we have.

I što dalje idemo u prošlost to je informacija manje.

If we want to build something like Google Maps of the past,

Ako bi se pravilo nešto poput Guglovih mapa

or Facebook of the past,

ili Fejzbuka prošlosti,

we need to enlarge this space,

taj prostor bi trebalo povećati,

we need to make that like a rectangle.

napraviti nešto poput četvorougla.

How do we do that?

Kako to uraditi?

One way is digitization.

Jedan od načina je digitalizacija.

There's a lot of material available --

Postoji mnogo dostupnih materijala -

newspaper, printed books, thousands of printed books.

novine, štampane knjige, hiljade štampanih knjiga.

I can digitize all these.

Sve ih mogu digitalizovati.

I can extract information from these.

Mogu izvući informacije iz svega.

Of course, the more you go in the past, the less information you will have.

Naravno, što se više ide u prošlost, manje će biti informacija.

So, it might not be enough.

Možda ih ne bude dovoljno.

So, I can do what historians do.

Mogu probati ono što istoričari rade.

I can extrapolate.

Mogu da pretpostavim nešto.

This is what we call, in computer science, simulation.

To se u informatici zove simulacija.

If I take a log book,

Ako uzmem neki dnevnik,

I can consider, it's not just a log book

mogao bih pomisliti da to nije samo dnevnik

of a Venetian captain going to a particular journey.

venecijanskog kapetana koji je na konkretnom putovanju.

I can consider it is actually a log book

Mogao bih pomisliti da je to reprezentativni

which is representative of many journeys of that period.

dnevnik brojnih putovanja tog vremena.

I'm extrapolating.

Ja to pretpostavljam.

If I have a painting of a facade,

Ako imam sliku fasade

I can consider it's not just that particular building,

mogao bih pomisliti da to nije samo određena zgrada,

but probably it also shares the same grammar

već verovatno takođe deli iste osobine

of buildings where we lost any information.

zgrada o kojima smo izgubili mnoge informacije.

So if we want to construct a time machine,

Ako bismo hteli da napravimo vremeplov,

we need two things.

potrebne su dve stvari.

We need very large archives,

Potrebne su nam velike arhive

and we need excellent specialists.

i vrsni stručnjaci.

The Venice Time Machine,

Venecijanski vremeplov,

the project I'm going to talk to you about,

projekat o kojem ću vam govoriti,

is a joint project between the EPFL

zajednički je projekat EPFL-a

and the University of Venice Ca'Foscari.

i Venecijanskog univerziteta Ka'Foskari.

There's something very peculiar about Venice,

Venecija je posebna po tome što

that its administration has been

je njena administracija

very, very bureaucratic.

vrlo, vrlo ažurna.

They've been keeping track of everything,

Beleženo je sve,

almost like Google today.

skoro kao što to Gugl danas radi.

At the Archivio di Stato,

U Državnom arhivu

you have 80 kilometers of archives

postoji 80 km dokumenata

documenting every aspect

koji beleže svaki aspekt

of the life of Venice over more than 1,000 years.

života u Veneciji tokom više od 1000 godina.

You have every boat that goes out,

Svaki brod koji isplovi,

every boat that comes in.

svaki brod koji uplovi.

You have every change that was made in the city.

Svaka promena koja se desi gradu.

This is all there.

Sve je tamo.

We are setting up a 10-year digitization program

Odredili smo 10 godina za program digitalizacije,

which has the objective of transforming

čiji je cilj pretvaranje

this immense archive

tog džinovskog arhiva

into a giant information system.

u ogroman informacijski sistem.

The type of objective we want to reach

Cilj koji želimo da postignemo

is 450 books a day that can be digitized.

je da se svakog dana digitalizuje 450 knjiga.

Of course, when you digitize, that's not enough,

Naravno, to nije dovoljno,

because these documents,

jer je većina tih dokumenata

most of them are in Latin, in Tuscan,

na latinskom, toskanskom

in Venetian dialect,

ili venecijanskom dijalektu,

so you need to transcribe them,

tako da ih treba prepisati,

to translate them in some cases,

u nekim slučajevima i prevesti,

to index them,

indeksirati,

and this is obviously not easy.

što očigledno nije lako.

In particular, traditional optical character recognition method

Konkretno, tradicionalna metoda optičkog prepoznavanja znakova

that can be used for printed manuscripts,

koja se koristi za štampana dokumenta,

they do not work well on the handwritten document.

nije upotrebljiva na rukopisima.

So the solution is actually to take inspiration

Inspiracija za rešenje tog problema može se

from another domain: speech recognition.

naći u drugoj oblasti: prepoznavanje govora.

This is a domain of something that seems impossible,

To je oblast koja se čini nemogućom,

which can actually be done,

ali je zapravo moguća

simply by putting additional constraints.

ako se dodatno ograniči.

If you have a very good model

Ako postoji vrlo dobar model

of a language which is used,

nekog jezika,

if you have a very good model of a document,

ako postoji vrlo dobar model nekog dokumenta,

how well they are structured.

dobro strukturiranog.

And these are administrative documents.

Ti dokumenti su administrativne prirode.

They are well structured in many cases.

U većini slučajeva su dobro strukturirani.

If you divide this huge archive into smaller subsets

Ako se ogroman arhiv podeli na manje delove,

where a smaller subset actually shares similar features,

od kojih svaki ima slične osobine,

then there's a chance of success.

onda se može uspeti.

If we reach that stage, then there's something else:

Ako se dođe do te faze, pojavi se sledeća stvar:

we can extract from this document events.

iz takvih dokumenata mogu se izvući događaji.

Actually probably 10 billion events

U stvari, verovatno 10 milijardi događaja

can be extracted from this archive.

se može izvući iz arhiva.

And this giant information system

Taj ogromni informacijski sistem

can be searched in many ways.

se može na razne načine pretražiti.

You can ask questions like,

Mogu se postaviti razna pitanja:

"Who lived in this palazzo in 1323?"

„Ko je u ovoj palati živeo 1323. godine?“

"How much cost a sea bream at the Realto market

„Koliko su ljuskavke koštale

in 1434?"

na pijaci kod mosta Rialto 1434. godine?“

"What was the salary

„Kolika je bila plata

of a glass maker in Murano

staklara u Muranu

maybe over a decade?"

tokom jedne decenije?“

You can ask even bigger questions

Mogla bi se postaviti i važnija pitanja jer bi bila semantički kodirana.

because it will be semantically coded.

And then what you can do is put that in space,

To se potom može staviti u prostor,

because much of this information is spatial.

jer je većina tih informacija prostorna.

And from that, you can do things like

Iz tog prikaza moglo bi se

reconstructing this extraordinary journey

rekonstruisati čudesno putovanje

of that city that managed to have a sustainable development

tog grada koji je uspeo da održi svoj razvoj

over a thousand years,

preko hiljadu godina,

managing to have all the time

uspevši da sve vreme

a form of equilibrium with its environment.

bude u ravnoteži sa svojim okruženjem.

You can reconstruct that journey,

To putovanje se može rekonstruisati,

visualize it in many different ways.

vizualizovati na različite načine.

But of course, you cannot understand Venice if you just look at the city.

Naravno, Venecija se ne može razumeti ako se samo baci pogled na grad.

You have to put it in a larger European context.

Ona se mora staviti u mnogo širi evropski kontekst.

So the idea is also to document all the things

Dakle, treba da se dokumentuju sve stvari

that worked at the European level.

na evropskom nivou.

We can reconstruct also the journey

Moglo bi se rekonstruisati putovanje

of the Venetian maritime empire,

venecijanske pomorske imperije,

how it progressively controlled the Adriatic Sea,

kako je u kontinuitetu kontrolisala Jadransko more,

how it became the most powerful medieval empire

kako je postala najmoćnija srednjovekovna imperija

of its time,

svog vremena,

controlling most of the sea routes

koja je kontrolisala većinu morskih puteva

from the east to the south.

od istoka do juga.

But you can even do other things,

Moglo bi se još nešto uraditi,

because in these maritime routes,

jer na tim morskim putevima

there are regular patterns.

postoje ustaljeni šabloni.

You can go one step beyond

Moglo bi se otići korak dalje

and actually create a simulation system,

i stvoriti simulacioni sistem,

create a Mediterranean simulator

Sredozemni simulator,

which is capable actually of reconstructing

koji bi rekonstruisao

even the information we are missing,

čak i informacije koje nedostaju.

which would enable us to have questions you could ask

To bi nam omogućilo da saznamo

like if you were using a route planner.

da li se koristio plan puta.

"If I am in Corfu in June 1323

„Ako sam na Krfu 1323. godine

and want to go to Constantinople,

i ako bih hteo da idem do Carigrada,

where can I take a boat?"

gde bih mogao da se ukrcam na brod?“

Probably we can answer this question

Odgovor na ovo pitanje bismo verovatno

with one or two or three days' precision.

dobili s preciznošću od oko dva do tri dana.

"How much will it cost?"

„Koliko bi to koštalo?“

"What are the chance of encountering pirates?"

„Hoćemo li sresti pirate?“

Of course, you understand,

Shvatate da je

the central scientific challenge of a project like this one

ključni naučni izazov ovakvog projekta

is qualifying, quantifying and representing

to što se na svakom koraku javlja nepouzdanost

uncertainty and inconsistency at each step of this process.

i protivrečnost u određivanju i predstavljanju podataka.

There are errors everywhere,

Svuda ima grešaka:

errors in the document, it's the wrong name of the captain,

u dokumentima, pogrešno ime kapetana,

some of the boats never actually took to sea.

neki brodovi zapravo nikad nisu zaplovili, itd.

There are errors in translation, interpretative biases,

Grešaka ima u prevodu, prevodioci mogu biti pristrasni,

and on top of that, if you add algorithmic processes,

i povrh svega, ako se dodaju algoritmi,

you're going to have errors in recognition,

greške će se javiti u prepoznavanju

errors in extraction,

i izvođenju,

so you have very, very uncertain data.

tako da se dobiju vrlo nepouzdani podaci.

So how can we detect and correct these inconsistencies?

Kako onda da uočimo i ispravimo te protivrečnosti?

How can we represent that form of uncertainty?

Kako da predstavimo nešto nepouzdano?

It's difficult. One thing you can do

Teško.

is document each step of the process,

Mogao bi se, npr zabeležiti svaki korak u tom procesu,

not only coding the historical information

ne samo kodiranje istorijskih podataka,

but what we call the meta-historical information,

nego i ono što nazivamo meta-istorijskim podacima,

how is historical knowledge constructed,

kako se konstruišu istorijski podaci,

documenting each step.

beleženjem svakog koraka.

That will not guarantee that we actually converge

To ne garantuje da ćemo dobiti

toward a single story of Venice,

jednu jedinu priču o Veneciji,

but probably we can actually reconstruct

ali verovatno ćemo rekonstruisati

a fully documented potential story of Venice.

u potpunosti dokumentovanu potencijalnu priču o Veneciji.

Maybe there's not a single map.

Možda neće postojati samo jedna mapa.

Maybe there are several maps.

Nego nekoliko.

The system should allow for that,

Sistem bi to trebalo da dozvoli,

because we have to deal with a new form of uncertainty,

zbog novih nepouzdanosti,

which is really new for this type of giant databases.

što je novina u takvim ogromnim bazama podataka.

And how should we communicate

A kako da to novo istraživanje

this new research to a large audience?

predstavimo široj javnosti?

Again, Venice is extraordinary for that.

Venecija je izvanredna upravo zbog toga

With the millions of visitors that come every year,

što se milioni posetilaca u njoj sjate svake godine,

it's actually one of the best places

te je ona najbolje mesto

to try to invent the museum of the future.

da se stvori takav muzej budućnosti.

Imagine, horizontally you see the reconstructed map

Zamislite da horizontalno vidite rekonstruisanu mapu

of a given year,

određene godine,

and vertically, you see the document

a vertikalno dokument po kome

that served the reconstruction,

se rekonstruisalo,

paintings, for instance.

na primer, slike.

Imagine an immersive system that permits

Zamislite sistem u koji biste

to go and dive and reconstruct the Venice of a given year,

zaronili i rekonstruisali Veneciju iz neke godine,

some experience you could share within a group.

i da to iskustvo podelite s ostalima.

On the contrary, imagine actually that you start

S druge strane, zamislite da krenete

from a document, a Venetian manuscript,

od dokumenta, nekog venecijanskog rukopisa,

and you show, actually, what you can construct out of it,

i da pokažete šta se iz njega može napraviti,

how it is decoded,

kako se dekodira,

how the context of that document can be recreated.

kako se oko njega stvori kontekst.

This is an image from an exhibit

Ovo je slika s jedne izložbe

which is currently conducted in Geneva

koja je upravo izložena u Ženevi

with that type of system.

s upravo takvim sistemom.

So to conclude, we can say that

Naposletku bih hteo da kažem

research in the humanities is about to undergo

da će istraživanje u društvenim naukama

an evolution which is maybe similar

evoluirati, isto kao što je

to what happened to life sciences 30 years ago.

i u prirodnim naukama pre 30 godina.

It's really a question of scale.

Radi se samo o obimu.

We see projects which are

Stvorićemo projekte koji nadmašuju

much beyond any single research team can do,

mogućnosti pojedinačnih istraživača,

and this is really new for the humanities,

što je novina u društvenim naukama

which very often take the habit of working

u kojima se obično radi

in small groups or only with a couple of researchers.

u malim grupama od po samo par istraživača.

When you visit the Archivio di Stato,

Kada posetite Državni arhiv

you feel this is beyond what any single team can do,

vidite da to ne može da uradi jedan tim,

and that should be a joint and common effort.

da je za to potreban zajednički napor.

So what we must do for this paradigm shift

Takva paradigma treba da se preokrene

is actually foster a new generation

i odgaji novu generaciju

of "digital humanists"

„digitalnih humanista“

that are going to be ready for this shift.

koji će biti spremni za taj obrt.

I thank you very much.

Hvala.

(Applause)

(Aplauz)