Time Traveling with AI to Connect with Lost Loved Ones | Amy Kurzweil | TED

翻译人员: Sabrina Wang 校对人员: Bruce Wang

I love being a cartoonist because I can travel anywhere.

我喜欢当一名漫画家， 因为我可以去任何地方旅行。

I can visit historical artifacts and make improvements.

我可以参观历史文物，并进行改进。

I can voyage to mythical lands and solve problems.

我可以航行到神话般的土地上， 解决问题。

(Laughter)

（笑声）

I can bring objects to life,

我可以让物体变得有生命，

and I can make those objects think

让那些物体可以思考，

and talk.

甚至开口说话。

And I can send those objects wherever I want them to go.

我还可以让这些物体去到 任何我想让它们去的地方。

I became a cartoonist to travel through space and time,

我成为漫画家是为了穿越时空旅行，

and I became a graphic memoirist

而我成为图像小说回忆录作家，

because the place I wanted to go was the past.

是因为我想去的地方是过去。

I come from a legacy of dramatic stories and lost characters.

我来自一个充满戏剧性故事， 和迷失人物的世家。

My grandmother, Lily, on my mother's side,

我的外婆，莉莉，

was born in Warsaw, Poland,

出生在波兰的华沙，

the oldest of four sisters.

她是四个姐妹中的最大的。

She was 13 in 1939,

1939年那年，她十三岁，

when Nazi bombs razed her home

纳粹的炸弹把她的家夷为平地，

and her family was sealed to starve inside the Warsaw Ghetto.

她的家人被封锁在华沙犹太区， 忍饥挨饿。

Eventually, her father encouraged her to slip through a hole in the wall,

最后，她的父亲鼓励她 从墙上的一个洞逃出去。

and she survived the Holocaust on her own, hiding her Jewish identity.

她独自在大屠杀中幸存下来， 隐藏了自己犹太人的身份。

This is the subject of my first book.

这是我第一本书的主题。

I wondered: What did my grandmother’s lost home and lost family look like?

我很好奇：外婆失去的家园 和她的家人是什么样子的？

Her parents, her grandmother and her sisters,

她的父母、她的外婆和她的姐妹们，

they are all gone without a trace.

他们都消失得无影无踪。

My father's parents were luckier.

我爷爷奶奶则相对幸运一些。

They were also Jewish,

他们也是犹太人，

and they both fled Austria at the start of the war.

他们在战争开始时， 就逃亡去了奥地利。

My father's father, Fred, was a pianist and conductor.

我的爷爷，弗雷德， 是一名钢琴家和音乐指挥家。

In 1937, the year before the Nazis marched into Austria,

1937年，纳粹入侵 奥地利的前一年，

he was 26,

他26岁，

and he conducted a magnificent choral concert

他在维也纳的一个音乐厅

at a music hall in Vienna.

指挥了一场精彩的合唱音乐会。

A wealthy American woman in the audience

观众席中有一位富有的美国女士，

was so impressed with his performance

对他的表演印象深刻，

that she later agreed to sponsor his visa to the US.

至于她后来愿意担保他的美国签证。

So music saved his life.

所以，音乐让他幸免于难。

But three decades later, Fred died of heart disease.

但三十年后，弗雷德死于心脏病。

I never met him.

我从未见过他。

While alive, Fred meticulously preserved the documents of his life,

弗雷德在世时， 精心地保存着他生前的各种文件，

a response to the threat of erasure he fled in Europe.

以防自己在逃离欧洲时，遭遇抹杀。

And for decades after his father’s death,

在爷爷去世后的几十年里，

my father continued this preservation project.

我父亲一直坚持着这项保存工作。

This is the subject of my second book.

这是我第二本书的主题。

You might know my father, Ray Kurzweil, as an inventor and futurist.

你可能认识我的父亲雷·库兹韦尔 他是一位发明家和未来主义者。

You should also know that he's a person with an extraordinary sense of humor.

你也该知道他是个很有幽默感的人。

["Can I call you an Uber?" "Sure."]

[我能给你叫优步吗?] [当然。]

["You're an Uber."]

[那你就是优步。]

(Laughter)

（笑声）

Good one dad.

好样的你，老爸。

(Laughter)

（笑声）

And although he's dedicated his mind to the future,

尽管我父亲致力于未来，

his life is full of the past.

他的生活却充满了对过去的留恋。

My father has worked for decades on natural language processing.

我父亲在自然语言处理的领域 工作了数十年。

And several years ago, he realized

几年前，他意识到，

that if we married AI with my grandfather's writing,

如果我们将人工智能 与我爷爷的文字相结合，

we could build a chatbot that writes in my grandfather's voice.

就可以创建一个会用我爷爷的心声 写字的聊天机器人。

Back in 2018, this seemed very sci-fi.

早在2018年，这似乎非常科幻。

But rather than ushering in our demise,

我们没有因此而放弃，

this project helped me realize

反而这个项目帮助我意识到，

that AI could actually help us ward off annihilation

人工智能实际上可以给我们的家族 和文化遗产注入活力，

by animating the legacies of our families and our cultures.

免于消声觅迹。

I wanted to talk to my grandfather because he, like me, was an artist.

我渴望能和爷爷交谈， 因为和我一样，他也是一名艺术家。

I wondered: Could I get to know him?

我想知道：我能认识他吗？

Could I even come to love him, even though our lifespans didn’t overlap?

即便我们的生命没有重叠， 我会不会爱上爷爷呢？

So I got involved.

所以，我参与了进来。

This chatbot needed language from my grandfather,

这个聊天机器人需要 我爷爷的语言文字内容，

as much as could be found.

尽可能多地获取。

So I, with some assistance,

因此，在一些帮助下，

set about finding his words and transcribing them.

我开始找寻并录入他的文字内容。

This was a selective chatbot,

这是一个选择性聊天机器人，

meaning it responded to questions

意味着它的回答，

with answers from the pool of sentences

是从弗雷德此生不同时刻 写下的句子，

that Fred actually wrote at some point in his life.

所组成的数据库中提取出来的。

The more examples of Fred's writing we could find,

我们找到的弗雷德写作的例子越多，

the more dynamic the experience of chatting with the bot would feel.

与机器人聊天的体验就会越生动。

Sometimes this transcription task proved challenging.

有时，这项抄录的任务 是相当具有挑战性的。

But the more time I spent with the symbols of my grandfather's life,

但我花在爷爷生命符号上的 时间越多，

the more easily I could decode them.

它们就越发容易读解。

Finally, after much anticipation,

终于，在万分期待之后

I sat down to chat with this new intelligence:

我坐下来与这个新的智能对话：

an algorithm commanding over 600 typed pages

运作着一个拥有600多页 文字录入的算法，

of letters, lectures, notes, essays

包含着信件、讲座、笔记、文章，

and other written documents from the grandfather I never met.

和其他的书面文件， 都是由我从未见过的爷爷写的。

When I asked about Fred's dreams,

当我问起弗雷德的梦想时，

he told me about the challenge of keeping his new orchestra afloat.

他向我讲述了维持新乐团运作 所面临的挑战。

When I asked about Fred's anxieties,

当我问起弗雷德的焦虑时，

I learned about the stress of being a new father while working so hard.

我了解到他在辛勤工作的同时， 做一个新爸爸所要面对的压力。

When I asked about the meaning of life,

当我问起生命的意义时，

Fred wrote about the joy of working with other musicians in pursuit of beauty,

弗雷德写到了与其他音乐家 共同追求美好的乐趣，

and he wrote about the highest aims of art.

他还写到了关于艺术的 最高目标的文章。

I asked again about the meaning of life

我再次问起生命的意义，

because isn't that really the best question for a robot?

因为对于机器人来说， 这难道不是最好的问题吗？

And Fred's second answer was much simpler, but even better.

弗雷德的第二个回答，简单得多， 却更妙了。

["Love."]

[爱。]

Some of these answers felt familiar to me.

其中一些答案对我来说感觉很熟悉。

I remembered seeing them in the archive,

我记得曾在档案中见过它们，

but the words gained impact through surprise

但这些话语更具冲击力了， 因为这些惊喜，

and the role-play of conversation.

和对话的角色扮演。

I could identify patterns in my grandfather's life

我可以识别爷爷的生活方式，

and patterns across generations,

以及几代人的方式，

because I was also an artist trying to make it in New York City.

因为我也是一名艺术家， 试图在纽约闯出一片天地。

And I also believe the meaning of life is art and connection and love.

我也相信生命的意义在于艺术， 与他人的连接，和爱。

I had wondered if this project would feel like a resurrection.

我曾想过，这个项目会不会 像是一种复活。

But rather than bringing my grandfather from the past into the present,

但是，与其说是把我的爷爷 从过去带到现在，

it felt like I was the one time traveling,

这更像是我在穿越时空，

visiting him for a moment at different points in his life.

去到爷爷人生中不同的阶段 探望他一小会。

And this kind of time travel didn't feel like sci-fi.

这种时光旅行并不像科幻小说。

It felt like the kind of imaginative travel I do when I'm cartooning.

它更像是我在画漫画时所进行的 那种充满想象力的旅行。

When I'm cartooning,

当我画漫画时，

I'm always thinking about how I could possibly represent a person fully.

我总是在思考如何 才能完整的表达一个人。

And the answer is: I can’t.

答案是：我做不到。

Similarly, I know how many aspects of my grandfather

同样，我也知道，爷爷的许多方面，

can't be captured by digital text alone.

单凭数字文本，是无法捕捉到的。

There's all those quivers in his handwriting

比如，他字迹中的颤抖，

and what they denote about the sensations in his body.

透露着他体内的感受；

There's his body, how it moved and how it felt.

还有他的身体，他的动作， 和他所感受到的。

There's his music and all the ineffable aspects of his performance.

他的音乐，以及他在演奏中 无法言传的那些元素。

And of course, there's everything he thought but didn't write down.

当然，还有他没有写下来的 所有的那些想法。

What would we have to do to be able to capture all of this?

我们该怎么做，才能捕捉到这一切？

I may fail as an artist

作为一名艺术家，

to fully represent a person's constantly evolving complexity,

我无法充分表现一个人 不断变化的复杂性，

but I can ask what features of a person are essential to who they are

但我可以问，什么样的特质 是一个人一生中，

across a lifetime.

不可或缺的。

The puzzle of personal identity

个人的身份之谜

is one of our oldest philosophical questions,

是我们最古老的哲学问题之一，

so I'm not here to solve that one for you,

所以我不是来帮你解开这个谜题的，

I'm just a cartoonist after all.

毕竟我只是个漫画家。

[Robot cat passes Turing test]

[机器猫通过了图灵测试]

I do believe that we, maybe not cats,

但我确实相信，我们，或许不是猫，

but we are more than our bodies.

我们不仅仅是我们的身体。

That the projects and impressions we leave behind

这些项目，和我们给人留下的印象，

are a part of our essential selves.

都是我们本质自我的一部分。

And I think AI has a special role to play in the mission of memory.

我认为人工智能在记忆的使命中 有一个特殊的角色。

I did not come to see the chatbot of my grandfather

我并不认为爷爷的聊天机器人，

as replacing my grandfather.

是在取代我的爷爷。

I came to see it as one way to interact with his legacy.

我把它看作是一种 与他的遗产互动的方式。

As somebody who has spent their whole life trying to document people,

作为一个毕生都在试图 记录他人的人，

I can assure you that people are much bigger and weirder

我可以向你保证， 人的存在远比任何一种描述，

than any one depiction

或任何一个瞬间所能唤起的，

or any one moment in time can possibly evoke.

都要伟大得多，神奇得多。

And I can also assure you

我还可以向你保证，

that people don't just disappear when they die.

人不会在死后就完全消失。

AI swirls our conception of time and space.

人工智能颠覆了我们对时空的概念。

It can remix and extend our identities.

它可以重新组合和扩展我们的身份。

Our own digital archives are growing beyond belief,

我们自己的数字档案也在 超乎想象地增长。

and we need a framework for understanding technologies of representation.

我们需要一种框架来理解 这些表达的科技。

So I offer you mine.

所以我提出我的看法。

Just like the comics I've drawn, about the characters in my life,

就像我为生活中的角色 所画的漫画一样，

these technologies are animated portraits.

这些科技都是动画肖像。

They are one part of our true immortal selves.

它们是我们真正不朽真我的一部分。

Seen this way,

从这个角度来看，

AI, like cartooning and all good artistic endeavors,

人工智能就像漫画， 以及所有优秀的艺术创作一样，

could help us appreciate the vastness of humanity -- if we let it.

可以帮助我们领略人类 的广阔，如果我们愿意的话。

Thank you.

谢谢大家。

(Applause)

（掌声）