Name: 尤瓦爾-諾亞-哈拉里：如何在垃圾信息時代保護你的思想 (Yuval Noah Harari: How to safeguard your mind in the age of junk information)
Uploaded: 2025-08-11T18:36:14.000Z
Duration: 13 min 23 s

If humans are so smart, why are we so stupid?

如果人類如此聰明，為什麼我們會如此愚蠢？

情態助動詞 B1

We have managed to reach the moon, to split the atom, to decipher DNA, and yet, with all our knowledge and wisdom, we are on the verge of ecological collapse, perhaps of a third world war, and also we are developing an extremely powerful technology AI, which might get out of our control and enslave or destroy us.

我們成功地登上了月球，分裂了原子，破譯了 DNA，然而，憑藉我們所有的知識和智慧，我們正處於生態崩潰的邊緣，也許會爆發第三次世界大戰，而且我們正在開發一種極其強大的人工智能技術，它可能會脫離我們的控制，奴役或毀滅我們。

程度副詞

Before we think about it in terms of risk or threat or opportunity, just think what it would mean if we increasingly live our lives cocooned inside the cultural artifacts coming from an artificial intelligence.

在我們考慮風險、威脅或機遇之前，請先想一想，如果我們越來越多地生活在人工智能的文化產品中，那將意味著什麼。

There is so much hype around AI, especially in the market.

關於人工智能，尤其是在市場上，有太多的炒作。

If you want to sell something to people today, you call it AI.

今天，如果你想向人們推銷什麼東西，你可以稱之為人工智能。

並非每臺自動機器都是人工智能。

What makes AI AI is that it is able to learn and change by itself and come up with decisions and ideas that we don't anticipate, can't anticipate.

人工智能之所以是人工智能，就在於它能夠自我學習和改變，並提出我們沒有預料到、也無法預料到的決定和想法。

The acronym AI, it's more accurate to think about it as an acronym for alien intelligence.

AI 的縮寫，更準確的說法是外星智能的縮寫。

With every passing year, AI is becoming less and less artificial and more and more alien in the sense that we can't predict what kind of new stories and ideas and strategies it will come up with, and it thinks, it behaves in a fundamentally alien way.

每過一年，人工智能就會變得越來越不人工，越來越陌生，因為我們無法預測它會想出什麼樣的新故事、新想法和新策略，它的思維和行為方式從根本上來說都是陌生的。

這就是人工智能，這不僅僅是理論。

It's also, we are seeing it all around us.

同時，我們也看到了我們周圍的一切。

I'm a professor of history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the author of Nexus, a history of information networks from the Stone Age to AI.

我是耶路撒冷希伯來大學的歷史學教授，也是《Nexus》一書的作者，這是一部從石器時代到人工智能的信息網絡史。

Whenever a new technology is invented, it changes.

每當發明一種新技術，它就會發生變化。

All the social and economic and political structures, and it often does so in a non-deterministic way.

所有的社會、經濟和政治結構，而且往往是以非決定性的方式進行的。

For instance, in the 20th century, the rise of mass media and mass information technology, like the telegraph and radio and television, on the one hand, they now form the basis for large-scale democratic systems, and on the other hand, for large-scale totalitarian systems.

例如，在 20 世紀，電報、廣播電視等大眾傳媒和大眾信息技術的興起，一方面為大規模的民主制度奠定了基礎，另一方面也為大規模的極權制度奠定了基礎。

Before the rise of modern information technology, ancient kings in Mesopotamia or Roman emperors or Chinese emperors, they had a very limited capacity to collect information.

在現代信息技術興起之前，無論是美索不達米亞的古代國王，還是羅馬皇帝或中國皇帝，他們收集資訊的能力都非常有限。

They could not micromanage the social and economic and cultural lives of every individual in the country.

他們無法對國內每個人的社會、經濟和文化生活進行微觀管理。

They didn't have the information necessary to do it.

All information technologies up to the 21st century were organic networks based on our organic brain.

21 世紀之前的所有信息技術都是以我們的有機大腦為基礎的有機網絡。

Sometimes it's day, sometimes it's night.

There are times for activity, and then there are times for sleep and for rest.

有活動的時候，也有睡眠和休息的時候。

Wall Street also obeyed, until today, this organic logic.

直到今天，華爾街也一直遵循著這一有機邏輯。

The market is open only Mondays to Fridays, and then the weekend is off.

市場只在週一至週五開放，週末休息。

Even bankers and investors and financiers, as long as they are humans and not algorithms, there is always time off, and there is always private time.

即使是銀行家、投資者和金融家，只要他們是人而不是算法，總有休息時間，總有私人時間。

Until the rise of AI, even the most totalitarian regimes, like in the Soviet Union, they could not monitor, they could not surveil everybody all the time.

在人工智能崛起之前，即使是最極權的政權，比如蘇聯，他們也無法監控，無法時時刻刻監視每個人。

The Soviet Union did not have enough KGB agents to follow every Soviet citizen 24 hours a day.

蘇聯沒有足夠的克格勃特工每天 24 小時跟蹤每個蘇聯公民。

And even if you somehow managed to follow all the people all the time, they didn't have enough analysts to go over all the information and make sense of it.

即使你想方設法一直跟蹤所有的人，他們也沒有足夠的分析師來研究所有的資訊並從中找出意義。

So organic information networks, they always run by cycles.

是以，有機信息網絡總是循環運行的。

There is always time to rest, and there is always a measure of privacy.

總有休息的時間，總有一定程度的隱私。

But we now see the rise of a new type of information network, which is inorganic, which is based on AI.

但我們現在看到的是一種新型信息網絡的崛起，它是無機的，以人工智能為基礎。

It need not have any breaks, they are always on, and therefore they might force us to be always on, always being watched, always being monitored.

它不需要有任何休息時間，它們總是開著，是以可能會迫使我們總是開著，總是被監視，總是被監控。

And this is destructive for organic animals like ourselves.

而這對我們這樣的有機動物來說是毀滅性的。

If you force an organic being to be on all the time, it eventually collapses and dies.

如果你強迫一個有機生命一直處於開機狀態，它最終會崩潰和死亡。

And we see it happening all around us with a 24-hour news cycle that never rests, the markets never rest, politics never rest.

我們看到這一切就發生在我們身邊，24 小時的新聞週期永不停歇，市場永不停歇，政治永不停歇。

Anything you do or say at any time might be watched and recorded.

您在任何時候的一言一行都可能被監視和記錄。

It can meet you down the line 10 or 20 years in the future.

它可以在未來 10 年或 20 年後與你見面。

So basically the whole of life is becoming like one long job interview.

是以，基本上整個人生就像一場漫長的求職面試。

Now, all this is made possible by the fact that AI is the first technology in history that can take decisions by itself.

現在，人工智能是歷史上第一項可以自己做出決定的技術，這一切都成為可能。

Until today, all our big information networks, they were managed, they were populated by human bureaucrats.

直到今天，我們所有的大型信息網絡都是由人類官僚來管理和填充的。

A curious fact is that at least in the United States, there is already a legal path open for AIs to become legal persons.

一個奇怪的事實是，至少在美國，人工智能已經有了成為法人的合法途徑。

Corporations are considered legal persons that even have rights like freedom of speech.

公司被視為法人，甚至享有言論自由等權利。

So for instance, it can open a bank account.

And then it takes its money and invests it.

And because it's so good at making investment decisions, it earns billions and billions.

由於它善於做出投資決策，是以賺取了數十億、數百億的利潤。

We could be in a situation when the richest person in the United States is not a human being.

The richest person in the United States is an incorporated AI.

美國最富有的人是一家人工智能公司。

So the legal and practical path to this situation is open.

是以，這種情況的法律和實踐道路是暢通的。

So what we are facing is not, you know, like a Hollywood science fiction scenario of one big evil computer trying to take over the world.

是以，我們所面臨的並不是好萊塢科幻小說中的邪惡電腦試圖佔領世界的情景。

It's more like millions and millions of AI bureaucrats that are given more and more authority to make decisions about us in banks, in armies, in governments.

這更像是數以百萬計的人工智能官僚，他們被賦予越來越多的權力，在銀行、軍隊和政府中為我們做決定。

And again, there is good potential in that as well.

They can provide us with the best healthcare in history.

他們可以為我們提供歷史上最好的醫療服務。

當然，這也存在著巨大的風險。

What happens if you can no longer understand why the bank refused to give you a loan, why the government or the army did this or did that?

如果你再也無法理解銀行為什麼不給你貸款，政府或軍隊為什麼這樣做或那樣做，那會發生什麼？

When power shifts from organic humans to these alien inorganic AIs, it just becomes more and more difficult for us to understand the decisions that shape our life.

當權力從有機人類手中轉移到這些外星無機人工智能手中時，我們就越來越難以理解那些影響我們生活的決定。

The biggest misconception about information is that information is truth.

關於資訊的最大誤解是，資訊就是真理。

The truth is a very rare and costly and expensive type of information.

真相是一種非常稀有、昂貴和昂貴的資訊。

Over the last 2,000 years, people have created billions and billions of portraits of Jesus, and not a single one of them is an authentic depiction because we have no idea how Jesus looked like.

在過去的 2000 年裡，人們創作了數十億幅耶穌畫像，但沒有一幅是真實的，因為我們根本不知道耶穌長什麼樣。

There is not a single portrait made during his lifetime, and the Bible doesn't say a single word about how he looked like.

他生前沒有一幅畫像，《聖經》中也隻字未提他的長相。

It's very easy to create fictional information because you don't need to research anything.

虛構資訊非常容易，因為你不需要研究任何東西。

You just come up with something and draw it.

你只需想出一些東西，然後畫出來。

If you want to paint a truthful picture of anything, of a person, of an economy, of a war, you need to invest a lot of time and effort and money to research to make sure that you get it right.

如果你想真實地描繪任何事物、人物、經濟、戰爭，你就需要投入大量的時間、精力和金錢進行研究，以確保你的描繪是正確的。

If we just flood the world with information and expect the truth to float up, it will not, it will sink.

如果我們一味地向世界灌輸資訊，並期待真相浮出水面，那麼它不僅不會浮出水面，反而會沉入水底。

So to deal with the era of AI, it should be clear that we cannot anticipate how this technology will develop over the next few decades.

是以，面對人工智能時代，我們應該清楚，我們無法預知這項技術在未來幾十年會如何發展。

What we need is living institutions staffed by the best human talent and with access to the best technology, and we'll be able to identify and react to dangers and threats as they arise.

我們需要的是擁有最優秀人才和最先進技術的有生命力的機構，這樣我們就能在危險和威脅出現時及時發現並做出反應。

So I'm not talking about rigid regulation in advance.

所以，我說的不是事先進行嚴格監管。

I'm talking about the need for new institutions because you can never rely on just, you know, the letter of the law or on a charismatic individual, some genius to do it.

我說的是需要建立新的機構，因為你永遠不能僅僅依靠法律條文或某個有魅力的個人、某個天才來完成這項工作。

In history, humans again and again encounter these problems, and it always goes back to the same solution, institutions.

在歷史上，人類一次又一次地遇到這些問題，卻總是回到同樣的解決辦法--制度。

The Conference of the United Nations on International Organization is now convened.

聯合國國際組織會議現在召開。

Good institutions, they are characterized by having strong self-correcting mechanisms.

好的機構，其特點是具有強大的自我糾正機制。

A self-correcting mechanism is a mechanism that allows an entity to identify and correct its own mistakes.

自我糾正機制是一種允許實體識別和糾正自身錯誤的機制。

You don't have to rely on the environment, on something out there to correct your mistakes.

你不必依賴環境，依賴外面的東西來糾正你的錯誤。

This is a basic feature of any functioning organism.

這是任何正常運轉的生物體的基本特徵。

This goes all the way to entire countries.

這種情況一直持續到整個國家。

Elections are a self-correcting mechanism.

You give power to a certain party or individual.

你把權力交給了某個黨派或個人。

After some time, if you think you made a mistake, this was the wrong policy, this was the wrong party, there are another round of elections.

一段時間後，如果你認為你犯了一個錯誤，這是一個錯誤的政策，這是一個錯誤的政黨，那麼就會有新一輪的選舉。

The whole meaning for democracy is that you have large numbers of people conversing about the issues of the day.

民主的全部意義就在於讓眾多人就當今的問題進行對話。

And it is no coincidence that the democratic conversation is breaking down all over the world because the algorithms are hijacking it.

全世界的民主對話正在瓦解，這絕非巧合，因為算法正在劫持民主對話。

We have the most sophisticated information technology in history, and we are losing the ability to talk with each other, to hold a reasoned conversation.

我們擁有歷史上最先進的信息技術，但我們卻正在失去相互交談、進行理性對話的能力。