Name: 為什麼 2025 年是我們一生中最關鍵的一年？ (Why 2025 is the single most pivotal year in our lifetime | Peter Leyden)
Uploaded: 2025-10-21T18:30:03.000Z
Duration: 15 min 9 s

We're living in an extraordinary moment in history.

我們正處於歷史上一個非凡的時刻。

We are at a moment here in 2025 where we have world historic game changing technologies now starting to scale.

我們現在正處於 2025 年這個時刻，擁有改變世界、具有歷史意義的技術，它們現在正開始規模化。

反身代名詞

But America and the world itself are going through huge contortions.

但美國和整個世界正經歷巨大的轉變。

And there's been three previous junctures where Americans have found themselves in this exact place.

過去曾有三個關鍵時刻，美國人發現自己處於這個完全相同的境地。

And the key piece of this is tipping points.

而這一切的關鍵點在於轉捩點。

When do you go from the slow, slow build of a thing that's kind of clunky and not really working, do you all of a sudden get an iPhone that goes, holy shit, this is the most amazing thing in the world, and

當一個東西從緩慢、緩慢的建構，有點笨拙且不太奏效，到突然出現一支 iPhone，讓人驚呼「哇靠，這是世界上最棒的東西」，

And what I'm trying to tell you now is we are in the middle of three tipping points that are world historic changes that are happening around us today.

而我現在要告訴大家的是，我們正處於三個正在我們周圍發生的、具有世界歷史意義的變革的轉捩點之中。

I've basically been following the story of technology and its evolution and looking ahead into how it's going to change the world over the next 25 foreign s and the earliest days of the Internet.

我基本上一直在追蹤科技的故事及其演變，並展望它如何在未來 25 年及網際網路早期改變世界。

There was really only one place in the world that was really all over that, and

當時全世界只有一個地方真正關注這件事，

And it was in those early days that the founders of Wired picked up on me as someone who had the same kind of sensibility about the transformative nature of these technologies.

正是在那些早期，Wired 的創辦人注意到我，覺得我對這些科技的變革性有著相同的感受。

And so they wooed me to work with them in the early days of Wired.

所以他們就邀請我在 Wired 早期的時候和他們一起工作。

Now, people had no idea what was even going on with the Internet and literally what's email, what's the web?

當時，大家根本不知道網際網路是什麼，甚至連電子郵件、網頁是什麼都不知道。

They had no idea how these goofball startups with names like Amazon were ever going to amount to anything.

他們完全想像不到像 Amazon 這樣名字有點怪怪的新創公司，到底能有什麼發展。

And the other thing that was going on there, beyond this digital revolution, was essentially the beginning of globalization.

當時除了這場數位革命之外，還有另一件事正在發生，那就是全球化的開端。

And so myself and my co author, which was Peter Schwartz, wrote a famous iconic cover story at Wired that was called the Long Boom.

所以我和我的合著者 Peter Schwartz，在 Wired 寫了一篇非常有名、標誌性的封面故事，叫做「長遠的繁榮」(The Long Boom)。

The story from 1980, which is in our past, to 2020, which was in our future, trying to explain what was really coming.

故事從 1980 年，也就是我們的過去，一直講到 2020 年，也就是我們的未來，試圖解釋真正即將到來的是什麼。

Now, those of us who are in technology and those of us who have been immersed in it, which I have been for most of my career, now can see clearly these kind of incremental stages of these new technologies that all successful new technologies go through a adoption curve, let's say, like Uber.

現在，我們這些身處科技界、並且長期投入其中的人，就像我職涯的大部分時間一樣，現在能清楚看到這些新科技，就像 Uber 一樣，都會經歷一個採納曲線的階段性發展。

The idea like, oh my God, instead of a taxi, it's all in your phone.

這種想法，像是「天啊！計程車竟然全部都在手機裡了」。

And then all of a sudden, when enough people show how amazing it is, boom.

然後突然之間，當夠多人發現它有多棒時，就一飛沖天了。

The entire crew moves over and the old system of the taxi system is gone.

整個計程車行業都轉移了，舊的計程車系統就消失了。

So you're watching an old system being essentially dismantled or Having to come down at the same time as we're taking off on these new technologies to build the next systems.

所以你看到一個舊系統正在被拆解，或者必須瓦解，同時我們也正搭上新科技的浪潮，建立下一個系統。

Is smack in the middle of that in our era.

在我們的時代，正好就處於這個中間點。

But we've also seen this in American history before.

但我們在美國歷史上也曾見過類似情況。

There's been three previous junctures where Americans have found themselves in this exact place.

在過去，美國人曾有三次發現自己處於完全相同的位置。

You know, this is 80 years ago, last time we saw this.

你知道，這是 80 年前，上次我們看到這樣的情況。

And they tend to come in these 80 year cycles.

而且它們傾向於以 80 年的週期出現。

But what's amazing about these things is they have bursts of unbelievably widespread innovation that lasts for 25 years.

但這些事情令人驚奇的是，它們會出現持續 25 年的、令人難以置信的廣泛創新爆發期。

Last big one was coming off World War II, 1945, 80 years ago, America was on a very similar parallel.

上一次大規模的創新發生在二戰結束後，也就是 1945 年，80 年前，美國也處於非常相似的軌道上。

We had basically were watching the essentially dismantling of the old world that had been working pretty well, the economy and societies of the West.

我們基本上見證了過去運作得相當不錯的舊世界，也就是西方經濟和社會的瓦解。

And then there had been a crash and you run into the Great depression of the 1930s.

然後經歷了一次崩潰，你遇到了 1930 年代的經濟大蕭條。

Now what that was was the old system of running the economy just wasn't working.

那時候，舊的經濟運作體系就是行不通了。

And so what happens is you watch these junctures in American society.

所以你會看到美國社會中的這些關鍵時刻。

For example, there was an America first movement in the 30s.

例如，30 年代曾有一個「美國優先」的運動。

We were on the verge of violent conflict in America.

我們當時在美國瀕臨武力衝突。

And then you had the FDR and the kind of New Deal coalition that came out of the Depression and they started to get traction.

然後你看到了 FDR 和大蕭條後出現的新政聯盟，他們開始獲得支持。

But anyhow, we had to resolve this political tension in America and frankly, it had to do it in the world because the world also was going through, through this juncture.

不管怎樣，我們必須解決美國的政治緊張局勢，坦白說，全世界也必須解決，因為全世界也正經歷這個轉折點。

And so from 1945 to 1970, we watched the great post war boom, many people call it the high point of global capitalism.

所以從 1945 年到 1970 年，我們見證了戰後的大繁榮，許多人稱之為全球資本主義的巔峰。

And you built this crazy economy where you did many things that were completely different than the previous year.

你建立了一個瘋狂的經濟，做了許多與前一年完全不同的事情。

You watched incredible investment in public infrastructure like the interstate highway system and building suburbs.

你看到對州際高速公路系統和郊區建設等公共基礎設施的驚人投資。

You basically watched the GI Bill and education, building institutions for higher education, export, expanding it for the boomers.

你基本上看到了《兵役法案》和教育，以及為嬰兒潮世代擴展高等教育機構和出口。

And then we ran in the 70s, it started kind of getting along in the tooth.

然後到了 70 年代，我們開始覺得有點老了。

Old system had to come down, super conflict around it and ultimately the building of a thing that was dramatically different than before.

舊體系必須瓦解，引發巨大衝突，最終建立起一個與過去截然不同的東西。

And funny enough, like I say, if you go another 80 years back, we did it again.

有趣的是，就像我說的，如果再往前推 80 年，我們又做了一次。

Now this is a good example of how passions run very high and political conflict is extreme at these junctures.

這是一個很好的例子，說明在這些關鍵時刻，人們的熱情有多高漲，政治衝突有多激烈。

In the Civil War, it was the most extreme.

I mean, we literally had to have 750,000Americans die in the Civil War.

我的意思是，內戰期間我們真的死了 75 萬美國人。

America since the founding had been in tension with these two economic systems.

自建國以來，美國在這兩種經濟體系之間一直處於緊張狀態。

One was essentially a system of the early manufacturing economy where you needed free labor in the north, but

一種基本上是早期製造業經濟的體系，北方需要自由勞動力，但

in the old south we basically had slavery.

在南方舊地區，我們基本上實行奴隸制。

And they said, no, we're not going there, we're not going to give it up.

他們說，不行，我們不會這樣做，我們不會放棄。

We're not going to let go of this old system.

We're going to fight to the death on the thing.

Anyone rooted in the old systems that are going down are passionately want to defend that at all costs.

任何根植於正在衰落的舊體系的人，都熱切地想不惜一切代價捍衛它。

Now the thing that people do not know about the Civil War or don't really remember as much about the Civil War, Civil War is the Civil War after 1865 had an unbelievable explosion of progress that lasted for, what do you know, 25 years.

現在，人們不知道或不太記得的關於內戰的事情是，1865 年後的內戰迎來了長達 25 年的驚人進步。

For example, the Homestead act, which is you gave anybody who went out west 150 acres for free.

例如，《宅地法》規定，任何前往西部的人都可以免費獲得 150 英畝土地。

All these little states started building institutes of higher education to educate average people, but

所有這些小州都開始建立高等教育機構來教育普通民眾，但是

also to be pushing scientific understanding of agriculture.

同時也在推動農業的科學理解。

But here's the other progress that was going on, it was technology.

但這裡還有另一項正在進行的進步，那就是科技。

It was only after the war that America blew out like 175,000 miles of rail and essentially stitched the entire continent together with this steel based rail.

戰爭結束後，美國鋪設了約 175,000 英里的鐵路，基本上用鋼製鐵路將整個大陸連接起來。

And essentially we reinvented America in 25 years.

我們在 25 年內基本上重塑了美國。

And here's the even crazier thing though you go back another 80 years.

更瘋狂的是，如果你回溯 80 年。

We did it again, 1787 to about 1810, 1815.

我們又做了一次，從 1787 年到大約 1810、1815 年。

One way to understand what was happening in America at that time was it was part of a bigger part of Western Europe, in particular an extension of Britain, which was going through the Enlightenment at the time.

要理解當時美國正在發生的事，其中一種方式是，它是西方世界更大一部分的組成，特別是英國的延伸，當時英國正經歷啟蒙運動。

The Enlightenment is essentially a fundamental system change from a feudal society kind of dominated by the Catholic Church and all kind of stuff, into essentially what we would now consider the modern world.

啟蒙運動基本上是從一個由天主教會主導的封建社會，轉變為我們現在所稱的現代世界，這是一場根本性的系統變革。

And they invented six huge things that we still are working within today.

他們發明瞭六件我們至今仍在運用的重大事物。

Now the reason I'm kind of saying that is that had world historic implications.

我之所以這麼說，是因為這具有世界歷史的意義。

That was a building of a civilization that we essentially invented, we humans, but we Western Europe.

那是我們，身為人類，但主要是西歐，所發明的文明的建立。

In basically space of 120 years, the forward motion of innovation essentially from the west was coming with those crazy ass Americans who had this wide open continent to spread it to.

在短短 120 年內，來自西方的創新動力，基本上是由那些瘋狂的美國人推動的，他們擁有這片廣闊的大陸可以擴張。

And that is what America's role has been vis a vis the West.

這就是美國與西方世界的關係。

I'm arguing we have one more crank at that wheel with the arrival of three world historic changes that are happening around us today.

我之所以這麼說，是因為我們還有機會再推動一下這個進程，因為現在正發生著三項具有世界歷史意義的重大變革。

And the most obvious one is the arrival of artificial intelligence.

而最明顯的一項，就是人工智慧的到來。

If you haven't, then get ready because this promises to be the viral sensation that could completely reset how we do things.

如果還沒聽過，那準備好了，因為這項技術有望成為一場病毒式傳播的現象，徹底重塑我們做事的方式。

The arrival of generative AI with the arrival of ChatGPT 3.5 in November of 2022, I think we're going to see that as a world historic moment.

生成式AI的出現，以及2022年11月ChatGPT 3.5的問世，我認為我們將會視之為一個劃時代的歷史時刻。

I think people will look back on that is the starting gun of what will be understood as the age of AI.

我認為人們回顧時，會將那視為「AI時代」的起跑點。

And I use age in a very explicit way, which is when you talk about a different age that humans enter, like oh, the humans, you know, entered the Bronze Age or the Iron Age.

我之所以使用「時代」這個詞，是非常明確的，就像我們談論人類進入不同時代時，例如「人類進入了青銅時代或鐵器時代」。

I mean you're talking about essentially a fundamental game changing technology, a breakthrough, a step change in our abilities that once you cross that threshold, you don't go back.

我的意思是，你談論的是一項根本性的、改變遊戲規則的技術，一個突破，我們能力上的飛躍，一旦跨越了這個門檻，就回不去了。

We're going to watch an explosion of amplification, the amplification of our mental powers with digital computers.

我們將見證一場心智能力的爆炸性增強，數位電腦將會放大我們的腦力。

And now AI are going to be very similar to the amplification of our physical powers that mechanical engines initially by steam created the prosperity and wealth of the world that we know now where we're just going to say holy shit, we had no idea.

而現在的AI，將會非常類似於我們體能的增強，最初由蒸汽驅動的機械引擎，創造了我們現在所知的世界繁榮與財富，而我們現在只能說「天啊，我們根本不知道」。