is the idea of computational contracts.

以電腦運算為基礎的智能合約

You know, normally when one sets up a contract,

通常我們擬一紙合約，

it's something that's written in, well, almost English but actually it's legalese

大致上是用英文寫的，但嚴格來說是法律術語

because it has to be a bit more precise than English.

因為比起一般英文，合約的精準度必須更高

And it says, you know, this part is gonna do this,

它上面說好哪一方要履行這個、

and that part is gonna do that.

哪一方又要履行那個

What if we could write that contract in code?

如果說我們可以用程式編碼寫合約呢？

What if we could write a computational contract that isn't written in legalese

如果我們可以用電腦擬合約、不用法律術語寫，

but is written in some computational intelligence language,

而是運用某種電腦智能語言，

which could actually be just executed by a computer, if we chose to,

讓電腦能夠獨自執行，如果我們想要這麼做

as well as understood by humans?

此外人類也能看得懂？

Well, our Wolfram Language, that I've been developing for the last 32 years,

我們在最近 32 年研發中的沃爾夫曼語言，

is sort of the ideal language

就是能做到這些的理想語言，

in which to describe things about the world of the kind that you want to talk about in contracts.

它能夠妥善處理合約中可能會談到的內容

This idea of writing computational contracts,

這種電腦化合約的概念，

this is not a new idea.

這並不是全新的概念

I mean, for example, Gottfried Leibniz,

舉例而言，Gottfried Leibniz

back in the late 1600s,

在 17 世紀晚期

he very definitely had this idea.

他就很明確地有了這個點子

In fact his reason to try to invent a bunch of what are now computational concepts,

他之所以會去發想這些現代的電腦運算概念，

was he wanted to turn all legal arguments into matters of pure logic

是因為他想要把所有法律論據轉變成純粹的邏輯，

that could potentially be resolved by a machine.

使機器有可能去定奪這些論據

Well, he happened to be 300 years too early.

很可惜他早生了 300 年

Now I think it's kind of the right time to actually execute things like that,

我想現在正是執行這個點子的好時機，

and so we're very well-positioned with our technology to actually set up computational contracts,

而我們為電腦化合約所打造的科技，現在發展時機非常適切，

which can describe how things should happen in the world in a way that computers can execute.

它用一種電腦可以執行的方式，描述發生於現實世界的事實

And so some of those things will be pure sort of symbolic logic-like things.

因此部分的智能合約會是全然的表徵符號、邏輯元素，

Some of those things are more like automated human judgment.

也有部分會比較像自動化的人類判準

They're more like the kinds of things that one can do with machine learning

類似於機器學習在做的事情，

where one says, you know,

情況可能是這樣的：

"We'll consider it a grade A peach,

「我們會把它歸類成 A 等級桃子，

if it has this characteristic with respect to this machine vision classifier."

如果這台影像辨識機發現這桃子有某項特徵。」

So that's one thing that we've been interested in.

這是我們很感興趣的一個方向

Another thing that's, in a sense, more direct

另一件事情，可以說是更為直接，

is whenever you're going to set up a smart contract or computational contract,

是無論何時你想去擬定一紙智能合約，或者說電腦化合約

I view sort of computational contracts as kind of a generalization of the traditional

我把電腦化合約視為一種概括而論，針對傳統上

"let's put something on the Blockchain smart contract" idea.

「我們來把某件事物加進區塊鏈智能合約」的想法

But as soon as those contracts are going to be about real things in the world,

但既然這些合約要處理的是現實中的事物，

they have to know something about what actually happened in the world.

他們就必須明白真實世界裡發生了什麼事

And so there's this idea of well, we needed some kind of smart oracle

因此我們需要某種智能化的數據紀錄方式，

that can be connected to the contract

這方式可以運用在合約上，

that can be not just something that says, "Well, this piece of cryptocurrency was transferred from this address to this address,

且不能跑出像是：「這虛擬貨幣是由甲地址傳送至乙地址，」

"but you know, it rained yesterday."

「但是昨天有下雨」這種不連貫的敘述

And so we, in terms of sort of knowledge about the world

也因此在獲取真實知識的方面，

with our Wolfram Alpha Technology Stack,

我們有沃爾夫曼資料堆棧，

we have simply the unique system that has kind of, across thousands of domains,

這個獨特的系統能夠橫跨數千個網域，

kind of computable knowledge about the world.

把現實知識變得可用電腦運算

For quite other reasons,

此外還有其他理由，

we've kind of built this thing that allows you

我們打造的這個產品可以讓你

to just ask a computer some fact about the world and have it returned in computable form.

直接詢問電腦某個事實，再以電腦運算形式得到回覆

And that's exactly what one needs if one wants to know whether this smart contract that referred to something in the world

而這絕對能派上用場，假設某個人想要知道這紙關於現實世界的合約

should be executed, should go this way or that way.

是否應該被執行，又該選擇哪個方向

And so we've been involved with rather a wide spectrum of the cryptocurrency folk

所以我們持續與來自各方的虛擬貨幣專家交流，

in providing sort of the connection to the real world, so to speak,

可以說是為了確保與現實世界之間的聯繫，

for things like smart contracts.

以打造智能合約等產品