不可思议的事情开始不可避免(The unthinkable is starting to look inevitable)

Almost lost in the cacophony of terrible news for us humans this year have been the recent signals of irreversible damage we humans have been doing to the planet.

对于我们人类来说，今年可怕的消息几乎消失了，这是最近人类对地球造成不可逆转破坏的信号。

The melting of Greenland’s ice sheet has essentially passed the point of no return according to a study published this August in Nature. And as one of the study’s co-authors puts it “… there is obviously more to come”. In particular, there are now strong indications that other irreversible climate tipping points, like deforestation, permafrost thawing and slowing of ocean circulations, are rapidly being reached. All in all, more climate scientists are now seeing the International Panel on Climate Change’s worst-case “God help us” scenario, once almost universally dismissed as alarmist “climate porn”, as the base-case for the future[1].

根据今年八月发表在《自然》杂志上的一项研究，格陵兰岛冰盖的融化基本上已经超过了无回报的地步。 正如该研究的一位共同作者所说，“……显然还有更多的未来”。 特别是，现在有很强的迹象表明，其他不可逆转的气候临界点，如森林砍伐，永久冻土融化和海洋环流减缓，正在Swift达到。 总而言之，现在越来越多的气候科学家将国际气候变化专门委员会最糟糕的“上帝帮助我们”设想作为未来的基础案例，这种设想曾经被普遍认为是危言耸听的“气候色情片”。

The blood-orange skies and destroyed homes from historic wildfires in the US, like the recent ones in the Amazon and Australia, offer a grim preview of such a future. It’s also a grim future for wildlife and their habitat. The damage in the US this year is still ongoing, but in last year’s Australian fires alone, over a billion animals and just as many trees are believed to have perished. The Amazon’s ecosystem never evolved to cope with fire, but that is also now part of its future. As a result, the world’s largest rainforest and richest store of biodiversity is in danger of becoming a dry savannah within the next several decades. Overall, the planet has lost almost 70% of its wildlife since 1970, and possibly half of all species will be gone by the end of this century in what is now recognized as Earth’s 6th Great Extinction event. Here too, the once unthinkable is looking more like the inevitable.

血腥的天空和美国历史性山火造成的房屋毁坏，例如亚马逊和澳大利亚最近的山火，为这种未来提供了严峻的预兆。 对于野生动植物及其栖息地而言，这也是严峻的未来。 今年在美国的破坏仍在继续，但是仅在去年的澳大利亚大火中，就有超过10亿只动物和据信已经灭绝的树木倒塌。 亚马逊的生态系统从未演变为应对火灾，但这现在也是其未来的一部分。 结果，世界上最大的雨林和最丰富的生物多样性储备有在未来几十年内变成干旱大草原的危险。 总体而言，自1970年以来，该星球已经丧失了近70％的野生动植物，到本世纪末，现在已经公认的地球第六次大灭绝事件中，所有物种的一半可能消失了。 在这里，曾经不可想象的看起来也更像是不可避免的。

Yet as surreal as it is to say it, climate change and species extinction are only a part of the seismic disruptions the Anthropocene — the epoch of humans — is creating this century. To my mind, they are probably the middle half. In order of what we can think of as their future “geological footprint”, the four biggest trends shaping the century are

然而，就其说的超现实而言，气候变化和物种灭绝只是地震破坏的一部分，人类世正在创造本世纪。 在我看来，它们可能是中间部分。 为了将其视为未来的“地质足迹”，塑造本世纪的四个最大趋势是

• Unsustainable human demographics

  不可持续的人口统计

• Climate change

  气候变化

• Species extinction

  物种灭绝

• Unrestricted artificial intelligence

  无限制的人工智能

Each of these trends alone is big and complex enough to count as its own “challenge of the century” for global civilization. So it’s understandable that they’re often discussed as if happening in separate silos. But of course they are anything but separate. Instead they’re deeply linked in a mutual feedback loop entangling the entire triad of society, the environment and technology. As such, their convergence to a perfect storm this century is not a coincidence. They are also driven by socioeconomic rules as old as the Neolithic revolution. That, to my mind at least, essentially guarantees their continuation no matter how many warning lights are flashed in our faces.

仅这些趋势中的每一个就足够大而复杂，足以算作它自己对全球文明的“世纪挑战”。 因此可以理解，经常像在单独的筒仓中发生那样对它们进行讨论。 但是，它们当然是分开的。 取而代之的是，它们在相互反馈的循环中紧密相连，相互缠绕着整个社会，环境和技术。 因此，他们向本世纪的完美风暴过渡并不是巧合。 它们还受到像新石器时代革命一样古老的社会经济规则的推动。 至少在我看来，无论我们脸上闪烁了多少警告灯，这基本上都能保证它们的继续。

As humankind blithely stares down the barrel of the truly unthinkable, one possible outcome this century is the infamous Great Filter: a collapse of global civilization and probably human populations. For all we know, this may even be the most likely outcome. But like many, I wouldn’t equate this scenario with the outright extinction of our species or even our technology. The minimum viable human population needed to avoid extinction is estimated to be less than 1,000 individuals. That could readily be managed, for example, in a few self-sustaining cave systems. Especially if, as expected under such extreme conditions, a disproportionate number of the survivors are engineers.

当人类快活地注视着真正不可想象的事物时，本世纪可能出现的结果就是臭名昭著的“大过滤器” ：全球文明的崩溃和可能是人口的崩溃。 就我们所知，这甚至可能是最可能的结果。 但是，与许多人一样，我不会将这种情况等同于我们物种甚至技术的彻底灭绝。 避免灭绝所需的最低生存人口估计少于1,000 。 例如，可以在几个自我维持的洞穴系统中轻松解决这一问题。 尤其是，如在这种极端条件下所预期的那样，成百上千的幸存者是工程师。

But if the survivors do eventually repopulate the planet, or if civilization manages to avoid collapse in the first place, one can argue it can only be with a very different dynamic between human society, the environment and technology. So different that, however this century plays out, the term Anthropocene as a new epoch in Earth history may not be as fitting as another: the Algorithmocene.

但是，如果幸存者最终确实在地球上重新生活，或者如果文明首先设法避免了崩溃，那么人们可以说，人类社会，环境和技术之间的动态差异很大。 如此不同，以至于本世纪逐渐消逝，人类世一词作为地球历史上的一个新纪元可能并不适合另一个人： Algorithmocene 。

地球历史背景下的21世纪 (The 21st century in the context of Earth history)

Before going there, let’s understand the magnitude of each of the above four disruptions in the context of their future “geological footprint” on Earth.

在前往那里之前，让我们了解上述四种破坏在未来地球上的“地质足迹”的背景下的严重性。

Like a symphony is organized into movements, sections, phrases and measures, Earth’s 4.5 billion year history is organized by geologists into nested time intervals of eons, eras, periods and epochs (ignoring for simplicity the shortest interval of ages). Specifically, eons (10⁹-10⁸ years) are divided into eras(10⁸-10⁷ years) which are divided into periods (10⁸-10⁶ years) which are divided into epochs (10⁷-10⁴ years).

就像交响乐被组织成运动，节，短语和小节一样，地质学家将地球45亿年的历史组织成数个时代，时代，时期和时代的嵌套时间间隔(为简单起见，忽略了最短的年龄间隔)。 具体来说，万年(10⁹-10⁸年)被分为时代(10⁸-10⁷年)，时代被划分为时期(10⁸-10⁶年)，时代被划分为时期(10⁷-10⁴年)。

What we think of as human civilization began with the Neolithic revolution and has happened wholly within the

我们认为人类文明始于新石器时代的革命，并且完全发生在

• Holocene epoch — the last 11,000 years since the end of the last ice age

  全新世时代-自上次冰河时代结束以来的最近11,000年

• Quaternary period — the last 2.5 million years in which climate swings have been driven by the Milankovitch cycles of Earth’s orbit and rotation

  第四纪期–在过去250万年中，地球轨道和自转的米兰科维奇循环驱动了气候波动

• Cenozoic era — the last 65 million years since a stray asteroid ended the reign of the dinosaurs and paved the way for the age of mammals

  新生代时代-流浪小行星结束恐龙统治以来的最后6,500万年，为哺乳动物时代铺平了道路

• Phanerozoic eon — the last 540 million years since the Cambrian explosion created the fantastic variety of complex life we have had so far.

  准生代—自寒武纪爆炸以来，迄今已有5.4亿年了。

One peculiar thing of note is that each of the above is the shortest in its respective time unit. That is, our Holocene is the shortest of all of Earth’s 38 epochs. Similarly, our Quaternary, Cenozoic and Phanerozoic are the shortest among Earth’s 22 periods , 10 eras and 4 eons respectively. If we imagined selecting these as independent random samples[2], the odds of getting this streak would be about 0.003%; the same odds as getting a royal flush in 7-card Texas hold ’em. No doubt this just an odd coincidence (somewhat like “Bode’s Law” in astronomy shows odd coincidences in the solar system’s planetary orbits). But if we pretend for a moment that it isn’t, the trend would predict something interesting (just as Bode’s Law predicted Neptune’s orbit). Namely, that our current Holocene epoch should be ending sooner than later.

需要特别注意的一点是，上述各项在各自的时间单位中都是最短的。 也就是说，我们的全新世是地球上38个时代中最短的。 同样，我们的第四纪，新生代和半生代分别是地球的22个时期，10个时代和4个世纪中最短的。 如果我们设想将它们选作独立的随机样本[2]，则出现这种条纹的几率约为0.003％； 与在7张德州扑克中获得皇家同花顺的几率相同。 毫无疑问，这只是一个奇怪的巧合(类似于天文学中的“博德定律”，它显示了太阳系行星轨道上的奇巧巧合)。 但是，如果我们假装不是这样，趋势将预示着一些有趣的事情(就像博德定律预言了海王星的轨道一样)。 也就是说，我们当前的全新世时代应该早于结束。

And indeed, we know the Holocene is ending even faster than sooner. Sometime in the next year or so, the International Commission on Stratigraphy is due to officially introduce the long awaited Anthropocene — the epoch of humans — into Earth’s history book [3].

确实，我们知道全新世的结局要比早得多。 在明年左右的某个时候，国际地层委员会将把人类期待已久的人类世正式引入地球的历史书[3]。

In keeping with the above imagined trend, the changes our species has set in motion go much further than moving to the next epoch. Specifically, we can see the following links

与上述想象的趋势保持一致，我们的物种所引发的变化远不止于下一时代。 具体来说，我们可以看到以下链接

• Human demographics is ending the Holocene. That’s of course already in the new name Anthropocene — the epoch of humans. But it’s not our sheer numbers per se but the way we live that has changed everything. Namely,

  人口统计学正在结束全新世。 这当然已经是人类世代的新名称人类世。 但是改变我们的一切，不是我们本身的纯粹数字，而是我们的生活方式。 即

• Climate change is ending 2.5 million years of the Quaternary period. Due to the now disrupted Milankovitch cycles of climate swings, for example, it’s estimated that the next ice age has been delayed by at least 100,000 years. But even this disruption is not as long lived as the next one.

  气候变化正在结束第四纪的250万年。 例如，由于米兰科维奇气候波动的周期现在被打乱，据估计，下一个冰期已经至少推迟了100,000年。 但是，即使是这种破坏也不像下一次那样长期存在。

• Species extinction is ending 65 million years of the Cenozoic era. Great extinction events have marked the boundaries of geologic eras since the Cambrian. Our Cenozoic, meaning “new life” began with the vanishing of 75% of all species in Earth’s 5th Great Extinction event. In the future fossil record, it should be bracketed by our current 6th Great Extinction.

  物种灭绝结束了新生代6500万年的历史。 自寒武纪以来的大灭绝事件标志着地质时代的界限。 我们的新生代，意思是“新生命”始于地球第五次大灭绝事件中所有物种的75％消失。 在未来的化石记录中，应将其与我们目前的第六次大灭绝结合起来。

与我们现实情况脱节 (Disconnected from the reality of our situation)

Before going further down the “geological footprint” list, let’s pause for a moment and notice something important about ourselves. The fact that even our “normal” civilized activity (i.e. sans nuclear war or similar) is upending the last 65 million years of Earth’s history should leave us all stupefied. Such a terrifying tally should lead us, as rational, civilized beings, to an immediate and complete overhaul of our daily life and the socioeconomic rules that drove us here in the first place.

在继续深入探讨“地质足迹”列表之前，让我们暂停片刻，注意关于自己的一些重要事情。 即使我们的“正常”文明活动(即无核战争或类似的核武器活动)也正在颠覆地球历史上最后6500万年的事实，也应该使我们所有人感到震惊。 这种可怕的理货应该使我们，作为理性的，文明的人，对我们的日常生活和驱使我们首先来到这里的社会经济规则立即进行彻底的整顿。

But of course nothing of the kind is happening, nor can we expect it to. After all, we still build homes in the middle of fire hazard zones and floodplains. Even during this pandemic, otherwise rational people are happy to gather in large, maskless crowds. More than 50 years after the first official warnings at the highest levels of government and industry, global carbon emissions still track one thing: global GDP. In short, the apocalypse remains abstract and remote for as long we think we’re able to personally avoid its consequences. As climatologist Ken Caldeira has remarked in the Guardian: “If people are rich enough to air-condition their lives, they can watch whatever is the successor to Game of Thrones on TV, as the natural world decays around them”.

但是，当然，这种事情什么也没有发生，我们也不能指望它发生。 毕竟，我们仍在火灾隐患区和洪泛区中间建造房屋。 即使在这种大流行期间，否则理性的人也很乐意聚集在无遮罩的大人群中。 在政府和工业界最高级别的首次官方警告发出已有50多年之后，全球碳排放量仍然跟踪一件事：全球GDP。 简而言之，启示录在我们认为我们有能力避免其后果的前提下仍然是抽象而遥远的。 正如气候学家肯·卡德拉(Ken Caldeira)在《卫报》中所说： “如果人们有足够的能力来调节自己的生活，随着自然界的衰落，他们可以在电视上观看《权力的游戏》的继任者。”

Case in point: even after making this tally, I haven’t changed my daily routine. Sure, for a Western urbanite I try to behave in (what passes here for) an “environmentally conscious” way. But only until that hits an actual pain point. Things like recycling, public transport and buying local-organic are fortunately easy where we live. But I still binge on my favorite TV series and Youtube channels with a carbon footprint of 10 kg per hour; and I certainly won’t give up my five cups of coffee a day, each with a water footprint of 130 liters per cup.

举例：即使进行了统计，我的日常工作也没有改变。 当然，对于一个西方城市居民，我试图以一种“环保意识”的方式行事(在这里通过)。 但是，直到达到实际的痛点。 幸运的是，诸如垃圾回收，公共交通和购买当地有机物之类的东西很容易。 但是我仍然以每小时10公斤的碳足迹狂饮我最喜欢的电视剧和Youtube频道; 而且我当然不会放弃我每天五杯咖啡，每杯咖啡的水足迹为130升。

That’s not because I don’t believe in the dangers I’m writing about, but because that’s just how we humans are. At least that’s how humans in technological societies are. From the “bottom of the pyramid” to the “top 1%” and across the political belief spectrum, the vast majority of us will not leave our behavioral comfort zones until we’re blasted out with dynamite. Yes, there are deep-seated socio-psychological reasons for this. But it’s also because technological civilization is based on a simple premise. Even when faced with problems of our own making, why improve our behavior when we can improve our technology instead?

那不是因为我不相信自己正在写的危险，而是因为这就是我们人类的本性。 至少技术社会的人类就是这样。 从“金字塔底层”到“最高1％”，再到整个政治信仰领域，我们绝大多数人都不会离开行为舒适区，直到我们被炸药炸毁为止。 是的，这有深层次的社会心理原因。 但这也是因为技术文明基于简单的前提。 即使面对我们自己制造的问题，当我们可以改进技术时，为什么还要改善我们的行为呢？

Algorithmocene即将到来 (The Algorithmocene is coming)

Which brings us to the existential irony of this point in human history. The problems created by our technological civilization are so massive and approaching so fast that only a virtual miracle can now avert the worst. If it can be averted at all. Blaming callous 1%-ers and their political cronies, socioeconomic inequality, poor education, wasteful consumer culture, human moral failing in general and even the Neolithic revolution itself may all have their proper place. But these debates are also centuries old and not going to move any needles anytime soon. Wishful thinking aside, at this point in the 21st century we are simply out of time to improve human behavior. The only miracle left to hope for is technology.

这使我们对人类历史上的这一点存在讽刺意味。 我们的技术文明所造成的问题是如此之大，而且如此之快，以至于只有虚拟的奇迹才能避免最坏的情况。 如果可以避免的话。 谴责残酷无情的1％人口及其政治直言，社会经济不平等，教育水平低下，浪费的消费文化，普遍的人类道德失灵甚至新石器时代的革命本身都可能有其应有的地位。 但是这些辩论也已有数百年历史，不会在短期内动弹不得。 抛开一厢情愿的想法，在21世纪的这一刻，我们根本没有时间改善人类行为。 唯一希望寄予希望的奇迹是技术。

To be clear, that’s not intended as a cornucopian argument as much as a fatalistic one. The risk of this miracle cure being worse than the disease is real. And it may be too late anyway: even if “innovation is the infinite resource”, as Ramez Naam claims, that’s irrelevant when time is finite. Every collapsed civilization in history is a testament to that fact.

需要明确的是，这并不是像宿命论那样，而是作为角子论的论点。 这种奇迹疗法比疾病更糟的风险是真实的。 无论如何，可能为时已晚：即使正如拉梅斯·纳姆(Ramez Naam)所言，“创新是无限的资源”，在时间有限的情况下这也无关紧要。 历史上每一个崩溃的文明都证明了这一事实。

Either way, having broken Earth’s natural equilibria, our global 21st century civilization will try its technological best to impose its artificial equilibria. And as technologies go, artificial intelligence has the greatest potential of all to fall in that category.

无论哪种方式，我们打破了地球的自然平衡之后，我们的21世纪全球文明都将尽其最大的技术来施加其人为的平衡。 随着技术的发展，人工智能在所有领域中具有最大的潜力。

AI is already driving the greatest technological arms race in history. Businesses and nations great and small already see AI as the ultimate strategic investment in their own future. From finance, design, manufacturing, distribution, and transportation to agriculture, politics, law-enforcement, work-life, social life, health and entertainment, AI is already transforming how our world works. It’s also (one might say unsurprisingly) transforming how our very hackable minds work.

人工智能已经在推动历史上最伟大的技术军备竞赛。 大小企业和国家都已将AI视为自己未来的最终战略投资。 从金融，设计，制造，分销和运输到农业，政治，执法，工作生活，社会生活，健康和娱乐，人工智能已经在改变我们的世界。 它(也可能不足为奇)正在改变我们极易被黑客入侵的思想的工作方式。

Yet it’s also clear to everyone that the story of artificial intelligence on planet Earth has barely begun. Its capabilities grow at least as fast as Moore’s Law, and the transformation of every corner of life is already baked in. Whatever fears (founded or unfounded) of a Terminator world we may have: the scale and complexity of navigating this century will, to my mind, ensure that AI will become the dominant factor shaping the world going forward. So much so that the concept of AI as a “human tool”, I argue, will eventually lose its meaning.

然而，每个人都清楚，地球上人工智能的故事才刚刚开始。 它的能力至少与摩尔定律一样快，并且生活的每个角落都已经发生了变化。无论对终结者世界的恐惧(有无根据)，我们可能都会：本世纪的航行规模和复杂性我的想法是，确保人工智能将成为塑造未来世界的主导因素。 如此之多，以至于我认为AI作为“人类工具”的概念最终将失去其意义。

But before that sets off any woo-woo alarms: none of the above is a claim about the “singularity”, AI “consciousness” or even general artificial intelligence (all of which I’m skeptical for different reasons). It’s rather a claim about where the information processing action on planet Earth will be. And about how that action should be understood.

但是在此之前，它引起了任何响亮的警报：以上都不是关于“奇异性”，人工智能“意识”甚至是通用人工智能的主张(出于各种原因，我都对它们持怀疑态度)。 这是关于地球上的信息处理动作将在哪里的说法。 以及如何理解该动作。

As the overwhelming mass of the world’s high-level information flow shifts from humans to machines, and algorithms get better at hacking into our mental space, an obvious question emerges. Where in the array of human affairs does any causal chain of events begin? How meaningful is the very concept of “human intention” in such a world? One might pretend that at least human programmers and their intentions are still behind it all, but in the age when algorithms pre-process everyone’s information and options, is this not merely a distinction without a difference?

随着世界上绝大多数高级信息流从人到机器的转移，并且算法越来越擅长侵入我们的思维空间，一个显而易见的问题浮出水面。 在人类事务中，什么因果关系链从哪里开始？ 在这样的世界中，“人类意图”这个概念的意义何在？ 有人可能会假装至少人类程序员及其意图仍然落后于一切，但是在算法对每个人的信息和选项进行预处理的时代，这不仅是没有区别的区别吗？

In short, if visiting aliens survey our world next century and are able to “follow the money” — i.e. the flow of information — they may well decide they’re looking at a world run by machine-based algorithms. Whether they will pay much attention to the two-legged carbon-based creatures servicing them is another question. After all, any visiting aliens may well be machines from their own Algorithmocene age.

简而言之，如果来访的外星人对下个世纪的我们的世界进行调查并能够“追随金钱”(即信息流)，他们很可能会决定他们正在寻找一个基于机器算法的世界。 他们是否会特别关注为它们服务的两足碳基生物，这是另一个问题。 毕竟，任何来访的外星人很可能都是他们自己算法时代的机器。

It’s worth noting that for any future geologists, our Algorithmocene should leave a clear signal in the fossil record. Already there are more IoT devices in the world than humans, and their numbers are set to skyrocket in the coming decades. Given the 50 million tons of electronic waste the world produces every year, the fossil record may even already have it’s so-called golden spike: Agbogbloshie on the outskirts of Accra, Ghana. Agbogbloshie is said to be home to the world’s largest e-waste dump, nicknamed Sodom for its constant dumpster fires. As filmmaker Florian Weigsamer described it in a 2018 interview with CBC Radio “When you first come there, it looks like an apocalyptic place…it seems like a place where everything ends…”

值得注意的是，对于任何未来的地质学家而言，我们的演算法世世应该在化石记录中留下明确的信号。 世界上已经有比人类更多的物联网设备，并且在未来几十年中，它们的数量将激增。 鉴于世界每年产生5000万吨的电子废物，化石记录甚至可能已经有了所谓的黄金峰值：位于加纳阿克拉郊区的Agbogbloshie。 据说Agbogbloshie是世界上最大的电子垃圾场的所在地，因其不断发生的垃圾场大火而被称为多玛。 正如电影制片人弗洛里安·韦格萨默(Florian Weigsamer)在2018年接受CBC广播采访时描述的那样： “当您第一次来到那里时，它看起来就像是一个世界末日的地方……似乎一切都在这里终结……”

Image from the Blacksmith Institute for a Pure Earth, a non-profit working to improve recycling conditions in Agbogbloshie and elsewhere.

铁匠纯净地球研究所的图片，该非营利组织致力于改善Agbogbloshie和其他地区的回收条件。

结语：Algorithmocene可能是什么样子 (Epilogue: what the Algorithmocene might look like)

For the next few decades at least, it’s hard to see how the future will not continue to devolve into ever more terrible versions of the present. Everything trending badly in the world now is doing so for reasons much bigger than any conceivable public policy tweaks that might mitigate them. But for the longer term towards the end of the century, three possible scenarios seem conceivable enough to describe briefly in terms of famous sci-fi memes.

至少在接下来的几十年里，很难看到未来将不会继续演变成现在更可怕的版本。 目前，世界上所有趋势都不好的事情之所以如此，是因为其原因远比任何可能减轻它们的公共政策调整要大得多。 但是，到本世纪末，从更长远的角度来看，似乎可以想象出三种可能的情况，以著名的科幻小说为例进行简要描述。

• The utopia-scenario means we somehow avoid catastrophe with the planet’s climate and ecosystems. That means engineering on a planetary scale. Unfortunately, our current competition-based system of nation-states and capitalism has no political or business model for managing a whole planet. Hence a world-government system like in Star-Trek would probably be needed. (Here it may be worth remembering that Star Trek never explicitly mentions democracy, but so be it.) Either way, managing such astronomical complexity means operational control of utopia will be via autonomous AI systems. What will happen to human minds and societies in such a scenario can only be guessed at. Perhaps a true utopia of peace, prosperity and the fulfillment of human potential could be reached. But then again, this scenario is no doubt the least realistic one.

  乌托邦情景意味着我们以某种方式避免了地球气候和生态系统的灾难。 这意味着要进行行星级的工程设计。 不幸的是，我们当前基于竞争的民族国家和资本主义体系没有管理整个星球的政治或商业模式。 因此，可能需要像《星际迷航》中那样的世界政府系统。 (在这里可能值得记住的是，《星际迷航》从未明确提及民主，但确实如此。)无论哪种方式，管理这种天文学的复杂性都意味着将通过自主的AI系统来控制乌托邦。 在这种情况下，人类的思想和社会将会发生什么，只能猜测一下。 也许可以实现和平，繁荣和实现人类潜力的真正乌托邦。 但话又说回来，这种情况无疑是最不现实的。

• The middle scenario is an AI-powered version of Mad Max: an inhospitable, conflict-ridden planet of anarchy and technology. The main driver of this scenario is straight-forward and to my mind determinative: the certainty that autonomous weaponized AI systems are coming. And they will be ubiquitous. The world has been lucky that standard WMDs (nuclear, chemical and biological) can be limited through the materials and massive infrastructure they require. Treaties here are at least somewhat enforceable. Future AI weapons can be assembled with off-the-shelf components in the proverbial garage laboratory. And no military or para-military group in the world can afford to be on the wrong side of this development curve. Because this scenario only requires a small number of humans to retain the same behavior we’ve had for all of history, this is no doubt by far the most realistic one.

  中间场景是由AI驱动的Mad Max版本：疯狂，混乱，无政府状态和技术的星球。 这种情况的主要驱动因素是直截了当的，并且在我看来是决定性的：可以肯定的是，自动武器化AI系统的到来。 而且它们将无处不在。 全世界都幸运地可以通过所需的材料和庞大的基础设施来限制标准大规模杀伤性武器(核武器，化学武器和生物武器)。 这里的条约至少可以强制执行。 未来的AI武器可以在众所周知的车库实验室中与现成的组件组装在一起。 而且，世界上没有任何军事或准军事集团能够站在这种发展曲线的错误一边。 因为这种情况只需要少数人就能保持我们在整个历史中所经历的相同行为，所以毫无疑问，这是迄今为止最现实的一种情况。

• The final horror scenario I personally worry about more than a murderous, self-aware Terminator is another meme from the early 1990s: the “grey goo” apocalypse. Nanobots with AI-powered swarm intelligence eating their way through the world sounds almost quaint in 2020. And to be sure, it’s technically still some distance away. On the one hand, swarm intelligence is much cheaper and easier to implement than general intelligence (which seems to me to be even further in the future). After all, nature made the human brain only once, but has been doing swarm intelligence for eons. On the other hand, nanoscale components like actuators and controllers are still quite difficult. Perhaps we should all hope they stay difficult. Otherwise, our species may yet succeed in erasing the Phanerozoic eon of the last 540 million years. Technically then, the proper nomenclature for that eon would be the Algorithmozoic.

  我个人最担心的最后一个恐怖场景莫过于一种谋杀性，自我意识的终结者，这是1990年代初的另一个模因：“灰色咕咕”启示录。 具有人工智能技术的群体智能的纳米机器人在2020年席卷全球，听起来似乎很古朴。而且可以肯定的是，从技术上讲，它仍然相距遥远。 一方面，群体智能比通用智能(在我看来，将来甚至还会更便宜)更便宜且易于实施。 毕竟，大自然只使人类的大脑一次，但是一直在为数不胜数的人类做大量的研究。 另一方面，诸如致动器和控制器的纳米级组件仍然非常困难。 也许我们都应该希望他们保持困难。 否则，我们的物种可能仍将成功擦除过去5.4亿年的古生代。 从技术上讲，该版本的适当命名应为Algorithmo zoic 。

Footnotes:

脚注：

[1] To dispel any illusions about the world effectively addressing climate change, see NOAA’s atmospheric carbon dioxide monitoring site. Even the latest UN report on renewables 2020 states that current global commitments to reduce carbon “…fall far short of what would be needed to limit world temperature increases to less than 2 degrees Celsius.”

[1]要消除对有效解决气候变化问题的幻想，请访问NOAA的大气二氧化碳监测站点。 甚至联合国最新发布的2020年可再生能源报告都指出，当前全球减少碳排放的承诺“……远远低于将世界温度升高限制在2摄氏度以下所需的水平。”

[2] They are of course neither independent nor random. But even if the estimate is off by an order of magnitude, it’s an impressive coincidence.

[2]当然，它们既不是独立的也不是随机的。 但是，即使估计值相差一个数量级，这也是一个令人印象深刻的巧合。

[3] The term “Anthropocene” was widely popularized at the beginning of this century by Paul Crutzen and others since. However the International Committee on Stratigraphy is an extremely deliberative body. It is set to formally review the adoption of the term in 2021.

[3]“人类世”一词在本世纪初被保罗·克鲁岑(Paul Crutzen)等人广泛推广。 但是，国际地层学委员会是一个非常审议的机构。 它将在2021年正式审查该术语的采用。