原文:http://mp.weixin.qq.com/s?__biz=MzU1MDQwNTgzMg==&mid=2247491662&idx=1&sn=4f5620e7d39c798dc323f82d45dec8c2&chksm=fba3b3e9ccd43aff7942490baff690576f2ff9cd64669b9a3eaf620ab8c2c813e00c593671c6#rd
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琚儿,英专,备考翻硕,外刊学习者
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And Pigs May Drive
猪也能开车
英文部分选自经济学人20200905期科技版块
Brain-computer interfaces
脑机接口
And Pigs May Drive
猪也能开车
A pig now has one of Elon Musk’s implants in its brain
埃隆·马斯克团队在一头猪的大脑里植入了一块芯片
扩展阅读:活猪脑机接口试验成功:可实时读取脑电波
https://xw.qq.com/cmsid/20200829A0MBQH00
In idle moments, people sometimes dream about the future. Of cars that can drive themselves. Of travelling to other planets. Of moving objects by the power of thought. Whichever particular dream you have, though, Elon Musk is probably trying to make it real. Self-driving cars and travel to Mars are the provinces of two of his firms, Tesla and SpaceX respectively. Moving objects by the power of thought is the province of a third, Neuralink. And on August 28th, at a presentation broadcast over the internet, Mr Musk showed off the firm’s progress. The highlight was the appearance of Gertrude, a pig with a chip implanted into her brain.
闲暇时光,人们就会时不时地(sometimes和“偶尔”频率上还是有点区别的)畅想未来,想象可以自动驾驶的汽车,想象前往其他的星球,想象仅凭意念就能移动物体。然而,不管你的梦想具体是什么,或许,埃隆·马斯克正在尝试让你的梦想成真。他旗下的特斯拉公司正在研究自动驾驶汽车,SpaceX则正在实现迈向火星的梦想。另外,同归马斯克所有的Neuralink公司旨在实现第三个梦想:用意念移动物体。8月28日,马斯克先生在一次直播展示中,骄傲地展示了Neuralink的研究进展,而格尔图德(Gertrude) (一头大脑当中植入了芯片的猪)的登场将整场展示推上了高潮。
Reading the brain’s electrical signals, a technique called electroencephalography (EEG), started more than 100 years ago and is now routine. It generally involves placing electrodes non-invasively on the scalp, though it sometimes requires the invasive insertion of wires into the scalp or the brain itself.
读取大脑电信号的技术,即所谓的脑电图技术 (EEG)诞生于一百多年前,到现在,已经是一项常规技术,脑电图是一种非侵入式技术,通常只需要在头皮上放置电极。不过,有时脑电图技术也是侵入式的,需要将电线嵌入头皮、甚至大脑。
Non-invasive EEG provides useful information, and can even be employed to do things like playing simple computer games via software which interprets the signals received and turns them into instructions. It is, though, a crude approach to monitoring the activity of an organ that contains 85bn nerve cells and trillions of connections between them. Invasive EEG offers higher resolution readings from those nerve cells, albeit at greater risk because of the surgery involved. The device Gertrude carries, known technically as a brain-computer interface (BCI), carries invasiveness one stage further still by making the EEG recorder a potentially permanent implant.
非侵入式脑电图技术可以提供有用的信息,甚至还能通过破解接收到的电信号、并将其转换为指令,来帮助人们玩简易的电脑游戏等。然而,若要监测一个包含850亿神经细胞和数以万亿的细胞连接点的大脑活动,这种技术显得粗糙了。侵入式脑电图获得的有关神经元活动数据更为精确。然而,由于该技术需要实施外科手术,风险相对较高。猪猪格尔图德可能被永久性地植入芯片,并使用脑电图记录大脑活动,在技术层面上,这叫做脑机接口(BCI),这种方式比前面提到的侵入性更强。
扩展阅读:如何评价伊隆·马斯克创办的脑机接口公司 Neuralink ?
https://www.zhihu.com/question/57713553/answer/154395266?utm_source=wechat_session&utm_medium=social&utm_oi=719981443886907392
Signals from implants such as this might be employed to control a prosthetic limb, or even a real one that brain or spinal-cord injury has deprived of its normal nerve connections. They might also be used to control non-medical machinery, if someone thought it worth the risk of having a BCI implanted to do this. And it is possible to use them to send signals in the opposite direction, too, to give instructions to the brain rather than receive them. That might be used to generate signals which suppress an incipient epileptic seizure.
该植入装置发出的信号可以控制假肢,甚至控制那些因大脑或脊髓损伤而导致神经传达功能丧失的真肢。如果有人认为冒风险植入脑机接口是值得的,它们也可以用来(非医疗)操控机器。反向的信号传输 也是可行的,即向大脑发送指令而不是接收来自大脑的信号。也许能通过这种方式发送信号来抑制早期癫痫发作。
Neuralink’s BCI, the size of a British tuppenny piece, carries 1,000 flexible electrode threads, each of which has a diameter less than a quarter of that of a human hair. This flexibility is important because the brain moves around in the skull and the electrodes must be able to accommodate this movement while continuing to work. The device communicates wirelessly, and is recharged by induction. This means that, unlike many previous attempts to build BCIs, it requires no skin-penetrating cable that might admit infections to the body.
Neuralink公司的脑机接口芯片只有两便士大小,包含了一千条柔软的电极线,每根线的直径还不到人类头发的四分之一。电极线的柔软度十分重要,因为大脑组织在颅骨中不断移动,而电极线必须适应大脑的运动,同时还要持续工作。该设备以无线方式进行信息传输,并通过电磁感应充电。这意味着,与之前的脑机接口设备不同,新设备并不植入那些可能导致感染的皮肤渗透线。
Along with this improved interface Neuralink has built a robot that will implant it. To do so, the robot first takes a high-resolution scan of the recipient’s brain. Using this, it is able to sew the electrode threads into place with a precision that avoids any blood vessels in the area. That, Mr Musk said, reduces the risk of damage during surgery. The robot can put the interface in place in less than an hour, he said, though it cannot yet open the skull in order to do so. General anaesthesia is not, he said, needed for the procedure.
Neuralink公司不仅改进了接口,还开发了一台用于操作植入手术的机器人。这台机器人首先会对受术者的大脑进行高清扫描,通过这种方法,能够准确避开该部位的血管,并植入电极线。马斯克表示,这可以降低手术伤害的风险。他还说,尽管这款机器人目前还无法做开颅手术,但它能在不到一小时内完成植入手术。并且,这类手术将不需要全身麻醉。
扩展阅读:
1. 详解马斯克Neuralink 外科手术机器人
https://m.ithome.com/html/506084.htm
2.马斯克「脑机接口」:Neuralink 芯片硬币大小,机器人植入,猪先试了…
https://m.sohu.com/a/415471496_642250
The highlight of the show, though, was not Mr Musk’s presentation but rather the arrival of Gertrude. Her BCI is connected to nerve cells in a part of her brain called the olfactory bulb. As she snuffled around her pen searching for food, and also sniffed her handler’s hand, a display showed the electrical activity which those cells were manifesting in response to these stimuli.
(整场发布会的)高光时刻不是马斯克的演讲,而是格尔图德的登场。格尔图德的脑机接口连接的是她大脑中叫做嗅球的部分。她一边沿着猪圈嗅食物,一边嗅工作人员的手,屏幕上则呈现了她的神经元细胞对刺激做出反应的活动状态。
Not everyone is impressed. Andrew Jackson, a professor of neural interfaces at Newcastle University, commented that there was not anything “revolutionary” in the presentation, saying it was “solid engineering but mediocre neuroscience”. Mr Musk replied, in a tweet, that it was common for academia to undervalue the benefits of bringing ideas to fruition.
不过并非人人都对此表示赞叹。纽卡斯尔大学神经接口教授安德鲁·杰克逊(Andrew Jackson)评论说,演讲并没有“革命性”的内容,工程本身确实不错,但神经科学方面并没有很超前。马斯克在推文中回应,学术界普遍低估创意付诸实践所带来的利好。
Pig headed
猪头
Admiration will surely increase if and when Neuralink performs on people a similar procedure to that which Gertude has undergone. The firm received a “breakthrough device designation” from America’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in July. This means the FDA thinks the gadget shows promise (in this case for the treatment of paraplegia), and offers it a faster pathway for regulatory review.
如果Neuralink将猪猪格特鲁德相类似的植入芯片的程序运用到人类身上,自然会赢得更多人的认可。Neuralink 于今年 7 月获得了美国食品药品监督管理局(FDA)授予的“突破性医疗器械认定”,表明了FDA对该设备潜力的肯定,也为其开放了日后监管审查的快车道。
The next challenge the firm wants to tackle is that of sending electrical signals into the brain. Mr Musk says this will require a range of inputs, as some brain areas require delicate stimulation while others take a “lot of current”. The point of doing so will be to establish two-way communications. This could allow entirely new areas of treatment to be explored. Besides epilepsy suppression, some think that such brain stimulation might also work to treat depression and anxiety. More important in the long run, it is also essential to Mr Musk’s vision of widespread engagement, at a neurological level, between people and machines. This, he hopes, will result in a future in which memories can be downloaded and stored elsewhere, and human beings can form a “symbiosis” with artificial intelligence.
公司想要解决的下一个难题就是如何将电子信号发送到大脑中。马斯克表示,由于大脑中的一些区域只需要微刺激,而另一些区域则需要获得“大量电流”刺激,因此,若想解决该难题,输入量应该在一定范围内是可变的。这样做的意义在于保证双向沟通。如此一来,人们就可以探索全新的治疗领域。除了抑制癫痫发作,有人认为这种脑部刺激也可以治疗抑郁和焦虑。长远来看,更重要的是,马斯克在关于人类与机器在神经层面广泛接触的愿景,该技术也至关重要。在未来他希望通过这种方式,可以下载并存储记忆于大脑以外的地方,人类和人工智能从而形成一种共生关系。
Critics worry that Neuralink is too secretive, and that Mr Musk’s vision promises more than he can deliver. He does, though, have a record of doing what he says he is going to, albeit sometimes not as rapidly as he says he will. He more-or-less single-handedly introduced battery-electric cars to the market and he built a successful space-rocket business out of nothing. Brains are a lot more complicated than cars, and even than rocket science. But do not bet against the coming into being at some point of the Musk vision of brains and computers collaborating directly.
有评论家担心Neuralink太过于私密,而且马斯克展望的愿景已超出他能履行的范围。尽管有时行动的进展确实没有马斯克自己说的那样迅速,但他的确是在身体力行实现其承诺。他几乎是单枪匹马地将电动汽车推向市场,又从无到有成功建立了一家航空火箭公司。大脑远比汽车复杂,甚至比火箭科学还复杂得多。但也不要就此认定,马斯克愿景中的人机直接协作的情景不会在未来某个时刻成真。
扩展阅读:马斯克的脑机接口仍只是捕风捉影
https://k.sina.cn/article_5044281310_12ca99fde02001dcz0.html?wm=13500_0055&vt=4
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Echo,北漂北外的江南人,央视boys and girls 的粉丝儿
Piggy,爱吃鱼,爱跳舞,爱睡回笼觉的小能猫,NUS食品系
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VeRy,男,电气民工,经济学人资浅爱好者
接着数字身份证讲,如果数字大脑实现了,那么数字身份证是必然的结果,因为在大脑数字化以后,对于从表面看来都是一串二进制符号的个体而言,恐怕要区分其物理层面的不同就很难了,所以每个人的数字身份证就从之前所言的政府向百姓强推变成了百姓倒逼政府必须制定唯一能识别自己的身份代表物,否则在芸芸众生之中,你很难成为一个区别于其他“人”的人了。这时候大概也没人会在意自己的隐私是否会被泄露(我想是采取与当下信用化货币类似的信用体系来明面上确保这点,实际效果如何看看目前信用货币的情况便能窥得一二了),因为相对于隐私,人们必然会更加看中生存,这大概就是我们当下社会的百姓对于隐私是如此不在乎:一、吃饱了才能谈隐私,二、就算谈了也不管用。
这一切都是建立在大脑被数字化之后才可能讨论的一些奇妙的化学反应,但我更加关心和希望讨论的却恰恰是大脑数字化这个过程本身,其中最重要的一点便是:我们中的部分人或许可能会永生。这可是一个永远伴随我们的话题。我个人认为如果记忆能够被复制,那便算作是人能够被复制了,虽然很可能复制后的行为会大相径庭,但是生活中的经验是如果一个人性情大变,我们还是会认为是同一个人,只不过变性(格)了而已,并不认为是两个人(虽然有俗话说好像换了个人似的,那终究也只是好像)。尽管我猜一定会有法律规定每份记忆的载体只能同时只有一个。就好像“致命魔术”里那样,安吉尔始终都只会有一个拥有记忆的载体存在于世(否则问题可就大了),但是一旦生命不是由上帝单独掌控时,人类社会的基础便开始崩塌了,因为没有人愿意永生永世受别人摆布(这大概也是各种宗教最吸引人的地方),因为掌权者可以通过复制自己的记忆来达到实际意义上的永生,所以人类大概会重新洗牌了,在新的框架下构建出具有新逻辑的社会体系,这必然是一段痛苦曲折的过程,甚至于有可能还没形成新的平衡前就瓦解灭亡了。
虽然是一段看似神奇的将来,但也潜藏着无可限量的破坏力,这就是科学的力量,它能够将人类固有的认知通过现实打碎掉,没有人可以例外,除了死亡之外,大概科学的规律是最公平的了,但在将来,可能死亡也不是一件公平的事了。
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