Facebook又在憋大招了
2017年4月19日，脸书在其年度F8开发者大会上透露，该公司成立了一个60名工程师的团队，正在研制无需侵入式植入让人仅用意念就可以打字的脑机接口......
脸书正在研制脑机接口，有望实现人脑打字、皮肤听声
Facebook is building brain-computer interfaces for typing and skin-hearing | TechCrunch
译者：Jenny_Peng 原文作者：Josh Constine
Today at F8, Facebook revealed it has a team of 60 engineers working on building a brain-computer interface that will let you type with just your mind without invasive implants. The team plans to use optical imaging to scan your brain a hundred times per second to detect you speaking silently in your head, and translate it into text.
2017年4月19日，脸书在其年度F8开发者大会上透露，该公司成立了一个60名工程师的团队，正在研制无需侵入式植入让人仅用意念就可以打字的脑机接口。该团队计划利用光学成像技术来扫描人脑，速度达到每秒一百次，检测大脑中无声的意识语言，然后将其翻译成文本。
Regina Dugan, the head of Facebook’s R&D division Building 8, explained to conference attendees that the goal is to eventually allow people to type at 100 words per minute, 5X faster than typing on a phone, with just your mind.
里贾纳·杜根系脸书研发部Building 8的负责人，她向会议观众解释道，其团队目标是，最终能使人用意念打字的速度达到每分钟100字，比手机输入速度快5倍。
Eventually, brain-computer interfaces could let people control augmented reality and virtual reality experiences with their mind instead of a screen or controller. Facebook’s CEO and CTO teased these details of this “direct brain interface” technology over the last two days at F8.
最终，脑机接口可以使人仅用意念便可以控制增强现实和虚拟现实活动，而不是靠屏幕或控制器。在F8会议的最后两天，脸书的首席执行官和首席技术官一直调侃该“直脑接口”技术的细节。
Brain-Typing
人脑打字
“What if you could type directly from your brain?” Dugan asked. She showed a video of a paralyzed medical patient at Stanford who can type using their mind thanks to an implanted sensor. She went on to explain how Facebook wants to do this without surgical implants.
“假如你能直接通过大脑意识打字，将会怎么样？”杜根问到。她展示了一段视频，内容展示了一位来自斯坦福的瘫痪内科病人，得益于植入的传感器，实现了用大脑意识打字。接着，她阐明脸书如何尝试抛弃外科植入物，实现人脑打字。
Building 8 only began working on the brain typing project six months ago, but it now is collaborating with UC San Francisco, UC Berkeley, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Researchers who specialize in machine learning for decoding speech and language, building optical neuroimaging systems with advanced spatial resolution and next-generation neural prosthetics are involved.
Building 8团队于6个月前才刚开始启动人脑打字项目，但是该团队目前正与旧金山大学、加州大学伯克利分校、约翰霍普金斯医学院、约翰霍普金斯大学应用物理实验室和位于圣路易斯的华盛顿大学医学院合作。相关人员主要是机器研究专家，领域涉及解码言语与语言，建立高级空间解析度的光学神经成像系统，以及新一代神经假肢。
The plan is to eventually build non-implanted devices that can ship at scale. And to tamp down on the inevitable fear this research will inspire, Facebook tells me “This isn’t about decoding random thoughts. This is about decoding the words you’ve already decided to share by sending them to the speech center of your brain.” Facebook likened it to how you take lots of photos but only share some of them. Even with its device, Facebook says you’ll be able to think freely but only turn some thoughts into text.
计划最终目的是制作可以运输的非植入式设备。为了降低该项研究引发的不可避免的恐惧，脸书告诉我们，“这并不是解码杂感，而是解码你发送到大脑语言中心已经决定要分享的话。”脸书将其比作拍了很多照片但只分享其中一部分。脸书表示，使用该设备时，你仍可以自由思考，但它仅仅只转换一部分思考。
Skin-Hearing
皮肤听声
Meanwhile, Building 8 is working on a way for humans to hear through their skin. It’s been building prototypes of hardware and software that let your skin mimic the cochlea in your ear that translates sound into specific frequencies for your brain. This technology could let deaf people essentially “hear” by bypassing their ears.
同时，Building 8团队还在探索让人类通过皮肤听声的方法。该团队一直在制作硬件软件原型，让皮肤模仿耳朵里的耳蜗，为大脑将声音转换成特定频率。这项技术可以使聋人避开耳朵从本质上进行“听声”。
A team of Facebook engineers was shown experimenting with hearing through skin using a system of actuators tuned to 16 frequency bands. A test subject was able to develop a vocabulary of nine words they could hear through their skin.
脸书工程师团队使用一组调制到16频带的制动器，进行了皮肤听声的试验。一位测试对象打出了一个通过皮肤听到的8个字母组成的词汇。
To underscore the gravity of Building 8s mind-reading technology, Dugan started her talk by saying she’s never seen something as powerful as the smartphone “that didn’t have unintended consequences.” She mentioned that we’d all be better off if we looked up from our phones every so often. But at the same time, she believes technology can foster empathy, education and global community.
为了强调Building 8团队的读心技术，杜根开场就表明，她从未见过与智能手机一样强大的东西，且“无非预期后果”。她提到，如果我们偶尔抬起头不看手机，会过得更开心。但与此同时，她认为，科技可以培育同感，形成教育和全球社区体系。
Building 8’s Big Reveal
Building 8团队新闻大放送
Facebook hired Dugan last year to lead its secretive new Building 8 research lab. She had previously run Google’s Advanced Technology And Products division, and was formerly a head of DARPA.
去年，脸书聘用杜根领导其神秘的Building 8研究实验室。她之前负责谷歌的技术与产品部，曾是美国国防部高级研究计划局的负责人之一。
Facebook built a special Area 404 wing of its Menlo Park headquarters with tons of mechanical engineering equipment to help Dugan’s team quickly prototype new hardware. In December, it signed rapid collaboration deals with Stanford, Harvard, MIT and more to get academia’s assistance.
脸书在其门洛帕克总部建立了特区404，备有数吨机械工程设备，帮助杜根的团队快速制作硬件原型。12月，该公司与斯坦福、哈佛、麻省及其他高校迅速签订了合作协议，以获得学术支持。
Yet until now, nobody really knew what Building 8 was…building. Business Insider had reported on Building 8’s job listings and that it might show off news at F8.
截至目前，无人知晓Building 8团队究竟在研发什么。商业内幕网（Business Insider）曾报道过Building 8团队的职责清单，并披露该团队可能在F8会议上放送新闻。
According to these job listings, Facebook is looking for a Brain-Computer Interface Engineer “who will be responsible for working on a 2-year B8 project focused on developing advanced BCI technologies.” Responsibilities include “Application of machine learning methods, including encoding and decoding models, to neuroimaging and electrophysiological data.” It’s also looking for a Neural Imaging Engineer who will be “focused on developing novel non-invasive neuroimaging technologies” who will “Design and evaluate novel neural imaging methods based on optical, RF, ultrasound, or other entirely non-invasive approaches.”
根据该职责清单，脸书正在寻找一名人机界面工程师，“负责集中研发高级脑机接口技术的2年B8项目”。职位描述包括，“神经成像和电生理学数据的机器学习方法应用，包括编码与解码模型。”另外，脸书也在招聘一名神经成像工程师，“负责研发新型神经成像方法，基于光学、射频、超音波，或其他完全非侵入式途径。”
伊隆·马斯克也一直在发展壮大他自己创立的公司神经连接（Neuralink），研制人脑接口。
脸书Building 8研发部主任里贾纳·杜根
脸书的404区硬件实验室备有数吨机械工程和原型构建设备
Today’s announcements are naturally unsettling. Hearing about a tiny startup developing these advanced technologies might have conjured images of governments or coporate conglomerates one day reading our mind to detect thought crime, like in 1984. Facebook’s scale makes that future feel more plausible, no matter how much Zuckerberg and Dugan try to position the company as benevolent and compassionate. The more Facebook can do to institute safe-guards, independent monitoring, and transparency around how brain-interface technology is built and tested, the more receptive it might find the public.
脸书4月19日的公告自然令人感到不安。听到一个微型创业公司在研发这些高科技，可能会使人联想到，政府或联合企业有朝一日会利用读心术来检测潜在犯罪，就像《1984》里描述的。脸书的规模使人感觉这些画面更可信，无论扎克伯格和杜根多么想将公司定位为充满仁慈、同情之心的形象。脸书在创立保护条款、独立监管，和提高脑机接口技术搭建和测试的透明度方面做的愈多，公众可能愈发能接受该项技术。
A week ago Facebook was being criticized as nothing but a Snapchat copycat that had stopped innovating. Today’s demos seemed design to dismantle that argument and keep top engineering talent knocking on its door.
在此一周前，脸书还被批评为一无是处，不过是停止创新的Snapchat模仿者。19日的示范产品看似意在反驳该观点，使高端工程人才络绎不绝前往。
“Do you want to work for the company who pioneered putting augmented reality dog ears on teens, or the one that pioneered typing with telepathy?” You don’t have to say anything. For Facebook, thinking might be enough.
“你愿意为倡导将增强现实的小狗耳朵置于人头上，或倡导凭意念打字的公司工作吗？”不必说出你的答案。对于脸书来说，思考足矣。
版权声明：
本译文仅用于学习和交流目的。非商业转载请注明译者、出处，并保留文章在译言的完整链接。商业合作请联系 editor@yeeyan.com 参考原文地址：https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/19/facebook-brain-interface/
扫描二维码关注译言，获取优质译文资源，享受优质便捷的即时译服务。
【每天翻译一句话吧】
小伙伴们，电影、书和诗……那么多感人或者好玩的Quotation，哪一句曾经击中你？一起来跟译言菌分享翻译句子的乐趣吧。
参与方法很简单：识别下图二维码，进入译言社区，在评论区回复你的译文，也可以分享好句子给译言菌嗷~
DO ONE THING, DO THE BEST!