双语｜看看比尔盖茨对未来科技的预言！
每年年初，MIT科技评论(MIT Technology Review)都会做出该年十大科技预言。往年都是MIT 的编辑部操刀，但今年却邀请到一位赫赫有名的科技巨头来主笔—— 微软的创办人，也是前世界首富的比尔·盖茨。让我们来看看MIT的首席编辑和比尔盖茨的对话吧，一段有可能改变2019的世界的对话。
”新闻来源：每日英语听力—科技动态频道
Every year, MIT Technology Review makes a list of 10 break throughs we think will have a big impact on the world.
每年，麻省理工科技评论都会列出10项我们认为将对世界产生重大影响的技术突破。
We've identified things like natural language processing, augmentedreality, CRISPR, wireless charging and gene therapy before they went mainstream.
我们成功预测到自然语言处理，增强现实，无线充电和基因治疗技术等等，在他们成为研究的主要对象之前。
So when we heard Bill Gates was interested in helping us choose thisyear's list, we jumped at the chance.
当得知比尔·盖茨有兴趣帮我们甄选今年的名单时，我们又怎会错过这次机会。
Through his investing and the work of the Gates Foundation, he's thinking alot about where technology is going and how it can do the most goodfor the most people.
他正通过投资和盖茨基金会探寻着未来科技的发展方向，思考如何为大多数人带去更多的好处。
We offered Bill a short list, he ignored it almost entirely,this list is very much his own vision.我们向比尔提供了一份简短的参考名单，他几乎略过这份名单，直接规划起自己的愿景来。
I sat down with him to talk about what he picked.
今天我们将共同讨论他所选择的科技清单。
M:editor of MIT Technology Reciew
B:Bill Gates
M:"You are famously optimistic and you know, you subscribe to the view of people like cants rustling and Steven Pinker that when you look atthe important indicators, life has been getting better consistentlyfor billions of people.
“你因乐观而闻名，赞同KantsRustling和史蒂芬·平克这些人的观点。当你注意到一些重要的指标时，数十亿人的生活也会因之变得越来越好。
How do you sustain that kind of optimism in a world in which, you know,climate change is accelerating, we have political polarization anddisruption caused by social media, we have growing economicinequality which is fueled at least in part by automation and AI.
当今世界，气候变化不容乐观，社会媒体所渲染的政治对立导致混乱加剧，某些层面上由自动化和人工智能技术所造成的经济不平等日益凸显，你是如何保有这种积极态度的？
So,there's a lot of current worries about the technology having a harmful effect, how do you retain your optimism?"
越来越多的人开始质疑科技的弊大于利，你何以继续保持乐观？”
B:"It's great that people are worried about the problems, because they require action, you know, even take inequity, globally inequity isdown, that is the poor countries are getting richer faster than thericher countries are getting richer."
“人们的担心反倒是一件好事，他们会要求一些人有所作为。比如，以不平等问题为例，从全球范围来看，不平等水平正逐步下降，也就是说，贫穷国家比富裕国家的经济增长速度更快。”
M:"Right."
“的确。”
B:"The bulk of humanity lives in middle-income countries today, if you goback 50 years, there were very very few middle-income countries.
“今天，大部分人生活在中等收入国家。如果你追溯到50年前，中等收入国家数量很少。
It was pretty bimodal where we had India, China, Africa were poor andthen Europe, U. S. , Japan starting to be fairly well-off and notmuch in the middle.
那时的印度、中国以及非洲都是十分贫穷的。那时的欧洲，美国和日本正走向富强之路，位于中间的国家并不多。
Buttoday, China's at the high end of middle-income, India's at the lowof middle-income, Brazil, Indonesia.
但时至今日，中国位列中等收入高水平国家，印度则成为中等收入低水平国家，还有巴西和印度尼西。
It's a, it's a phenomenal story and the ability of science to sawproblems, you know, clearly in the case of heart disease and cancermake a lot of progress, some of the more chronic diseases likedepression diabetes.
这是多么的了不起。而科学的力量在于，正如其在心脏病和癌症和一些慢性疾病，比如糖尿病方面取得的巨大进展一样，可以准确的发现问题之所在。
I'moptimistic even obesity, you know, we're gaining some fundamentalunderstandings of the microbiome and the signaling mechanismsinvolved in these things.
我很乐见。甚至是肥胖问题，我们也对其所涉及的信号机制有了一些基本的了解。
So,yes, I am optimistic. It does bother me that that most people aren'toptimistic.
所以，我才这么乐观。但是，大多数人不那么乐观的态度确实给我带来了一些困扰。
And you know so one of us is wrong and one of us is right.“
没关系，这些意见相左将来必会分出高下。”
M:"Do you think that you have may be successful persons bios, in otherwords you… "
“你会觉得自己有成功人士的先天优势吗”
B:"Of course, we have to fact that in. "
“当然，这点我必须承认。”
M:"Right."
“嗯。”
B:"At my own life, you know, I've been extremely lucky, and you know the country I was born in, the education I got to have, the business workI got to do, even my foundation work is amazing and interesting work.
“我的这一生都非常的幸运。我出生的国家，接受的教育，从事的商务工作，甚至我初期的基础性工作都是神奇而又有趣的。
But even tracting out for my personal characteristics and personal experience, I think the big picture is that it's better to be born today than ever and it'll be better to be born 20 years from now than today.“
从我的个人特点和个人经历来看，我认为总体情况是，出生在今天比出生在过去的任何时候都要好，同理，在20年后出生也会比在今天出生更好。”
M:"So I want to talk about some of the individual technologies you picked for the list, one of them is lab-grown meat, which is still verytentative, still very expensive.
“我想谈一谈你所挑选出的一些技术，其中之一有人造肉技术，它仍处于研发初期，价格非常昂贵。
Why was that important enough to make the cut and do you, do you think that in a, I don't know, a decade, two decades, we could seelab-grown meat replacing a substantial proportion of animal-grownmeat. ”
为什么会觉得人造肉技术如此重要？你认为在未来十年或二十年内，我们会看到人造肉取代动物肉的那一天吗？”
B:“Yes,I do.”
“是的，我认为会是这样。
"Part of the reason I picked it is is to remind people that clean energy does not solve climate change.
我选择它的部分原因是想提醒人们清洁能源并不能解决气候变化问题。
You know every time you read about oh clean energy, that's it, we just need clean energy.
你知道人们每次看到清洁能源相关的问题，就会知道我们需要清洁能源。
No, you don't, that's only about a quarter of the emissions come from electricity generation.
不，其实他们不知道，只有四分之一的排放来自电力。
So here you have a gigantic piece that is from beef production and now this can be a substitute.
而现在，这里有一片牛肉，而这片牛肉也可能是人造出来的替代品了。
So this is a category that people weren't paying much attention as agreenhouse gas problem and yet I think the path to solve it is clearer than in say the cement or steel or other materials case.”
人们并不重视诸如温室气体的危害这类问题。我认为通过替代品的方式去解决这一问题，比去说明水泥、钢铁或其他材料对环境的危害更为直观明确。”
M:"Right,another technology you picked is AI, virtual assistants.
“对，你选择的另一项科技是人工智能，虚拟助理。
So the reference there is two improvements and things like naturallanguage processing, but you know, these are still AI is a basicallyvery dumb machines, they're done one narrow task really well…“
这其实就是两项改进了的和类似自然语言处理的技术，你要知道，这些人工智能技术目前看来基本上就是一个非常愚蠢的机器，它们只会把小任务完成到极致……”
B:The computer is so stupid that when you're, when you present email, you don't let it order it for you, you don't trust it to have enough context to look at the material understand the relationships, and your calendar, that it orders them for you, you, you pick which application to run you, pick which item to open.
“电脑是如此的蠢笨，以至于当你发送电子邮件时，你不会让它帮你选择。因为你不相信它有足够的能力去查看材料，了解其间的关系。而你所做的，正是待办事项为你做出的选择，选择运行哪个应用程序，选择打开哪个项目。
So it's working at a very very low level today.
所以现在的人工智能技术运行能力十分低下。
I do think that we'll have executive assistant type capability in a fiveto ten year period. 我们认为在未来的五到十年内，我们能够拥有虚拟行政助理类型的技术。
Now, you know, I've known to be too optimistic about some of these IT things in the past but the generally they have progressed.
现今我知道过去我对一些IT的事情过于乐观，但是总的来说它们的确取得了较大进展。
And you know it's a huge priority project for companies like Google and Microsoft and on some things like translation, you know, the deep learning approaches are surprisingly good, and so I work on that lotin my part-time work with Microsoft and you know I want one, so…”
而且这类技术正是诸如谷歌和微软这类公司的一个重要的优先项目。比如翻译，采用深度学习的技术处理方法达到了惊人的效果。所以我在该领域，在与微软的合作中做了大量的工作，你知道我也想要拥有虚拟助理，所以……”
M:"Right,so in that case it's gonna happen. ”
“那，这样的话的确能够实现。”
B:"Yeah,absolutely. "
“对，当然能实现。”
科技是第一生产力，对于国力发展的影响不言而喻。比尔盖茨对于科技发展的看法也能给予中国一定的借鉴。双语新闻不仅能无形中提高英语水平，还有利于我们了解国际形势，了解国外对于中国乃至世界的看法。
新闻来源：每日英语听力—科技动态频道
图片来源：网络