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演讲者：Will MacAskill
演讲题目: What are the most important moral problems of our time?
中英对照翻译
This is a graph that represents the economic history of human civilization.
这是一张曲线图，它展现了人类文明的经济史.
[World GDP per capita over the last 200,000 years]
（过去20万年的世界人均GDP）
There's not much going on, is there. For the vast majority of human history, pretty much everyone lived on the equivalent of one dollar per day, and not much changed. But then, something extraordinary happened: the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions. And the basically flat graph you just saw transforms into this.
没什么在发生，不是吗。在人类历史的长河中，几乎每人每天用一美元来生活，并且没有什么变化。但是后来，发生了一个重大的事件：科学和工业革命。刚才你们所看到的平缓的曲线图变成了这样。
What this graph means is that, in terms of power to change the world, we live in an unprecedented time in human history, and I believe our ethical understanding hasn't yet caught up with this fact. The Scientific and Industrial Revolutions transformed both our understanding of the world and our ability to alter it. What we need is an ethical revolution so that we can work out how do we use this tremendous bounty of resources to improve the world.
这幅图表现的是，就改变世界的能力而言，我们现在所处的时代是空前的，并且我认为我们伦理上的理解还没有赶上这一事实。科学和工业革命不光改变了我们对世界的认知，也提高了我们改变世界的能力。我们所需要的是一场伦理道德层面上的革命，这样我们才能解决怎么利用这些丰富的资源让世界变得更美好。
For the last 10 years, my colleagues and I have developed a philosophy and research program that we call effective altruism. It tries to respond to these radical changes in our world, uses evidence and careful reasoning to try to answer this question: How can we do the most good?
在过去的10年中，我和同事开展了一项哲学研究计划，我们称之为有效的利他主义。这项研究计划尝试去解决当今世界所发生的巨变，依据事实证据和缜密的推理来回答这一问题：我们怎样才可以最大效益得做好事呢？
Now, there are many issues you've got to address if you want to tackle this problem: whether to do good through your charity or your career or your political engagement, what programs to focus on, who to work with. But what I want to talk about is what I think is the most fundamental problem. Of all the many problems that the world faces, which should we be focused on trying to solve first?
现今，有许多待解决的问题，如果你想要解决这个大难题，无论你是通过做慈善还是通过你的职业，或是通过政治活动，你专注的项目，或你工作的对象来为世界得益。但是我想讨论的是，我认为在所有问题之中，最根本的问题，这个世界所面临的所有问题中哪一个应是我们首先解决的问题?
Now, I'm going to give you a framework for thinking about this question, and the framework is very simple. A problem's higher priority, the bigger, the more easily solvable and the more neglected it is. Bigger is better, because we've got more to gain if we do solve the problem. More easily solvable is better because I can solve the problem with less time or money. And most subtly, more neglected is better, because of diminishing returns.
现在，我将要给出一个框架来思考这个问题，这个框架很简单。一个问题的优先级越高，这问题就越大，就越容易解决，也最容易被忽略。越大越好。因为我们若解决了这个问题，我们会获利极多。越容易解决越好，因为我可以花费更少的钱和时间来解决这个问题。最微妙的是，根据收益递减规律，问题越容易被忽视越好。
The more resources that have already been invested into solving a problem, the harder it will be to make additional progress. Now, the key thing that I want to leave with you is this framework, so that you can think for yourself what are the highest global priorities. But I and others in the effective altruism community have converged on three moral issues that we believe are unusually important, score unusually well in this framework.
若前期已投入资源过多，来解决这个问题就越难取得额外的进展。现在，我想要留给你们最关键的东西就是这个框架，这样你可以自己去思考什么问题具有全球最高的优先级。但是在这个高效利他主义群体中，我和其他的人一致认为有三个的道德问题在这个框架中占据重要的地位。
First is global health. This is supersolvable. We have an amazing track record in global health. Rates of death from measles, malaria, diarrheal disease are down by over 70 percent. And in 1980, we eradicated smallpox. I estimate we thereby saved over 60 million lives. That's more lives saved than if we'd achieved world peace in that same time period. On our current best estimates, we can save a life by distributing long-lasting insecticide-treated bed nets for just a few thousand dollars. This is an amazing opportunity.
第一个是全球卫生。这是最易解决的。我们对于全球卫生有一个惊人的跟踪记录。麻疹，疟疾和痢疾引起的死亡率已经降低了70%。并且在1980年，我们根治了天花。我估计因此而拯救了超过6000万条的生命。这些生命数量比若在同时期取得世界和平拯救的生命还要多。根据我们目前的最佳估计，我们可以通过分配长期有效的、具有杀虫功效的蚊帐来拯救生命，而这些蚊帐只花费几千元。这是一个惊人的机会。
The second big priority is factory farming. This is superneglected. There are 50 billion land animals used every year for food, and the vast majority of them are factory farmed, living in conditions of horrific suffering. They're probably among the worst-off creatures on this planet, and in many cases, we could significantly improve their lives for just pennies per animal. Yet this is hugely neglected. There are 3,000 times more animals in factory farms than there are stray pets, but yet, factory farming gets one fiftieth of the philanthropic funding. That means additional resources in this area could have a truly transformative impact.
第二优先问题就是农业工厂化。这一点被严重忽视了。每年有500亿陆生动物被作为食物。它们中的大部分是工厂化养殖的，这些动物居住在痛苦的生存环境中。它们可能是这个地球上最惨的生物，并且在很多情况下，我们可以大幅度改善它们的生活，只需为每一个动物花费几分钱就可以做到。然而这一点也被极度忽略了。工业化农场里的动物数量是流浪动物的3000倍多，但是工业化养殖的动物只获得了1/5的慈善基金。这意味着，在这个领域若有更多资源可以产生一个真正的变革性影响。
Now the third area is the one that I want to focus on the most, and that's the category of existential risks: events like a nuclear war or a global pandemic that could permanently derail civilization or even lead to the extinction of the human race. Let me explain why I think this is such a big priority in terms of this framework.
接下来第三个领域是我最想强调的。这就是存亡风险：一些像核战争或者全球性瘟疫的事件这些可能永久地使文明脱节，或者甚至导致人类种族的灭绝。让我来解释下为什么我认为这件事情是这个框架下最具优先级的事情。
First, size. How bad would it be if there were a truly existential catastrophe? Well, it would involve the deaths of all seven billion people on this planet and that means you and everyone you know and love. That's just a tragedy of unimaginable size. But then, what's more, it would also mean the curtailment of humanity's future potential, and I believe that humanity's potential is vast.
第一，规模。如果出现一个毁灭性的灾难，情况将会变得多糟糕？它将牵扯到这个星球上70亿人类的生死，当然包括你自己以及你认识或者深爱的任何人。这将是一个不可想象规模的悲剧。但是然后，还有呢。它同时预示着人类未来潜力的缩减，我相信人类的潜力是巨大的。
The human race has been around for about 200,000 years, and if she lives as long as a typical mammalian species, she would last for about two million years. If the human race were a single individual, she would be just 10 years old today. And what's more, the human race isn't a typical mammalian species. There's no reason why, if we're careful, we should die off after only two million years. The earth will remain habitable for 500 million years to come. And if someday, we took to the stars, the civilization could continue for billions more.
人类已经存在了大约20万年了，如果她像一个典型的哺乳物种活得一样长的话，她将会持续200万年。如果人类是一个单一的个体，那么她今天就只有10岁。更何况，人类不是一个典型的哺乳动物，没有理由，如果我们细心的话，我们将会在200万年后灭亡。而地球在未来的5亿年仍将保持可居住状态。如果有一天，我们登上了星球，那么文明将会继续数十亿年。
So I think the future is going to be really big, but is it going to be good? Is the human race even really worth preserving? Well, we hear all the time about how things have been getting worse, but I think that when we take the long run, things have been getting radically better. Here, for example, is life expectancy over time. Here's the proportion of people not living in extreme poverty. Here's the number of countries over time that have decriminalized homosexuality. Here's the number of countries over time that have become democratic. Then, when we look to the future, there could be so much more to gain again. We'll be so much richer, we can solve so many problems that are intractable today.
所以，我认为未来将会真的很宽广，但是未来一定会更好吗？人类种族真的还值得保留吗？是的，我们一直都在听到事情如何变得更糟的消息。但是我相信当我们做长远打算时，情况已经大为好转。比如，人类平均寿命在延长。很大比例的人不再生活异常贫困。将同性恋合法化的国家数量在增加。民主化的国家数量也在增加。所以，当展望未来时，我们可以获得更多东西。我们将变得更富有，我们可以解决很多如今看来很棘手的问题。
So if this is kind of a graph of how humanity has progressed in terms of total human flourishing over time, well, this is what we would expect future progress to look like. It's vast.
所以，如果这是一个人类进步曲线图的话，它基于人类随着时间的推移如何繁荣昌盛，这将会是未来我们期望看到的进展。它很广阔。
Here, for example, is where we would expect no one to live in extreme poverty. Here is where we would expect everyone to be better off than the richest person alive today. Perhaps here is where we would discover the fundamental natural laws that govern our world. Perhaps here is where we discover an entirely new form of art, a form of music we currently lack the ears to hear. And this is just the next few thousand years. Once we think past that, well, we can't even imagine the heights that human accomplishment might reach.
比如。在这个点，我们期望没人会生活在极度的贫困中。在个点，我们期待每个人都会比当今最富裕的人过的还好。或许在这里，我们将会发现统治世界的基本自然法则。或许在这个点，我们将会发现一个全新的艺术形式，或者是一种当下我们没有能力去倾听的音乐。这仅仅是未来的几千年。每当我们回首过往时，我们甚至都不敢相信人类曾经取得的高度。
So the future could be very big and it could be very good, but are there ways we could lose this value? And sadly, I think there are. The last two centuries brought tremendous technological progress, but they also brought the global risks of nuclear war and the possibility of extreme climate change. When we look to the coming centuries, we should expect to see the same pattern again. And we can see some radically powerful technologies on the horizon.
所以，前景可能会很广阔，也可能会很好，但是，是否会有一些情况，会使得我们丧失这些价值？悲伤地是，我认为是他们是存在的。过去两个世纪带来了巨大的技术进步，但是技术进步同时带来了核战争的全球危机，还有极端气候变化的可能性。当我们观望未来的世纪时，我们应该期望看到同样的样式。我们能够看到未来会有的一些激进强大的技术。
Synthetic biology might give us the power to create viruses of unprecedented contagiousness and lethality. Geoengineering might give us the power to dramatically alter the earth's climate. Artificial intelligence might give us the power to create intelligent agents with abilities greater than our own. Now, I'm not saying that any of these risks are particularly likely, but when there's so much at stake, even small probabilities matter a great deal. Imagine if you're getting on a plane and you're kind of nervous, and the pilot reassures you by saying, "There's only a one-in-a-thousand chance of crashing. Don't worry." Would you feel reassured? For these reasons, I think that preserving the future of humanity is among the most important problems that we currently face.
合成生物学使得我们能够创病毒，而这些病毒具有不可预测的传染性和杀伤力。地质工程可能给予我们极大改变气候的力量。人工智能可能会给予我们创造智能终端的力量，而这些智能终端会比人类具备更强的能力。现在，我并不是说所有这些风险都特别的有可能实现，但当这一切都岌岌可危时。甚至一个小的可能性也会造成大的惨剧。想象你登上一个飞机，你有点紧张，并且飞行员在欢迎你时说到，“飞机只有千分之一的几率会坠毁，别担心。”你会感觉安心吗？基于这些原因，我认为保留人类的未来这件事情是我们目前面临的最重要的难题。
But let's keep using this framework. Is this problem neglected? And I think the answer is yes, and that's because problems that affect future generations are often hugely neglected. Why? Because future people don't participate in markets today. They don't have a vote. It's not like there's a lobby representing the interests of those born in 2300 AD. They don't get to influence the decisions we make today. They're voiceless. And that means we still spend a paltry amount on these issues: nuclear nonproliferation, geoengineering, biorisk, artificial intelligence safety. All of these receive only a few tens of millions of dollars of philanthropic funding every year. That's tiny compared to the 390 billion dollars that's spent on US philanthropy in total.
然而，让我们继续来使用这个框架。这个问题被忽略了吗？并且我认为答案是“是的”，这是因为影响人类后代的问题通常都被极大地忽略了。为什么？因为未来人类没有参与今天的市场。他们没有任何决策权。并没有一个大厅来展示他们的利益，我指的是出生在公元2300年这些人的利益。他们没法影响我们今天所做的决定。他们是无声的。这意味着我们在这些问题上的投入微乎其微：防止核扩散，地质工程，生物风险，还有人工智能的安全性。所有这些课题，每年只能接受大约千万美金的慈善基金。这些和美国每年花费的3900亿慈善基金比起来简直就是九牛一毛。
The final aspect of our framework then: Is this solvable? I believe it is. You can contribute with your money, your career or your political engagement. With your money, you can support organizations that focus on these risks, like the Nuclear Threat Initiative, which campaigns to take nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert, or the Blue Ribbon Panel, which develops policy to minimize the damage from natural and man-made pandemics, or the Center for Human-Compatible AI, which does technical research to ensure that AI systems are safe and reliable.
我们这个框架的最后一个方面：这个问题可以解决吗？我相信是可以解决的。你可以用你的钱来做贡献，或者通过你的职业，或者你的政治参与来贡献。使用你的钱，你可以支持那些聚焦在这些风险上的组织机构，比如核威胁倡议组织，这个组织旨在将核武器从一触即发的警告中消除，或者蓝丝带小组，这个组织旨在开发政策来最小化自然或者人为流行病带来的伤害，或者人类兼容人工智能中心，这个组织做一些研究以确保人工智能系统是安全并且可靠的。
With your political engagement, you can vote for candidates that care about these risks, and you can support greater international cooperation. And then with your career, there is so much that you can do. Of course, we need scientists and policymakers and organization leaders, but just as importantly, we also need accountants and managers and assistants to work in these organizations that are tackling these problems.
通过你的政治参与活动你可以投票给那些关心这些风险的候选人，你也可以支持更大的国际化合作。然后，通过你的职业，有很多事情你可以做。毫无疑问，我们需要科学家，需要政策制定者和组织领导者，但是同样重要的是，我们也需要财会，经理人和助理，为解决这些难题的组织工作。
Now, the research program of effective altruism is still in its infancy, and there's still a huge amount that we don't know. But even with what we've learned so far, we can see that by thinking carefully and by focusing on those problems that are big, solvable and neglected, we can make a truly tremendous difference to the world for thousands of years to come.
当前，针对有效利他主义的研究程序还不成熟。我们对很多东西仍不了解。但是，仅仅就目前我们所学到的东西而言，我们可以发现，通过认真思考并且聚焦在这些巨大，可解决并且被忽略的问题上，我们可以对世界作出真正意义上巨大的改变，这些改变是为了未来的几千年。
Thank you.
谢谢。
Remark：一切权益归TED所有，更多TED相关信息可至官网www.ted.com查询！
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