明天就要来临

    “预测未来并不困难，但有时候却很难把预测出来的各个点串起来，”著名遗传学家乔治•丘奇在上周末于纽约市爱丽丝杜莉厅（Alice Tully Hall）举行的全球未来2045大会（Global Futures 2045 Congress）上演讲时开场就这样说道。虽然他提醒的是观众、而不是大会的其他演讲者，但他对未来学家的这个工作总结却一语中的。受一位年轻的俄罗斯科技大亨邀请，许多颇具声望的技术专家、科学家、未来学家以及企业家参加了这场大会，而他们的终极使命是全力以赴，借助科技实现永生。会上，这些大名鼎鼎的人们描绘了一幅时而骇人，时而惊人的画面，展现了未来几十年后的世界面貌，描述了科技怎样彻底地改变经济学、生物学甚至是意识本身。

    每年一次的全球未来2045大会由“2045行动”（2045 Initiative）及其创始人德米特里•伊茨科夫组织，今年是第二届。32岁的伊茨科夫是俄罗斯科技企业家，他把庞大的财力和坚定的决心倾注于掌握、攻克21世纪一些最具挑战性和激动人心的前沿技术，其中包括人类意识、脑机接口以及生物技术一体化。伊茨科夫阿凡达项目（Avatar Project，2045行动的一部分）的终极目标是解放人类，摆脱身体的限制。第一步是要弄清怎样将大脑（以及意识自我）从人的身体中分离出来，同时使它存活于机器替身里，最后弄明白怎样把包括意识和其他一切在内的思维上传到电脑上。实现这种数字化永生的截止期限是2045年。

    如果你觉得这些听上去像白日梦，看看伊茨科夫都有哪些同僚：全球未来2045大会发言人包括丘奇（首个真正有效的基因测序技术开创者和人类基因组计划发起人）、发明家及未来学家雷•库兹韦尔【现任谷歌（Google）首席工程师】、X大奖基金会（X-PRIZE Foundation）创始人及尖端技术企业家彼得•戴尔蒙迪斯博士（目前正在推进小行星采矿项目）以及传奇的电脑技术专家詹姆斯•马丁博士【牛津大学（Oxford University）的牛津马丁学院（Oxford Martin School）就是以他的名字命名的】。虽然演讲并不意味着对阿凡达项目及其崇高目标的首肯，但这些著名发言人的集结显然给全球未来2045大会增加了些许学术份量。

    尽管2045行动的首要目标是永生，全球未来2045大会却更像是二十多位各行业领军人士济济一堂、相互对话的盛会。他们中许多人有准确预测未来的记录。换句话说，这些人成功串联起了下面这些点：我们目前在哪里，未来向何处去，以及科技会通过什么样的方式把我们带到未来。下面将介绍六大预测，描述科技以及我们所知的生活在接下来的三十年里会发生怎样彻底的改变。

Here comes tomorrow

    "It's not so hard to predict the future, but it's sometimes hard to connect the dots." In the opening of his lecture to the Global Futures 2045 Congress, famed geneticist Dr. George Church neatly summed up what being a futurist is all about, though he was reminding the audience rather than the other speakers assembled at Alice Tully Hall in New York City this past weekend. Gathered there by a young Russian tech tycoon on a mission to do nothing less than achieve immortality through technology, a who's-who of renowned technologists, scientists, futurists, and entrepreneurs painted a sometimes terrifying, sometimes electrifying picture of what the world is going to look like in the decades to come, describing how technology is going to drastically alter economies, biologies, and perhaps even consciousness itself.

    Global Futures 2045 is organized annually (this was the second) by the 2045 Initiative and its founder, Russian tech entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov, who at 32 years of age has turned his vast financial resources and dogged determination toward understanding and conquering some of the 21st century's most challenging and exciting frontiers, including human consciousness, brain-machine interfaces, and the integration of biology and technology. The ultimate goal of Itskov's Avatar Project (part of the 2045 Initiative) is to free humankind from the limitations imposed on it by the body, first by figuring out how to remove the brain (and the conscious self) from the body and keep it alive in a robotic surrogate, and ultimately how to upload the mind -- consciousness and all -- to a computer. The deadline for delivering this kind of digital immortality: 2045.

    If all that sounds like a fantasy, consider Itskov's colleagues: Speakers at Global Futures 2045 included Church (who pioneered the first truly effective gene sequencing techniques and helped initiate the Human Genome Project), inventor-futurist Ray Kurzweil (now engineering chief at Google), X-PRIZE Foundation founder and far-out tech entrepreneur Dr. Peter H. Diamandis (current project: asteroid mining), and legendary computer technologist Dr. James Martin, who shares a name with the Oxford Martin School at Oxford University (and not by happenstance). And while speaking doesn't imply blanket endorsement of the Avatar Project and its lofty aims, this roll call of renowned speakers certainly lends Global Futures 2045 some intellectual heft.

    But while immortality is the overarching goal of the 2045 Initiative, the Global Futures congress is more of a conversation between two dozen or so individuals at the top of their fields, many with established track records of seeing what's coming before it gets here. In other words, these are the people who successfully connect the dots between where we are now, where we're going, and how technology is going to get us there. Below: Six prognostications on just how drastically technology -- and life as we know it -- will change in the over the next three decades.

后大脑图谱时代

    2013年世界领导人们并没有忽视人脑的重要性和潜力。今年年初，欧盟批准了一项10亿欧元（约合13亿美元）的10年期人脑项目（Human Brain Project），以期在超级电脑上完成首个完整人脑模拟。美国总统奥巴马也宣布了类似的计划，为大脑活动图谱提供1亿美元资金，绘制脑部神经细胞和神经细胞组的复杂网络。尽管一些人批评这些数额过大的拨款在目前的财政紧缩时期是浪费型研究支出，詹姆斯•马丁博士相信，后脑图谱时代将开启人类历史的全新篇章。

    此话怎讲？马丁说，虽然我们还无法完全预测精确的功能大脑图谱将会带来多大的颠覆性改变，但它毫无疑问将会改变一切。届时，大部分神经系统疾病都能得到治愈。脑移植手术将变得司空见惯。基因与认识增强（与未来数十年计算机能力的巨大跃进一道）将不仅带来一个服务于人类自我提升的全新市场，还将孕育出更智能、更高效的人类，他们转而为正反馈循环带来更伟大的想法和创新，从而创造出层出不穷的新技术和经济机会。

The post-brain-map era

    The importance and potential of the human brain certainly isn't lost on world leaders in 2013. Earlier this year the European Union granted 1 billion euros ($1.3 billion) over 10 years to the Human Brain Project, which aims to create the first full human brain simulation running on supercomputers, while President Obama similarly announced $100 million in funding for a brain activity map that will chart the complex networks of neurons and neuron clusters in the brain. And while some have criticized these outsize grants as wasteful research spending in a time of austerity, Dr. James Martin believes that the post-brain-map era will be remarkably different than anything human history has ever known.

    How? We can't yet fully comprehend just how much of a paradigm-shifter an accurate, functional brain map will be, Martin said, but it will undoubtedly change just about everything. Neurological disease will largely become treatable. Brain implants will be commonplace. Genetic and cognitive enhancements (alongside the huge leaps forward in computing power expected in the coming decades) will lead not only to a whole new market for self-improvement, but to smarter, more efficient humans that in turn will feed greater ideas and innovations back into a positive feedback loop, leading to an avalanche of new technologies and economic opportunities.

生物科技时代

    德米特里•伊茨科夫将他的阿凡达项目视为人类进化的下一步，他这么做并不一定是头脑发昏。但彼得•戴尔蒙迪斯博士的阐述可能更清晰：地球上刚刚开始出现生命时，为了提高存活能力，一些细胞进化出细胞核以及其他更先进的细胞器，出现了低级单细胞生物体到更复杂的单细胞生物体的飞跃。也就是说，当这些细胞接纳、整合更好的生物技术时，它们获得了巨大且重要的发展。库兹韦尔绘制了一幅类似的进化轨迹，详述了人类生命史上的其他质变时刻，例如：一些早期动物的大脑中进化出新的皮层（新皮层主管感官知觉和意识思维等更高功能）时，我们迎来现代哺乳动物的诞生；再比如，部分灵长类动物在我们现在所知的大脑额叶区进化出更大量的新皮层时，区别人和动物的大脑部分形成。

    包括库兹韦尔和戴尔蒙迪斯在内的一些与会发言人表示，人类是唯一能延伸生物特性的物种——数千年前我们已经能这么做了，通过使用科技，我们现在的出行速度更快，力量更大，能够听到不在听力范围之内、甚至是身处另外一个大洲的人说话。我们现在要着手做的是，更进一步把融入我们的生物特性中，比如，通过将病人自己的细胞培养出的可移植器官或是将可移植的机器放入人体内，来更改或改善身体性能（心脏起搏器就是一个例子）。

    随着纳米技术向更小更强的领域进一步迅猛发展，微型设备将成为医疗和日常生活的常规部分。此外，我们已经开始明白，身体更像是一台机器，即生物学（和遗传学）是软件，驱动我们身体的硬件。我们已经在实验室环境下的基因治疗、3D打印器官和干细胞治疗等技术中见识到：通过对软件重新编码，就能对身体这台机器进行程序改编。

    而且，回顾之前提到的大脑图谱，拥有在超级电脑上模拟身体中最复杂功能的这种能力意味着我们很快就会越来越擅长治疗身体中损坏的部分，优化运行不太理想的部分，最终能够使用移植和其他技术改善身体状况和思维。怎样做呢？“未来机器将越来越分子化，”丘奇说。换言之，通过融合生物兼容材料、3D打印、干细胞技术和遗传学的突破，我们将会创造出新的机器，它们看上去更像生物体、而不是智能手机。未来生物技术气息浓厚，如果半机械人的属性让你觉得不自在，你也只能接受。“其实现在的我们相比以前已经有了很大的延伸，”丘奇对观众说。“要去适应这些变化。”

The biotechnology age

    Dmitry Itskov views his Avatar Project as the next evolutionary step for humankind, and he's not necessarily crazy for doing so. But perhaps Dr. Peter Diamandis sells it more clearly: When life on this planet began, the leap from simple single-celled organisms to more complex single-celled organisms occurred when some cells evolved a nucleus and other more advanced organelles that enhanced their survivability. That is, when these cells embraced and integrated better biotechnology they made a huge and critical leap forward. Kurzweil draws a similar evolutionary trajectory describing other advances in the history of human life, like when some early animals developed the neocortex in the brain (the neocortex is home to the higher functions like sensory perception and conscious thought) giving rise to modern mammals and again when some primates developed a good deal more neocortex in the area now known as the frontal lobe -- or the part of the brain that makes humans human.

    Several speakers, including Kurzweil and Diamandis, noted that humans are the only species that extend our biological reach -- we've done so for millennia with technologies that allow us to travel faster, increase our strength, or hear someone that is out of earshot (or on another continent). What we're starting to do now is integrate that technology more deeply into our biologies, be it through transplantable organs fabricated from a patient's own cells or implantable machines that are placed inside the body to alter or improve its performance (like pacemakers).

    As nanotechnology marches further into the realm of the ever-smaller-and-more-capable, tiny machines are going to become a regular part of medical therapies and our everyday lives. Moreover, we've begun to understand the body more like a machine itself; that is, that biology (and genetics) is the software driving our bodily hardware. We're already seeing this in the lab via gene therapies, 3-D printed organs, and stem cell treatments -- the reprogramming of the human machine by recoding the software.

    Further, harkening back to the aforementioned brain map, the ability to model all of the body's most complex functions on supercomputers means we're rapidly going to become better and better at fixing what's broken, optimizing what doesn't work well, and ultimately enhancing both our bodies and our minds with implants and other technologies. How? "In the future, machines will become more molecular," Church said. In other words, converging breakthroughs in biocompatible materials, 3-D printing, stem cell technologies, and genetics will lead to new kinds of machines that look less like a smartphone and more like biological objects. And if the cyborg-like nature of this biotech-heavy future makes you uncomfortable, there's not much you can do about it. "We already augment ourselves extensively," Church told the audience. "Get used to it."

云端大脑

    如果想一想，云端大脑在这个互联的世界中将扮演什么样的角色，这个话题就会变得更有意思了。库兹韦尔说，大脑移植将成为司空见惯的事，但这不仅仅增强了大脑的能力，也开启了云端的能力。

    和在智能手机上点击屏幕以追踪网上信息或从邮件中检索电话号码一样，未来几十年内，我们的大脑将能读取云端收集的信息，以指数级程度进行延伸。新皮层中神经细胞组和神经网络的数量是有限的，库兹韦尔说，所以人类大脑能存储和检索的容量确实有限。但如果能直接连到云端，在理论上我们的大脑就能获得无限的信息和处理能力。

    库兹韦尔说，换言之，科技将在本质上对新皮层做无限的延伸。“还记得我们最近一次延伸新皮层时出现了什么情况吗？”

2045年：永生成为现实

    或者说，科技将至少在可预见的未来极大地延长人的寿命。

    过去的200年里，我们成功地将发达国家的人均寿命延长了一倍，而且由于医疗技术和改善生活质量的技术不断改进，我们将继续以更快地速度延长寿命。库兹韦尔说，到某个时刻（这个时刻很快将到来），我们将跨过一个临界值。届时，每过一年，我们的人均寿命将延长一岁。

    “从现在开始的10到20年里，这方面的技术将高速发展，可能在不到15年的时间里，我们就能抵达这个临界点。到时候，借助科学进步，我们能增加的寿命将比已度过的岁月更长久，”库兹韦尔说。“今后10到20年间的某个时刻，健康和医疗将会出现惊人的转化。”

    当然，延长平均寿命对并不不能阻止死亡。（实际上，考虑到资源不足，它反而会导致痛苦和死亡的增加。）但库兹韦尔讨论的永生是数字化的永生，即让大脑存活在机器替身里或上传到硅片中——指的是在过去十年中出现的神经系统科学和脑机接口领域相对巨大的突破。能对大脑信号做出反应的假肢在10年前还只是科幻小说里的内容，但在全球未来2045大会上，观众看到了一个实际可用的脑控假体在运动。同样地，在2013年听起来荒谬的事可能在2023年会显得更合理，甚至在2033年就成为司空见惯的事。

    伊茨科夫相信，到那个时候，永生行业将一派欣欣向荣，它将确保一个人生理寿命的结束不一定一定意味着意识生命的终结。他说，永生会变得很普遍，而不是只有富人才能买得起的特权。伊茨科夫用手机举例解释说，技术在10年内技术便宜了1000倍。虽然在手机时代的黎明期，只有富裕的人才能拥有手机，那时的技术很麻烦，功能有限，而且不是很好用，但现在的手机已经普及到人手一只了。

    伊茨科夫揶揄说，“只有富人才会花钱消费不成熟的技术。”当寿命延长和“永生”技术足够成熟，能成为主流时，成本将会下降到大众有能力支付的范围。

Your brain on the cloud

    All of this gets far more interesting when one considers what it means in the context of the connected world. Brain implants are going to become commonplace, but they won't just enhance the power of the brain -- they'll unlock the power of the cloud, Kurzweil says.

    In the same way we tap our smartphones to track down information across the web or retrieve a phone number from an email, within a couple of decades our brains will be able to access the collected information in the cloud, extending its reach by an exponential degree. The number of neuron clusters and neural networks in the neocortex is finite, Kurzweil says -- there's quite literally a limit to what we can store and retrieve in the human brain. But with a direct line to the cloud, our brains could theoretically access infinite information and infinite processing power.

    In other words, technology will essentially extend the neocortex indefinitely, Kurzweil said. "Remember what happened the last time we expanded our neocortex?"

2045: Immortality is real

    Or, at the very least, technology will vastly increase the human lifespan in the foreseeable future.

    In the last 200 years we've essentially doubled the average life expectancy for people in developed countries, and we continue to extend it at faster and faster rates thanks to better medical technologies as well as technologies that make human life better. At some point -- and that point is coming soon, Kurzweil said -- we will cross a threshold where every year that goes by we will add a year to the average lifespan.

    "This will go into high gear within 10 or 20 years from now, in probably less than 15 we will be reaching that tipping point where we add more time than has gone by because of scientific progress," Kurzweil said. "Somewhere between 10 and 20 years, there is going to be tremendous transformation of health and medicine."

    Of course, extending the average lifespan isn't a hedge against all death. (In fact, where resource scarcity is concerned, it's a recipe for increased misery and death.) But where the kind of immortality Itskov is talking about -- the digital kind, where the brain is either kept alive in a robotic surrogate or uploaded to silicon -- he points to the relatively huge breakthroughs in the realms of neuroscience and brain machine interfaces that have emerged over the last decade. Prosthetic limbs that respond to brain signals remained the stuff of science fiction a decade ago, yet at Global Futures 2045 the audience saw a working mind-controlled prosthesis in action. Likewise, what sounds absolutely absurd in 2013 might seem a lot more reasonable by 2023 and even commonplace by 2033.

    Itskov believes a thriving immortality industry could be well underway by then, ensuring that the end of one's biological life doesn't necessarily spell the end of one's conscious life. And it will become ubiquitous; immortality won't be a privilege only the wealthy can afford, he says. Kurzweil points to the cell phone. In 10 years technologies tend to become 1,000 times less expensive, he said. Everyone has a cell phone now, and while it's true that at the dawn of the cell phone era only the well-heeled owned them, the technology at that point was cumbersome, limited in function, and didn't work very well.

    "Only the rich have these technologies when they don't work," Kurzweil quipped. By the time life extension and "immortality" technologies are mature enough to be mainstream, the cost will have come down enough to place it within the reach of millions.

技术统治者成为新贵

    但从社会经济学的角度说，在这个生物科技统治的未来也并不是众生平等。各种新技术将在我们周围涌现，马丁说，那些掌握尖端技术的人将会成为社会的精英。这和当今的智能设备文化相比似乎并没有太大差别，能有最新版的智能产品是社会和（或）经济地位的象征。但iPhone只是一个物体，而身体和大脑却远不止是配件或装饰品那么简单。改善认知功能的能力给一些人带来的优势远远超过拥有一个屏幕更出色的智能手机。

    马丁说，技术的统治者将成为新的贵族。那些拥有最好的技术、而不是最多物质的人（很有可能有人会两者兼得，但并不一定），将会成为社会顶层1%的新精英。

Technocracy, the new aristocracy

    But from a socioeconomic standpoint, not everything is going to be fair in this bio-technologically augmented future. Technology will be avalanching all around us, Martin says, and those who have the best technology will be society's elites. That may not seem so different than today's gadget culture, where having the latest iteration of iProduct can be an indication of social and/or economic status. But the iPhone is an object. The body and brain, on the other hand, are more than accessories or adornments. The ability to enhance cognitive function will put some people at an advantage that goes far beyond better screen resolution on one's smartphone.

    The technocracy will be the new aristocracy, Martin said. Those with access to the best technology, rather than those with the most material stuff (the two very well might go hand-in-hand, but not necessarily), will be the new one percent.

未来的《财富》（Fortune）杂志500强……

    “50年后，500强榜单上半数的公司将消失，”彼得•戴尔蒙迪斯博士在回答一个问题时即兴发言说，虽然这绝不是一个科学的数字（他也没有想让这个数字具有科学性），但他回答的大方向却是正确的：上个世纪大行其道的东西在下个世纪未必还会继续存在。

    这样的预测听起来谁都能做，但参考世上公认的成功公司榜单（原谅我在这里自卖自夸）就会发现这不是偶然现象。并不是说我们将迎来一个企业不断失败的世纪，而是旧模式（在某些情况下指旧行业）在新的世界里将不再起作用，技术井喷式地发展将闪电般地改变社会、消费者和经济的内涵。

    但这并不意味着企业就不重要了，戴尔蒙迪斯说。实际上，企业绝对关键。戴尔蒙迪斯说：“变革的速度会非常快，创新也同样日新月异，我相信目前的政府系统没有哪个能应付得过来。”随着新技术边界不断延伸，能够自由探索到边缘的灵活公司和机构不仅会成为今后数十年中最成功的组织，也将担负起政府无法承担的责任，那就是，塑造21世纪的形态。（财富中文网）

    译者：默默

About the Fortune 500 ...

    "Fifty percent of the Fortune 500 will not exist 50 years from now." Dr. Peter Diamandis made this off-the-cuff assertion in response to a question, and while it's not a scientific figure by any means (nor did he mean it to be) his larger point remains valid: What worked in the last century isn't necessarily going to work in the new one.

    That might seem a prediction anyone could make, but the reference to the world's most recognized listing of successful corporations (pardon the self-referential grandstanding) is not an accident. It's not that we're in for a century of corporate collapse, but that old models (and in some cases, old industries) simply aren't going to be relevant in a world where avalanching technological developments are changing society, consumers, and fundamental economics at an increasingly dizzying speed.

    But that doesn't mean corporations aren't important, Diamandis said. In fact, they are absolutely critical. "The rate of change is going so fast, innovation is occurring at such a rate, that I cannot believe that any of our existing government systems can handle it," Diamandis said. Nimble companies and institutions that are free to explore new technologies all the way to the edge of an increasingly large envelope will not only be the most successful over the next few decades, but they will be responsible -- in ways that governments simply cannot be -- for shaping the 21st century.