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网络搜索结果背后的道德偏见

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So whenever I visit a school and talk to students, I always ask them the same thing:

每当我参观一所学校,和学生们交谈,我总是问他们同样的问题:
Why do you Google? Why is Google the search engine of choice for you?
为什么你用Google?为什么你首选Google作为搜索引擎呢?
Strangely enough, I always get the same three answers.
奇怪的是,我总是得到三个相同的回答。
One, "Because it works," which is a great answer; that's why I Google, too.
第一个回答,“因为它是个管用的搜索工具,”这是最好的答案,也是我使用Google的原因。
Two, somebody will say, "I really don't know of any alternatives."
第二个回答是,“我真的不知道其他任何可代替的方法。”
It's not an equally great answer and my reply to that is usually,
这不是一个很好的回答,而我的回应总是,
"Try to Google the word 'search engine,' you may find a couple of interesting alternatives."
“尝试在Google上键入搜索引擎,你可以发现一些有趣的、可代替的搜索方法。”
And last but not least, thirdly, inevitably, one student will raise her or his hand and say,
最后一个回答并非不重要,如我所预料的,一个学生举手说,
"With Google, I'm certain to always get the best, unbiased search result."
“使用Google,我确信总得到最好和客观公正的搜索结果。”
Certain to always get the best, unbiased search result.
一定得到最好和客观公正的搜索结果。
Now, as a man of the humanities, albeit a digital humanities man,
作为一个学习人文科学的人,尽管我是研究科技和人文科学间关系的,
that just makes my skin curl, even if I, too, realize that that trust,
这个回答听起来使我心里发毛,尽管我也知道,
that idea of the unbiased search result is a cornerstone in our collective love for and appreciation of Google.
这种对搜索结果的信任,是以我们共同喜爱和对Google的认识为基础的。
I will show you why that, philosophically, is almost an impossibility.
我会证明给你看,这种想法在哲学思维分析上几乎不存在。
But let me first elaborate, just a little bit, on a basic principle behind each search query that we sometimes seem to forget.
但首先,我对网上查询的基本原则说明一下,我们有时似乎忘记,每个搜索查询背后的原则。
So whenever you set out to Google something, start by asking yourself this: "Am I looking for an isolated fact?"
因此,每当你用Google查询所需的东西,首先要问自己:“我要寻找个别的事实吗?”
What is the capital of France? What are the building blocks of a water molecule? Great -- Google away.
例如,法国的首都是哪里?水分子的构成要素是什么?使用Google搜索都能找到这些答案。
There's not a group of scientists who are this close to proving that it's actually London and H30.
没有一个严密的科学家小组去证明这些答案实际上会是伦敦和H3O。
You don't see a big conspiracy among those things.
在这些答案中,你不会找到什么阴谋。
We agree, on a global scale, what the answers are to these isolated facts.
我们同意,在全球范围内,这些个别事实通过网上查询能找到答案。
But if you complicate your question just a little bit and ask something like, "Why is there an Israeli-Palestine conflict?"
但是,如果你搜索一些稍复杂的问题,例如,“为什么出现以色列和巴勒斯坦之间的冲突?”
You're not exactly looking for a singular fact anymore, you're looking for knowledge,
你不会只寻找单独形式的个别事实,你要找的是知识,
which is something way more complicated and delicate. And to get to knowledge,
这些知识会表现出很复杂和微妙的形式。为了获得这些知识,
you have to bring 10 or 20 or 100 facts to the table and acknowledge them and say, "Yes, these are all true."
你必须要搜索10、20或100个相关的事实并认可这些事实,说:“这些都是真实的。”
But because of who I am, young or old, black or white, gay or straight, I will value them differently.
但是,取决于我是谁,年龄、肤色、性别取向,人们以不同方式去评估这些事实。
And I will say, "Yes, this is true, but this is more important to me than that."
我会说,“这是真实的,但对我来说,这些事实比那些更重要。”
And this is where it becomes interesting, because this is where we become human.
事情在这里变得微妙,你可以在这里发现人性。
This is when we start to argue, to form society.
当我们开始对这些事实进行辩论,这就形成社会。
And to really get somewhere, we need to filter all our facts here,
要获得真实的信息,我们需要对所有的事实进行过滤,
through friends and neighbors and parents and children and coworkers and newspapers and magazines,
通过我们的朋友、邻居、父母和小孩还有通过同事、报纸和杂志,
to finally be grounded in real knowledge, which is something that a search engine is a poor help to achieve.
最后会得到真实的知识,这些真实的知识,很难依赖网上搜索引擎的帮助。
So, I promised you an example just to show you
让我举例证明,
why it's so hard to get to the point of true, clean, objective knowledge -- as food for thought.
要得到真实,公正和客观的知识有多困难--提供另一个观点供你们思考。
I will conduct a couple of simple queries, search queries.
在这里,我会进行一些简单的搜索查询。
We'll start with "Michelle Obama," the First Lady of the United States.
我们查询“米歇尔·奥巴马,”美国第一夫人。
And we'll click for pictures. It works really well, as you can see.
我们点击她的图片。你能看到,这个查询方法很管用。
It's a perfect search result, more or less. It's just her in the picture, not even the President.
或多或少这是一个完美的搜索结果。只有她在相片中,她的总统丈夫不在相片中。
How does this work? Quite simple.
搜索引擎是如何工作呢?很简单。
Google uses a lot of smartness to achieve this, but quite simply, they look at two things more than anything.
Google使用大量智能技术呈现搜索结果,但很简单,它们比任何其他东西,更多看两样东西。
First, what does it say in the caption under the picture on each website?
首先,每个网站上的图片标题是什么?
Does it say "Michelle Obama" under the picture?
在图片下有显示“米歇尔·奥巴马”吗?
Pretty good indication it's actually her on there.
有的话会是很好的指标。
Second, Google looks at the picture file, the name of the file as such uploaded to the website.
第二,Google显示图像文件,该文件的名字会传到网站。
Again, is it called "MichelleObama.jpeg"?
被称为“MichellObama.jpeg”吗?
Pretty good indication it's not Clint Eastwood in the picture.
非常好的指标,它不是Clint Eastwood的图片。
So, you've got those two and you get a search result like this -- almost.
你已经获得两个搜索结果,而且你会得到其他像这样类似的结果。
Now, in 2009, Michelle Obama was the victim of a racist campaign, where people set out to insult her through her search results.
在2009年,米歇尔·奥巴马是一个种族主义运动的受害者,有些人通过网上搜索结果,有意对她进行侮辱。
There was a picture distributed widely over the Internet where her face was distorted to look like a monkey.
有一张她的相片在互联网上广泛散布,她的脸被扭曲,看起来像一只猴子。
And that picture was published all over.
这张相片在全世界公布了。
And people published it very, very purposefully, to get it up there in the search results.
这些人很故意地发布这张相片,登载在互联网上,在她相关图片的搜索结果中。
They made sure to write "Michelle Obama" in the caption
这些人确信,要用“米歇尔·奥巴马”作标题,
and they made sure to upload the picture as "MichelleObama.jpeg," or the like.
而且,他们确信上传的图片为“MichelleObama.jpeg"。
You get why -- to manipulate the search result. And it worked, too.
你明白这个原因--操纵搜索结果。而且,它也管用。

网络搜索结果背后的道德偏见

So when you picture-Googled for "Michelle Obama" in 2009, that distorted monkey picture showed up among the first results.

当你2009年Google搜索图片“米歇尔·奥巴马”,被扭曲了的猴子图片会出现在第一个搜索结果中。
Now, the results are self-cleansing, and that's sort of the beauty of it,
现在,这图片在搜索结果中自我消失了,这是Google的优点,
because Google measures relevance every hour, every day.
因为Google每小时、每天都测量信息的相关性。
However, Google didn't settle for that this time, they just thought,
但是,Google在这个事件上没有妥协,Google只是想,
"That's racist and it's a bad search result and we're going to go back and clean that up manually.
“这是种族主义的表现,是糟糕的搜索结果,我们要通过人工来清除它。
We are going to write some code and fix it," which they did.
我们会编写一些代码并修复它。”他们确实这么做了。
And I don't think anyone in this room thinks that was a bad idea. Me neither.
我不认为,这里会有人觉得这个主意不好。我也不觉得。
But then, a couple of years go by, and the world's most-Googled Anders, Anders Behring Breivik, did what he did.
但是,几年过去后,世界上最多用Google搜索的是安德斯,安德斯·贝林·布雷维克,他为所欲为做他想做的事。
This is July 22 in 2011, and a terrible day in Norwegian history.
在2011年7月22日,在挪威史上是很可怕的一天。
This man, a terrorist, blew up a couple of government buildings walking distance from where we are right now in Oslo, Norway
Anders是恐怖分子,他在挪威首都奥斯陆炸毁了几栋政府大楼,离我们现在所在地仅几步之遥,
and then he traveled to the island of Utoya and shot and killed a group of kids. Almost 80 people died that day.
然后,他前往Utoya岛,并开枪打死一群孩子。近80人在那天丧生。
And a lot of people would describe this act of terror as two steps, that he did two things:
很多人描述他的恐怖行为有两个步骤,他做了两件事:
he blew up the buildings and he shot those kids. It's not true. It was three steps.
炸毁建筑物和枪杀那些孩子。这不是真的。它包括三个步骤。
He blew up those buildings, he shot those kids, and he sat down and waited for the world to Google him.
他炸毁那些建筑物,他枪杀孩子,还有,他坐下来并等待全世界的人用Google搜索他。
And he prepared all three steps equally well.
他同样出色地准备了这三个步骤。
And if there was somebody who immediately understood this,
如果有人立刻明白了他的目的,
it was a Swedish web developer, a search engine optimization expert in Stockholm, named Nikke Lindqvist.
那这个人就是瑞典的一位互联网开发者,名叫Nikke Lindqvist,是斯德哥尔摩的搜索引擎优化专家。
He's also a very political guy and he was right out there in social media, on his blog and Facebook.
他也是一个非常政治化的家伙,他刚好就在社群网络上,浏览他的博客和脸书。
And he told everybody, "If there's something that this guy wants right now, it's to control the image of himself.
他告诉大家,这个人现在最想要的是能够主宰他自己的形象。
Let's see if we can distort that. Let's see if we, in the civilized world,
让我们试着扭曲他的形象。让我们尝试在文明世界里,
can protest against what he did through insulting him in his search results."
透过他的搜寻结果侮辱他,来抗议他的恶行。”
And how? He told all of his readers the following,
要怎么做呢?他让所有的读者这样做,
"Go out there on the Internet, find pictures of dog poop on sidewalks -- find pictures of dog poop on sidewalks
“连上网络,搜寻一下狗狗在路边大便的图片--搜寻一下狗狗在路边大便的图片,
publish them in your feeds, on your websites, on your blogs.
上传到你们的发文、网页、博客。
Make sure to write the terrorist's name in the caption, make sure to name the picture file "Breivik.jpeg."
记得一定要把这位恐怖分子的名字写到标题中,确保图片文件名是Breivik.jpeg。
Let's teach Google that that's the face of the terrorist." And it worked.
一起来告诉Google这就是那位恐怖分子的脸孔。后来真的成功了。
Two years after that campaign against Michelle Obama, this manipulation campaign against Anders Behring Breivik worked.
继米歇尔·奥巴马那件事的两年之后,这次针对安德斯·贝林·布雷维克所发起的操纵运动成功了。
If you picture-Googled for him weeks after the July 22 events from Sweden,
你如果在7月22日后的几个礼拜,你在瑞典Google图片搜寻他的话,
you'd see that picture of dog poop high up in the search results, as a little protest.
你会看到先出现的都是狗狗在路边大便的图片,算是对他小小的讨伐。
Strangely enough, Google didn't intervene this time.
奇怪的是,Google这次竟撒手闭眼。
They did not step in and manually clean those search results up.
他们没有介入,手动把这些搜寻结果清除掉。
So the million-dollar question, is there anything different between these two happenings here?
那我要问你们一个迫切而困难的问题,这两件事有什么差别吗?
Is there anything different between what happened to Michelle Obama and what happened to Anders Behring Breivik?
究竟发生在米歇尔·奥巴马身上的事件跟安德斯·贝林·布雷维克的有何差别?
Of course not. It's the exact same thing, yet Google intervened in one case and not in the other.
当然没有。这两件事根本是一样的,但Google并没有一视同仁。
Why? Because Michelle Obama is an honorable person, that's why, and Anders Behring Breivik is a despicable person.
为什么?因为米歇尔·奥巴马德高望重,而安德斯·贝林·布雷维克十恶不赦。
See what happens there? An evaluation of a person takes place
你看到了吗?有人被断定其好坏,
and there's only one power-player in the world with the authority to say who's who.
而世上只有一个大玩家被赋予权利去判定对错。
"We like you, we dislike you. We believe in you, we don't believe in you.
“我们喜欢你,我们不喜欢你。我们相信你,我们不相信你。
You're right, you're wrong. You're true, you're false.
你对,你错。你说真话,你说谎。
You're Obama, and you're Breivik." That's power if I ever saw it.
你是奥巴马,你是布雷维克。”这就是权势。
So I'm asking you to remember that behind every algorithm is always a person,
所以我在此提醒你,在任何运算中都有一个人在背后,
a person with a set of personal beliefs that no code can ever completely eradicate.
一个拥有自己根深蒂固、难以动摇的信仰的人。
And my message goes out not only to Google, but to all believers in the faith of code around the world.
我发布这些信息,要告诉的不只是Google,更是对世上所有相信某种教条的人。
You need to identify your own personal bias.
你需要确定自己个人的偏见。
You need to understand that you are human and take responsibility accordingly.
你必须明白你身而为人要担当起的相应的责任。
And I say this because I believe we've reached a point in time
我说这些,因为我相信我们已经及时达成共识,
when it's absolutely imperative that we tie those bonds together again, tighter: the humanities and the technology.
我们必须重新把这些联系系到一起:人文跟科技之间的联系。
Tighter than ever. And, if nothing else,
比以往任何时候更紧密。而且,抛开其他不谈,
to remind us that that wonderfully seductive idea of the unbiased, clean search result is,
我认为这个关于公正、干净的搜索结果的极其吸引人的想法,
and is likely to remain, a myth. Thank you for your time.
将很可能依旧是天方夜谭。多谢你们的聆听。

重点单词   查看全部解释    
conflict ['kɔnflikt]

想一想再看

n. 冲突,矛盾,斗争,战斗
vi. 冲突,争

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describe [dis'kraib]

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vt. 描述,画(尤指几何图形),说成

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myth [miθ]

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n. 神话

 
identify [ai'dentifai]

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vt. 识别,认明,鉴定
vi. 认同,感同身

 
unbiased ['ʌn'baiəst]

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adj. 公正的

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complicate ['kɔmplikeit]

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vt. 弄复杂,使错综,使起纠纷

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filter ['filtə]

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n. 筛选,滤波器,过滤器,滤色镜
v. 过滤

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global ['gləubəl]

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adj. 全球性的,全世界的,球状的,全局的

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singular ['siŋgjulə]

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adj. 个人的,单数的,独一的,唯一的,非凡的

 
dislike [dis'laik]

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v. 不喜欢,厌恶
n. 不喜爱,厌恶,反感

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