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Who doesn't love efficiency? I do. Efficiency means more for less.
有谁不爱效率呢？我就很爱效率。效率意味着事半功倍。
More miles per gallon, more light per watt, more words per minute.
每升汽油开更多公里，每瓦电带来更多光亮，每分钟写出更多字。
More for less is the next best thing to something for nothing.
“无中生有”退而求其次就是“事半功倍”。
Algorithms, big data, the cloud are giving us more for less.
算法、大数据、云计算能让我们事半功倍。
Are we heading toward a friction-free utopia or toward a nightmare of surveillance?
我们正在前往毫无阻力的乌托邦，还是即将迎来监控的噩梦？
I don't know. My interest is in the present. And I'd like to show you how the past can help us understand the present.
我不知道。我感兴趣的是现在。我想为各位展示过去能如何帮助我们理解现在。
There's nothing that summarizes both the promise and the danger of efficiency like the humble potato.
没有什么能比平平无奇的土豆更能概括效率的好处与危险。
The potato originated in the Andes and it spread to Europe from the ancient Inca.
土豆发源于安第斯山脉，并从古印加帝国传播到了欧洲。
The potato is a masterpiece of balanced nutrition. And it had some very powerful friends.
土豆可谓是均衡营养的集大成者。它还有一些权势显赫的友人。
King Frederick the Great of Prussia was the first enthusiast.
普鲁士的腓特烈大帝便是第一位土豆爱好者。
He believed that the potato could help increase the population of healthy Prussians.
他相信土豆能帮助增加健康的普鲁士人口。
And the more healthy Prussians, the more healthy Prussian soldiers.
而健康的普鲁士人越多，健康的普鲁士士兵也越多。
And some of those healthy Prussian soldiers captured a French military pharmacist named Parmentier.
有几位健康的普鲁士士兵抓住了一位名叫帕门蒂埃的法国随军药剂师。
Parmentier, at first, was appalled by the morning, noon and night diet fed to POWs of potatoes, but he came to enjoy it.
战俘们的一日三餐顿顿都吃土豆，帕门蒂埃一开始被这些土豆餐震惊了，但他渐渐喜欢上了土豆。
He thought they were making him a healthier person.
他觉得土豆让他变得更健康。
And so, when he was released, he took it on himself to spread the potato to France.
于是，在出狱之后，他主动担起了把土豆引进法国的使命。
And he had some powerful friends. Benjamin Franklin advised him to hold a banquet, at which every dish included potatoes.
而他有一些权势显赫的友人。本杰明·富兰克林建议他举办一场宴会，宴会上的每一道菜里都有土豆。
And Franklin was a guest of honor. Even the king and queen of France were persuaded to wear potatoes, potato flowers, pardon me.
而富兰克林则是一名荣誉贵宾。甚至连法国的国王与王后都被说服佩戴土豆，抱歉，我的意思是土豆花。
The king wore a potato flower in his lapel, and the queen wore a potato flower in her hair.
国王在衣襟上别了土豆花，王后在头发上戴了土豆花。
That was a truly great public relations idea. But there was a catch.
那真是一个出色的公关妙计。但其中藏有玄机。
The potato was too efficient for Europe's good. In Ireland, it seemed a miracle.
土豆在欧洲的传播效率过高，以至于适得其反。在爱尔兰，土豆就像奇迹一样。
Potatoes flourished, the population grew. But there was a hidden risk.
土豆茁壮成长，人口随之繁盛。但其中暗藏风险。
Ireland's potatoes were genetically identical. They were a very efficient breed, called the Lumper.
爱尔兰的土豆在基因上全都相同。它们是一种叫做Lumper的非常高产的品种。
And the problem with the Lumper was that a blight from South America that affected one potato would affect them all.
而Lumper土豆的问题是，从南美洲传来的疫病只要感染一颗土豆，就会感染所有土豆。
Britain's exploitation and callousness played a role,
不列颠的剥削与冷酷固然扮演了重要的角色，
but it was because of this monoculture that a million people died and another two million were forced to emigrate.
但主要还是因为对单一品种的依赖，导致100万人死亡，另外200万人被迫移民。
A plant that was supposed to end famine created one of the most tragic ones.
这种本应结束饥荒的作物反而造成了最为惨烈的饥荒。
The problems of efficiency today are less drastic but more chronic.
今日的效率问题没有那么急剧，但是更加长期。
They can also prolong the evils that they were intended to solve. Take the electronic medical records.
它们还能延长那些本意解决的恶行。比如说电子医疗记录。
It seemed to be the answer to the problem of doctors' handwriting,
它似乎可以解决医生笔迹潦草难辨的问题，
and it had the benefit of providing much better data for treatments.
还有个益处是可以为治疗提供更好的数据。
In practice, instead, it has meant much more electronic paperwork
而实际上，事与愿违，它意味着更多电子文书工作，
and physicians are now complaining that they have less, rather than more time to see patients individually.
医生们现在抱怨他们能单独为病人诊疗的时间没有增加，反而减少了。
The obsession with efficiency can actually make us less efficient.
对效率的执迷其实反而会降低我们的效率。
Efficiency also bites back with false positives. Hospitals have hundreds of devices registering alarms.
效率也会用假阳性倒打一耙。医院有几百件设备能发出警报。
Too often, they're crying wolf. It takes time to rule those out.
但往往都是“狼来了”。排除假警报需要花时间。
And that time results in fatigue, stress and, once more, the neglect of the problems of real patients.
而花费的时间会导致疲劳、压力，以及对真正有需求的病人的忽视。
There are also false positives in pattern recognition.
在模式识别中也存在假阳性。
A school bus, viewed from the wrong angle, can resemble a punching bag.
如果视角错误，校车可能被（计算机视觉算法）误认为拳击沙包。
So precious time is required to eliminate misidentification. False negatives are a problem, too.
于是宝贵的时间不得不被用来排除这些错判。假阴性同样是个问题。
Algorithms can learn a lot -- fast. But they can tell us only about the past.
算法可以迅速学习大量讯息。但它们只能告诉我们关于过去的事情。
So many future classics get bad reviews, like "Moby Dick,"
许多将来会被奉为经典的作品在当时反响很差，比如《白鲸记》；
or are turned down by multiple publishers, like the "Harry Potter" series.
又或者曾被不少出版社拒绝，比如《哈利·波特》系列。
It can be wasteful to try to avoid all waste.
为了试图避免全部次品，可能会错过真正的宝物。
Efficiency is also a trap when the opposition copies it.
当被敌对势力模仿时，效率也能成为陷阱。
Take the late 19th-century French 75-millimeter artillery piece.
比方说，19世纪末期法国的75毫米口径火炮。
It was a masterpiece of lethal design. This piece could fire a shell every four seconds. But that wasn't so unusual.
它的致命性是设计上的杰作。这台火炮每四秒钟能发射一枚炮弹。但那并算不上别致。
What was really brilliant was that because of the recoil mechanism,
它真正的不同凡响之处在于其反后座机制，
it could return to the exact same position without having to be reaimed.
在射击后能自动复位，不需要重新瞄准。
So the effective rate of firing was drastically increased.
于是射击的有效速率便大幅提升了。
Now, this seemed to be a way for France to defeat Germany the next time they fought.
这似乎是法国在下次与德国交战时的制胜法宝。
But, predictably, the Germans were working on something very similar.
但可以预想到，德国人也在开发类似的武器。
So when the First World War broke out, the result was the trench warfare that lasted longer than anybody had expected.
于是当第一次世界大战爆发时，结果便是持续时间超乎任何人想象的壕沟战。
A technology that was designed to shorten the war, prolonged it.
原本意在缩短战争的科技，反而延长了战争。
The biggest cost of all may be missed opportunities.
最大的代价或许是错过的机遇。
The platform economy connecting buyers and sellers can be a great investment, and we have seen that in the last few weeks.
连接买家与卖家的平台经济可以是一项出色的投资，我们在过去几个星期也见识到了。
Companies that are still losing hundreds of millions of dollars may be creating billionaires with initial public offerings.
某些公司仍在亏损数亿美元，但它们的首次公开募股（IPO）却能让人一跃成为亿万富翁。
But the really difficult inventions are the physical and chemical ones.
然而真正艰难的发明是物理与化学上的发明。
They mean bigger risks. They may be losing out, because hardware is hard.
它们意味着更大的风险。可能会蒙受损失，因为硬件研发很难。
It's much harder to scale up a physical or chemical invention than it is a software-based invention.
比起基于软件的发明，基于物理或化学的发明更难扩大规模。
Think of batteries. Lithium-ion batteries in portable devices and electric cars are based on a 30-year-old principle.
比如说电池。可移动设备与电动车中的锂电池的制造原理已有30年历史。
How many smartphone batteries today will last a full day on a single charge? Yes, hardware is hard.
今天有多少智能手机电池能不充电地撑过一整天？没错，硬件很难。
It took over 20 years for the patent on the principle of dry photocopying, by Chester Carlson in 1938,
切斯特·卡尔逊在1938年发现了静电复印的原理，而其专利经过20多年
to result in the Xerox 914 copier introduced in 1959.
才在1959年催生了施乐914复印机。
The small, brave company, Haloid in Rochester, NY had to go through what most corporations would never have tolerated.
这家位于纽约州罗彻斯特市的勇敢的小公司哈洛德，不得不经受了大多数公司永远无法容忍的难关。
There was one failure after another, and one of the special problems was fire.
失败接踵而来，而其中一个特殊问题是火灾。
In fact, when the 914 was finally released,
事实上，当914复印机最终问世时，
it still had a device that was called a scorch eliminator but actually it was a small fire extinguisher built in.
它还配有一个叫做“除焦器”的装置，实际上就是一个内置的小型灭火器。
My answer to all these questions is: inspired inefficiency. Data and measurement are essential, but they're not enough.
我对所有这些问题的解答是：“激发式低效率”。数据与测量至关重要，但只有它们是不够的。
Let's leave room for human intuition and human skills. There are seven facets of inspired inefficiency.
让我们为人类的直觉和技术留出空间。激发式低效率有七个方面。
First, take the scenic route, say yes to serendipity. Wrong turns can be productive.
首先，选择风景独好的路径吧，对偶然性欣然应允。错误的拐弯可能也意味着生产力。
Once, when I was exploring the east bank of the Mississippi, I took the wrong turn.
有次，我在探索密西西比河的东岸时拐错了弯。
I was approaching a toll bridge crossing the great river, and the toll collector said I could not turn back.
我接近了横跨大河的收费大桥，收费员告诉我说我无法回头了。
So I paid my 50 cents -- that's all it was at the time -- and I was in Muscatine, Iowa.
于是我付了50美分--当时只需要这么点过桥费--然后我来到了爱荷华州马斯卡廷。
I had barely heard of Muscatine, but it proved to be a fascinating place.
我几乎没听说过马斯卡廷，但我发现它是个引人入胜的地方。
Muscatine had some of the world's richest mussel beds.
马斯卡廷有世界上最丰饶的贻贝河床。
A century ago, a third of the world's buttons were produced in Muscatine, 1.5 billion a year.
一个世纪以前，世界上三分之一的纽扣都是在马斯卡廷生产的，一年15亿颗。
The last plants have closed now,
最后几家纽扣工厂现在已经关闭了，
but there is still a museum of the pearl button industry that's one of the most unusual in the world.
但这里仍有一家珍珠纽扣产业的博物馆，是世界上最别致的博物馆之一。
But buttons were only the beginning.
不过纽扣只是一个开始。
This is the house in Muscatine where China's future president stayed in 1986, as a member of an agricultural delegation.
在马斯卡廷有一座房子，中国未来的国家主席在1986年进行农业考察时曾在这里住过。
It is now the Sino-US Friendship House, and it's a pilgrimage site for Chinese tourists. How could I have foreseen that?
它现在成为了中美友谊屋，是中国旅客的巡礼圣地。我怎么可能预见这一点呢？
Second, get up from the couch. Sometimes it can be more efficient to do things the hard way.
第二，从座位上起来。有时用费力的方式做事反而效率更高。
Consider the internet of things.
比如说物联网。
It's wonderful to be able to control lights, set the thermostat, even vacuum the room without leaving one's seat.
呆在座位上就能控制电灯、调节温度，甚至给房间吸尘，感觉非常棒。
But medical research has shown that actually fidgeting, getting up,
但医学研究显示，其实动来动去，
walking around is one of the best things you can do for your heart. It's good for the heart and the waistline.
起身四处走走是对心脏最有益的事情之一。对你的心脏和腰围都好。
Third, monetize your mistakes. Great forms can be created by imaginative development of accidents.
第三，从你的错误中获利。对意外进行富有想象力的拓展，可以从中诞生出伟大的形态。
Tad Leski, an architect of the Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center,
泰德·雷斯基是纽约林肯中心大都会歌剧院的一位建筑师。
was working on a sketch and some white ink fell on the drawing.
他在画草稿时，一些白色墨水洒在了稿纸上。
Other people might just have thrown it away,
换做别人可能直接把稿纸扔了，
but Leski was inspired to produce a starburst chandelier that was probably the most notable of its kind of the 20th century.
但雷斯基从中获得灵感，设计出了星射线水晶灯，或许是20世纪此类设计中最为突出的一例。
Fourth, sometimes try the hard way.
第四，有时可以试试困难模式。
It can be more efficient to be less fluent. Psychologists call this desirable difficulty.
不够熟练反而可以提高效率。心理学家将其称为“必要难度”。
Taking detailed notes with a keyboard would seem to be the best way to grasp what a lecturer is saying, to be able to review it verbatim.
用键盘敲下详细的笔记似乎是掌握老师教授内容的最佳办法，以后可以逐字复习。
However, studies have shown that when we have to abbreviate, when we have to summarize what a speaker is saying,
然而研究表明，当我们不得不缩写，不得不概括演讲者的话，
when we're taking notes with a pen or a pencil on paper, we're processing that information.
当我们用纸笔做笔记时，我们实际上正在处理获得的信息。
We're making that our own, and we are learning much more actively than when we were just transcribing what was being said.
我们在将信息消化成自己的东西，相比仅仅在誊写他人的话，我们也在更加主动地学习。
Fifth, get security through diversity. Monoculture can be deadly.
第五，从多样性中获得安全感。单一种植可以是致命的。
Remember the potato? It was efficient until it wasn't. Diversity applies to organizations, too.
还记得土豆的故事吗？它一开始很高产，直到后面一落千丈。多样性对于组织同样适用。
Software can tell what has made people in an organization succeed in the past.
软件可以判断，过去是什么因素让组织里的人获得了成功。
And it's useful, sometimes, in screening employees. But remember, the environment is constantly changing,
这有时候对甄选雇员也有用。但请记住，环境一直在改变，
and software, screening software, has no way to tell, and we have no way to tell, who is going to be useful in the future.
而筛选软件并没有办法辨别，我们也没有办法辨别谁在将来会变得有用。
So, we need to supplement whatever the algorithm tells us by an intuition
所以，我们需要对算法的结果进行补充，通过直觉，
and by looking for people with various backgrounds and various outlooks.
通过寻找拥有不同背景、不同视野的人。
Sixth, achieve safety through redundancy and human skills.
第六，通过冗余和人类的技术实现安全的目的。
Why did two 737 Max aircraft crash? We still don't know the full story, but we know how to prevent future tragedies.
为什么两架737Max飞机坠毁了？我们仍不清楚事情全貌，但我们知道如何避免未来的悲剧。
We need multiple independent systems. If one fails, then the others can override it.
我们需要多个独立的系统。如果一个系统失灵，其它系统便可以凌驾其上。
We also need skilled operators to come to the rescue and that means constant training.
我们还需要训练有素的操纵者救场，这意味着需要不断训练。
Seventh, be rationally extravagant. Thomas Edison was a pioneer of the film industry, as well as of camera technology.
第七，做到合理的奢侈。托马斯·爱迪生是电影产业以及摄影技术的先驱。
Nobody has done more for efficiency than Thomas Edison. But his cost cutting broke down.
爱迪生为效率做出的贡献无人能及。但他节约成本的做法是失败的。
His manager hired a so-called efficiency engineer,
他的经理雇佣了一位所谓的效率工程师，
who advised him to save money by using more of the film stock that he'd shot, having fewer retakes.
建议他使用更多拍摄过的素材，并减少重拍的次数，从而节约成本。
Well, Edison was a genius, but he didn't understand the new rules of feature films
爱迪生是个天才，但他并不理解专题片的新规则，
and the fact that failure was becoming the price of success.
以及失败正在成为成功的代价这个事实。
On the other hand, some great directors, like Erich Von Stroheim, were the opposite.
另外一方面，一些伟大的导演，例如埃里希·冯·施特罗海姆，则刚好相反。
They were superb dramatists, and Stroheim was also a memorable actor.
他们是出类拔萃的剧作家，施特罗海姆同时也是位不可多得的演员。
But they couldn't live within their budgets. So that was not sustainable.
但他们没法限制预算，因此难以为继。
It was Irving Thalberg, a former secretary with intuitive genius, who achieved rational extravagance.
真正做到“理性的奢侈”的，是欧文·托尔伯格，一位具有天才般直觉的前秘书。
First at Universal, and then at MGM, becoming the ideal of the Hollywood producer.
他先后在环球电影公司和米高梅公司任职，成为了好莱坞制片人的模范。
Summing up, to be truly efficient, we need optimal inefficiency.
总结来说，为了变得真正高效，我们需要最优的低效。
The shortest path may be a curve rather than a straight line. Charles Darwin understood that.
捷径或许是曲线，而非直线。查尔斯·达尔文深谙其道。
When he encountered a tough problem, he made a circuit of a trail, the sandwalk that he'd built behind his house.
当他遇到难题时，他便沿着自家屋后的沙石小径转圈散步。
A productive path can be physical, like Darwin's, or a virtual one, or an unforeseen detour from a path we had laid out.
一条富有生产力的道路可以像达尔文的路一样是实体的，也可以是无形的，偏离我们预想方向的一次绕路。
Too much efficiency can weaken itself. But a bit of inspired inefficiency can strengthen it.
过度追求高效可能会降低效率，而一点点激发式低效则可以提升效率。
Sometimes, the best way to move forward is to follow a circle. Thank you.
有时候，前进的最佳方式是舍近求远。谢谢。
