盖茨: 先进科学技术不能拯救世界(1)

Computers are not going to save the world, says Bill Gates, whatever Mark Zuckerberg and the rest of Silicon Valley might believe. The power of the internet will do nothing for the world's poorest - but eradicating disease just might.

比尔•盖茨(Bill Gates)说，电脑拯救不了世界——不管马克•扎克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg)以及硅谷其他人怎么看。互联网的威力根本帮不了全球最贫穷的人群，倒是根除某些疾病有望造福于穷人。

Bill Gates describes himself as a technocrat. But he does not believe that technology will save the world. Or, to be more precise, he does not believe it can solve a tangle of entrenched and inter-related problems that afflict humanity's most vulnerable: the spread of diseases in the developing world and the poverty, lack of opportunity and despair they engender. “I certainly love the IT thing,” he says. “But when we want to improve lives, you've got to deal with more basic things like child survival, child nutrition.”

盖茨自称是技术统治论者（technocrat）。但他不相信技术能够拯救世界。或者更准确地说，他不相信技术能解决发展中国家根深蒂固且相互关联的问题：疾病、贫困，机会匮乏和由此带来的绝望。“我当然喜欢IT的玩意儿，”他说，“但当我们要改善人们的生活时，你得处理一些更为基本的事情，如儿童的生存和营养。”

These days, it seems that every West Coast billionaire has a vision for how technology can make the world a better place. A central part of this new consensus is that the internet is an inevitable force for social and economic improvement; that connectivity is a social good in itself. It was a view that recently led Mark Zuckerberg to outline a plan for getting the world's unconnected 5 billion people online, an effort the Facebook boss called “one of the greatest challenges of our generation”. But asked whether giving the planet an internet connection is more important than finding a vaccination for malaria, the co-founder of Microsoft and world's second-richest man does not hide his ­irritation: “As a priority? It's a joke.”

如今，对于技术如何能让世界变得更美好，似乎美国西海岸的每一位亿万富翁都有着同一个愿景。这种新共识的核心内容是，互联网是一股推动社会和经济改善的不可回避的力量；网络互连本身就是一种社会公益。正是这种观点促使扎克伯格最近制定了一项旨在帮助全球民众都能上网的计划。目前在全球范围内还有50亿人未能连接网络。这位Facebook的老板称，此举是“我们这代人面临的最大挑战之一”。但在被问及让全球人都能上网是否比找到疟疾疫苗更重要时，微软(Microsoft)联合创始人、世界第二富豪盖茨丝毫不掩饰自己的愤怒：“优先普及互联网？这简直是开玩笑。”

Then, slipping back into the sarcasm that often breaks through when he is at his most engaged, he adds: “Take this malaria ­vaccine, [this] weird thing that I'm thinking of. Hmm, which is more important, connectivity or malaria vaccine? If you think connectivity is the key thing, that's great. I don't.”

接着，盖茨的语气又回到了他在辩得最起劲时常常流露出的那种嘲讽上，他说：“就拿这种疟疾疫苗（这个）我正在琢磨的古怪玩意来说吧。嗯，哪一个更重要，网络连通性还是疟疾疫苗？如果你认为网络连接是重要，那很好。但我可不这么认为。”

At 58, Bill Gates has lost none of the impatience or intellectual passion he was known for in his youth. Sitting in his office on the shore of Seattle's Lake Washington, the man who dropped out of Harvard University nearly four decades ago and went on to build the world's first software fortune is more relaxed than he was. He has a better haircut and the more ­pronounced air of self-deprecation that comes with being married and having children who have reached adolescence. But, with the relentless intellectual energy he has always brought to bear on whatever issue is before him, he still can't resist the jibes at ideas he thinks are wrong-headed. After the interview, his minders call to try and persuade me to not report his comments on Zuckerberg: as a senior statesman of the tech and philanthropic worlds, it doesn't help these days to pick fights.

58岁的盖茨仍旧是年轻时那般缺乏耐心和求知心切。近40年前，他从哈佛大学(Harvard University)辍学，后来缔造了全球第一家成功的软件巨擘。此时此刻，他坐在西雅图华盛顿湖(Lake Washington)畔的办公室里，心态比以前更轻松。他的发型也更为讲究，举手投足间更明显地散发出成熟男人（他的孩子已进入青春期）那典型的自嘲气场。但那始终如一的知识分子的特性，使得他仍忍不住要对那些他认为荒唐的想法嘲笑一番。本次专访结束后，他的助手们打电话来，试图说服我不要报道他对扎克伯格的评论——作为一名跨越科技界和慈善界的资深政治家，眼下挑起争论可不是上策。

There is no getting round the fact, however, that Gates often sounds at odds with the new generation of billionaire technocrats. He was the first to imagine that computing could seep into everyday life, with the Microsoft mission to put a PC on every desk and in every home. But while others talk up the world-changing power of the internet, he is under no illusions that it will do much to improve the lives of the world's poorest.

但很难回避的一个事实是，盖茨的言论往往与新一代技术统治论的亿万富翁们格格不入。他是第一个想象电脑计算可能渗入日常生活的人，当年微软的使命就是让每张办公桌上和每个家庭里都有一台个人电脑(PC)。但当别人津津乐道互联网拥有改变世界的力量时，他却不抱任何幻想，认为互联网对改善世界穷人的生活不会起到太大帮助。

“Innovation is a good thing. The human condition - put aside bioterrorism and a few footnotes - is improving because of innovation,” he says. But while ­“technology's amazing, it doesn't get down to the people most in need in anything near the timeframe we should want it to”.

他说：“创新是件好事。人类的生存条件正因创新而不断改善，暂且不提生物恐怖主义和几个脚注”但是，尽管“科技是神奇的，但它根本不能按照我们设定的时间表却造福最需要帮助的人们。”

It was an argument he says he made to Thomas Friedman as The New York Times columnist was writing his 2005 book, TheWorld is Flat, a work that came to define the almost end-of-history optimism that accompanied the entry of China and India into the global labour markets, a transition aided by the internet revolution. “Fine, go to those Bangalore Infosys centres, but just for the hell of it go three miles aside and go look at the guy living with no toilet, no running water,” Gates says now. “The world is not flat and PCs are not, in the hierarchy of human needs, in the first five rungs.”

盖茨说，他曾向纽约时报(New York Times)专栏作家托马斯•弗里德曼(Thomas Friedman)提出这个观点，当时弗里德曼正在著述《世界是平的》(The World is Flat)。2005年出版的这本书，最终成为一部突显历史仿佛就要终结的乐观情绪的著作。这种乐观情绪是伴随中国和印度进入全球劳动力市场出现的，而这种转变正是在互联网革命的帮助下实现的。盖茨说，“好吧，可以去看看印孚瑟斯(Infosys)在班加罗尔的商业中心，但不妨观察得到位一点，到距那些中心3英里外的地方去看看那些生活在没有厕所、没有自来水环境中的人们。”“世界不是平的，在人类需求阶梯上，PC排不到前5位。”

It is perceptions such as this that have led Gates to spend not just his fortune but most of his time on good works. Other ­billionaires may take to philanthropy almost as a mark of their social status but, for Gates, it has the force of a moral imperative. The decision to throw himself into causes like trying to prevent childhood deaths in the developing world or improving ­education in the US was the result of careful ethical calculations, he says.

正是基于这样的观念，盖茨将自己的财富以及大部分时间投入到慈善事业。其他亿万富翁或许几乎把行善当作自身社会地位的一种标志，但对盖茨来说，这是一种道德需要。他表示，自己之所以决定投身于防止发展中国家儿童死亡或提高美国教育水平这样的事业，是因为在道德层面经过了仔细的考虑。

Quoting from an argument advanced by hedge fund manager Paul Singer, for instance, he questions why anyone would donate money to build a new wing for a museum rather than spend it on preventing illnesses that can lead to blindness. “The moral equivalent is, we're going to take 1 per cent of the people who visit this [museum] and blind them,” he says. “Are they willing, because it has the new wing, to take that risk? Hmm, maybe this blinding thing is slightly barbaric.”

他援引对冲基金经理保罗•辛格(Paul Singer)曾提出，为什么会有人捐钱给某个博物馆兴建新的侧厅，而不是把钱花在预防可能导致失明的疾病上。“从道德层面说，这样的举动就等同于我们把1%的博物馆参观者变成盲人。”他说，“就因为博物馆有了新的侧厅，他们就愿意冒这个风险吗？嗯，也许这个变成盲人的构想野蛮了一点。”

Through the stroke of pen on chequebook, Gates probably now has the power to affect the lives and wellbeing of a larger number of his fellow humans than any other private individual in history. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which he set up with his wife in 1997 and where he has been working since leaving his full-time role at Microsoft five years ago, gives away nearly $4bn a year. Much of the money goes towards improving health and fighting poverty in developing countries by tackling malaria or paying for vaccination drives against infectious diseases. This is nearly half as much as the US government spent on global health initiatives in 2012.

在漫长的人类历史中，为慈善事业大开支票的盖茨，现在和其他人物相比很可能拥有影响更多人生活与健康的威力。1997年，他与妻子共同设立了“比尔和梅琳达•盖茨基金会”(Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation)。5年前他从微软的全职岗位上退下来后，一直致力于该基金会的工作。如今，该基金会每年支出近40亿美元。很大一部分资金被用于在发展中国家抗击疟疾或资助接种疫苗预防传染病，以求改善健康状况、摆脱贫困。这一数字接近2012年美国政府全球健康倡议支出的一半。

In many ways, Gates was the archetype for the successful tech entrepreneur, the driven nerd who created an industry with little more than foresight and drive. But to the generation of aspiring techno-visionaries who have followed, the arc of his career no longer has the allure it once did, even if his iconic status is assured. These include people such as Peter Diamandis, a serial entrepreneur who founded the X Prize, which in 1996 offered a $10m award for the first private sector organisation that could create a suborbital space rocket. He likes to think big, and his latest brainstorm involves trying to mine minerals on passing asteroids.

在许多方面，盖茨都堪称成功高科技创业家的典型代表——他是充满激情的电脑狂，几乎单凭远见和锲而不舍就缔造了一个产业。但是，对于一代曾效仿盖茨的、有抱负的技术梦想家来说，尽管盖茨的偶像地位仍不可动摇，但他的职业生涯轨迹已经光环褪去，包括连环创业家彼得•迪曼蒂斯(Peter Diamandis)也这样看待盖茨，迪曼蒂斯曾创立X Prize，该组织在1996年设立了一项1000万美元的大奖，拟颁给首家开发出亚轨道太空火箭的私营机构。迪曼蒂斯喜欢宏大的构想，他的最新创意涉及从近地小行星上开采矿物。

According to Diamandis, the Gates Foundation, with its focus on alleviating the suffering of the poorest, smacks of the early20th-century philanthropy of the robber barons - men such as Andrew Carnegie and John D Rockefeller, who built and then milked monopolies before spending their later years doling out cash to worthy causes. The latest wave of techno-visionaries, he says, is focused instead on creating whole new industries capable of changing the world.

迪曼蒂斯认为，致力于减轻穷苦人群苦难的盖茨基金会，有点像20世纪早期“强盗大亨”的那种慈善，像安德鲁•卡内基(Andrew Carnegie)和约翰•D•洛克菲勒(John D Rockefeller)等人的作为，他们建立并利用垄断企业来发迹，然后在晚年将向崇高的事业大笔挥豪。他说，与之不同，最新一波技术梦想家致力于缔造能够改变世界的全新产业。

At the height of its powers, the way that Microsoft wielded its PC monopoly to maximise profits from the computing industry made it feared and hated by rivals and start-ups alike. Now, with the PC world on the wane and the company's leadership and direction in doubt, it is spoken of almost with disdain in Silicon Valley - even though it remains the third biggest tech company based on stock market value, behind Apple and Google.

实力达到顶峰时的微软，曾试图利用其在PC领域的垄断地位，在计算行业赚取最大化的利润，这种做法使得竞争对手和初创企业对其又恨又怕。如今，随着PC产业日渐衰落、微软的领导地位和发展方向受到质疑，尽管微软仍是市值仅次于苹果和谷歌后的第三大的科技公司，硅谷人士在谈到微软时流露出的则是近乎不屑的语气。

Gates fends off questions about Microsoft, though he says - contrary to persistent speculation - that he is not about to step back in to run it as Steve Jobs once returned to revive Apple. He also admits that the company is taking up a much bigger slice of his time than the one day a week to which he signed up after he left. As chairman and a member of the committee searching for a replacement to Steve Ballmer as chief executive, Gates says he still holds regular meetings with some of the company's product groups and that he expects to spend considerable time working with the next boss after an appointment is made.

盖茨不愿回答有关微软的问题。不过他说，与一直以来外界的猜测相反，他无意像当年史蒂夫•乔布斯(Steve Jobs)回去重振苹果那样再度执掌微软。他还承认，目前他花在微软身上的时间远多于预期水平，他离开时确认的是每周一天。盖茨仍是微软董事长，他参与物色接替史蒂夫•鲍尔默(Steve Ballmer)出任首席执行官的人选，他说他仍与公司的某些产品小组定期开会，并预计会在下一任掌门人获得任命后，投入相当的时间与其合作。

To Diamandis's argument that there is more good to be done in the world by building new industries than by giving away money, meanwhile, he has a brisk retort: “Industries are only valuable to the degree they meet human needs. There's not some - at least in my psyche - this notion of, oh, we need new ­industries. We need children not to die, we need people to have an opportunity to get a good education.”

同时盖茨还对迪曼蒂斯有关缔造新产业比捐钱搞慈善更有益于世界的观点给出了尖锐的反驳：“一个产业只有能够满足人类的需求时，才是有价值的。不存在，至少在我心中不存在“我们需要新产业”的概念，我们需要的是孩子健康成长、人们有机会接受良好的教育。”