《那些古怪又让人忧心的问题》第26期:人力计算机(1)

HUMAN COMPUTER

人力计算机

Q. How much computing power could we couldachieve if the entire world population stopped whatever we are doing right nowand started doing calculations?How would it compare to a modern-day computer orsmartphone?

Q．如果全世界所有人都停下手头的工作开始做计算，那么一共能有多少计算能力？这些计算能力和现代的计算机或智能手机相比谁更厉害呢？

A. ON ONE HAND, HUMANS and computers dovery different types of thinking, so comparing them is like comparing applesand oranges.

A．一方面来说，人类和计算机的思考方式完全不同，所以拿它们作比较就类似于比较苹果和橘子。

On the other hand, apples are better.1Let's try directly comparing humans and computers at the same tasks.

另一方面，苹果要更好一些。我们不妨比较人类和计算机做相同任务时究竟谁更快。

It's easy, though getting harder every day,to invent tasks that a single human can do faster than all the computers in theworld. Humans, for example, are probably still far better at looking at apicture of a scene and guessing what just happened:

要设计出一个任务，使得一个人能比全世界所有计算机都做得快是很容易的，但每过一天难度就会更大一些。比如，人类在看一幅照片场景并猜测之前发生的事情时，目前仍远胜于计算机。

To test this theory, I sent this picture tomy mother and asked her what she thought had happened. She immediatelyreplied, “The kid knocked overthe vase and the cat is investigating.”

为了测试这个理论，我把这幅图片发给我妈妈，问她认为发生了什么。2她立刻回复说：“小孩儿把花瓶打碎了，那只猫正在查看这只花瓶。”

She cleverly rejected alternate hypotheses,including:

我的母亲很聪明地否定了其他一些可能，包括：

The cat knocked over the vase.

猫撞倒了花瓶。

The cat jumped out of the vase at the kid.

猫从花瓶里跳出来扑向孩子。

The kid was being chased by the cat andtried to climb up the dresser with a rope to escape.

猫追着孩子到处跑，孩子拿着一根绳子试图爬到梳妆台上逃跑。

There's a wild cat in the house, andsomeone threw a vase at it.

房间里有一只野猫，有个人朝它扔了一个花瓶。

The cat was mummified in the vase, but arosewhen the kid touched it with a magic rope.

猫被制成木乃伊放进了花瓶里，当孩子用具有魔力的绳子碰了一下后猫复活了。

The rope holding the vase broke and the catis trying to put it back together.

固定花瓶的绳子断了，而这只猫正试图把它放回去。

The vase exploded, attracting a child and acat. The child put on the hat for protection from future explosions.

花瓶爆炸了，把孩子和猫都吸引了过来。小孩儿戴上了帽子，防止后续爆炸伤到他。

The kid and cat are running around tryingto catch a snake. The kid finally caught it and tied a knot in it.

孩子和猫跑来跑去想要抓住一条蛇，小孩儿最终抓住了蛇并把它打了个结。