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Big SIS is watching you（注1）
环视皆“SIS”也

Nov 13th 2009
From The World in 2010 print edition

By Ludwig Siegele
路德维格•西格勒

Ubiquitous technology will make the world smarter
技术无所不在，世界愈加智能

Reuters
路透社

Remember “The Matrix”, the 1999 film in which human beings are plugged into machines? These simulate reality to control humankind and harvest their bodies’ heat and electrical activity.
还记得1999年上映的电影《黑客帝国》里，人类被植入机器吗？这模拟了操控人类并攫获其身体热量与电活动的现实。

Such a parallel universe is indeed emerging. Fortunately, it is not intended to subdue humans, but to allow them to control their environments better. Some computer scientists already talk of the birth of “societal information-technology systems”, or SIS. In 2010 such systems will start to make their presence felt.
这种平行世界确实在悄然兴起。万幸的是，它并不打算制服人类，而是准许其更好地管理周围环境。一些计算机科学家已谈到“社会信息技术系统（SIS）”的诞生。到2010年，这类系统将开始崭露头角。

To grasp this trend, one has first to recognise that the world is exceedingly wasteful. Utilities lose more than 50% of water supplies around the world because of leaky infrastructure. In America alone, congested roads cost billions of dollars a year in lost work hours and wasted fuel. And if the country’s power grid were only 5% more efficient, this would eliminate greenhouse-gas emissions equivalent to those of 53m cars.
为把握此趋势，人们须先意识到世界[存在]极大的[资源]浪费。公共行业因基础设施渗漏浪费了全球一半多供水。仅在美国，每年因道路拥挤造成的工时损失与燃料浪费，就达数十亿美元。而且，若该国电网效率仅提高5％，就会削减相当于5300万辆汽车排放量的温室气体排放。

The reason for such inefficiencies? The infrastructure is not intelligent: roads, power grids and water-distribution systems are all essentially networks of dumb pipes. Over the past few years momentum has been building to make them smarter. More recently, in attempting to overcome the economic crisis, the pace has picked up. Many countries have earmarked a big chunk of their stimulus packages for infrastructure projects.
这些系统效率缺乏的原因何在？[其中一个原因，是]基础设施未智能化：道路、电网及配水系统基本都是哑管道网络。过去几年，其越来越智能的势头正在形成。最近，在试图克服经济危机之际，这一步伐加快了。许多国家已从其经济刺激计划中拨出了大量专款用于基础设施项目[建设]。

The other main driver is technology. Until now, the internet has mainly been about connecting people. Today it is more and more about connecting things—wirelessly. Thanks to Moore’s law (a doubling of capacity every 18 months or so)（注2）, chips, sensors and radio devices have become so small and cheap that they can be embedded virtually anywhere. Today, two-thirds of new products already come with some electronics built in. By 2017 there could be 7 trillion wirelessly connected devices and objects—about 1,000 per person.
另一个主要动力是技术。迄今，互联网大多用于人类之间互相联系。而今它则越来越多地用于连接物体——以无线[方式]。多亏了摩尔定律（每隔18个月左右，[电子器件]容量就翻一番），芯片、传感器及无线电装置变得非常小且价格低廉，事实上可嵌入任何地方。现在，2/3的新产品内置有电子器件。到2017年，无线连接设备与对象可达7万亿——每人约1000个。

Sensors and chips will produce huge amounts of data. And IT systems are becoming powerful enough to analyse them in real time and predict how things will evolve. IBM has developed a technology it calls “stream computing”. Machines using it can analyse data streams from hundreds of sources, such as surveillance cameras and Wall Street trading desks, summarise the results and take decisions.
传感器与芯片将产生海量数据。而信息技术系统[功能]也在增强，强到足以实时分析这些数据并预测事情将如何演变。IBM公司开发了一种自称“流计算”的技术。应用该技术的机器，可分析数以百计源自监控摄像机与华尔街交易坐席之类的数据流，并总结其结果作出结论。

Transport is perhaps the industry in which the trend has gone furthest. Several cities have installed dynamic toll systems whose charges vary according to traffic flow. Drivers in Stockholm pay between $1.50 and $3 per entry into the downtown area. After the system—which uses a combination of smart tags, cameras and roadside sensors—was launched, traffic in the Swedish capital decreased by nearly 20%.
运输也许是该趋势发展最为深入的行业。几个城市安装了动态收费系统，按交通流量收费不同。斯德哥尔摩的驾驶员每次进入市中区，要付1.5美元至3美元。该系统采用了智能标签、摄像机与路边传感器的集合，投入使用后，瑞典首都的交通量下降了近20%。

More importantly, 2010 will see a boom in “smart grids”. This is tech-speak for an intelligent network paralleling the power grid, and for applications that then manage energy use in real time. Pacific Gas & Electric, one of California’s main utilities, plans to install 10m “smart meters” to tell consumers how much they have to pay and, eventually, to switch off appliances during peak hours.
更重要的是，2010年，人们将目睹“智能电网”的兴起。这是技术行话，针对的是一种并行于电网的智能网络，并包含一些实时管理能源消费的应用。加利福尼亚主要公共事业机构“太平洋煤气电力公司”计划安装1000万台“智能仪表”，以告知用户他们须付多少钱，并最终，在高峰时间关闭应用。

Smart technology is also likely to penetrate the natural environment. One example is the SmartBay project at Galway Bay in Ireland. The system there draws information from sensors attached to buoys and weather gauges and from text messages from boaters about potentially dangerous floating objects. Uses range from automatic alerts being sent to the harbourmaster when water levels rise above normal to fishermen selling their catch directly to restaurants, thus pocketing a better profit.
智能技术也可能融入自然环境。一个例子，是在爱尔兰戈尔韦湾实施的“智能湾”项目。该系统从附在航标及气压计上的传感器、及船夫发来的有关潜在危险飘浮物的短信处，收集信息。用途涵盖：水位涨幅超常时向港务局发送自动警报，渔夫向餐厅直接兜售捕获物而获取不斐利润。

Yet it is in big cities that “smartification” will have the most impact. A plethora of systems can be made more intelligent and then combined into a “system of systems”: not just transport and the power grid, but public safety, water supply and even health care (think remote monitoring of patients). With the help of Cisco, another big IT firm, the South Korean city of Incheon aims to become a “Smart+Connected” community, with virtual government services, green energy services and intelligent buildings.
然而，只有在大城市，“智能分级化”才能产生最大影响。层出不穷的系统会愈加智能，进而组成一个“集成系统”：不仅包括运输及电网，也包括公共安全、供水甚至医疗保健（想象一下病人远程监护）。借助于另一个大型信息技术公司Cisco[的支持]，韩国仁川市的目标是成为一个“智能＋连接”社区，拥有虚拟政府服务、绿色能源服务及智能建筑。

The year will see a boom in investment in “smart grids”
今年，人们会目睹“智能电网”投资的兴起

What could stop the world from becoming smart? Surprisingly, the main barriers are not technological. One is security: such systems will be vulnerable to all sorts of hacker attacks. Another is privacy. Many people will feel uncomfortable having their energy use and driving constantly tracked. Bureaucracy will also slow things down. For SIS to work, in many cases several administrations and departments have to collaborate.
有什么能阻止世界越来越智能吗？出人意料，主要障碍并非在技术上。有一个是安全：此类系统易受各式各样的黑客攻击。另一个是隐私。许多人为自己的能源消费及驾驶情况遭到持续跟踪感到不安。官僚主义也拖了后腿。社会信息技术系统要运转，许多情况下需要几个政府与部门通力合作。

And then there is the worry that all these systems will one day gang up on their creators, as in “The Matrix”. Last July computer scientists, artificial-intelligence researchers and roboticists met in California to discuss the risk. But the vendors of smart systems insist that the idea will remain just science fiction. “These systems are designed to operate only within certain boundaries,” says Bernie Meyerson, of IBM’s systems and technology group. “They don’t go off into the weeds.”
于是有了这样的担心：所有这些系统有一天会像《黑客帝国》里描述的那样，合伙造创建者的反。去年7月，计算机科学家、人工智能研究者与机器人专家齐聚加利福尼亚，讨论上述风险。但智能系统的兜售者坚持此想法只会存在于科幻小说中。“[我们]设计这些系统只能在一定范围内运行，”IBM系统与技术小组的伯尔尼•梅尔森称，“它们不会作茧自缚。”

Ludwig Siegele: technology correspondent, The Economist
路德维格•西格勒：《经济学人》技术记者

注1：Big SIS is watching you
Texe W. Marrs著有一本关于希拉里•克林顿的书 Big Sister is Watching You，另外，Whittaker Chamber也写了篇关于女作家Ayn Rand的同名评论文章。本文中的SIS是指Societal information-technology systems，即“社会信息技术系统”，同时SIS也可看作sister的缩写。该标题显见化自于此。

注2：Moore’s law
摩尔定律是指IC上可容纳的晶体管数目，约每隔18个月便会增加一倍，性能也将提升一倍。摩尔定律是由英特尔(Intel)名誉董事长戈登•摩尔（Gordon Moore）经过长期观察发现得之。到底什么是”摩尔定律'”？归纳起来，主要有以下三种”版本”：
　　1、集成电路芯片上所集成的电子器件的数目，每隔18个月就翻一番。
　　2、微处理器的性能每隔18个月提高一倍，而价格下降一半。
　　3、用一个美元所能买到的电脑性能，每隔18个月翻两番。
　　以上几种说法中，以第一种说法最为普遍，第二、三两种说法涉及到价格因素，其实质是一样的。三种说法虽然各有千秋，但在一点上是共同的，即”翻番”的周期都是18个月，至于”翻一番”（或两番）的是”集成电路芯片上所集成的电路的数目”，是整个”计算机的性能”，还是”一个美元所能买到的性能”就见仁见智了。