肯尼思·斯坦利：设定正确的目标

你可能会喜欢评估、问责、目标和指标，因为它们让你感觉更好，仿佛这样就能确保坏事不会发生。

You might like assessment and accountability and objectives and metrics because they make you feel better because it feels like we're making sure that nothing bad will happen.

但你必须认识到这只是一块心理安慰毯。

But you have to recognize it's just a security blanket.

这根本行不通。

It doesn't work.

脱掉束缚衣，丢掉心理安慰毯，坦然接受现实世界的运作方式。

Take off the straight jacket, get rid of the security blanket and just acknowledge how reality works.

我更希望现实是这样运作的——只要我下定决心实现某个目标，就一定能达成。

And it'd be better, I prefer if reality worked where if I set an objective, like I could just get to it as long as I'm sufficiently determined to do it.

你知道，那样会很方便，但现实并非如此运作。

You know, that'd be really convenient, but it's just not the way reality works.

欢迎收听知识工程播客。

Welcome to the Knowledge Project Podcast.

我是主持人肖恩·帕里什。

I'm your host, Shane Parish.

本播客旨在掌握他人已探索出的精华，以便你能将这些洞见应用于生活和商业中。

This podcast is about mastering the best of what other people have already figured out so that you can apply their insights in life and business.

如果你正在收听，说明你错过了更多精彩内容。

If you're listening to this, you're missing out.

若想获取仅限会员的专属节目、优先收听权、经过手工编辑的完整文稿（包含我个人标注的重点）及其他会员专属内容，可访问fs.blog/membership加入。

If you'd like special member only episodes, access before anyone else, hand edited transcripts, including my personal highlights, and other member only content, you can join at fs.blog/membership.

节目备注中附有链接，欢迎查看。

Check out the show notes for a link.

今天，我将与肯·斯坦利进行对话。

Today, I'm speaking with Ken Stanley.

肯是《伟大无法被规划：目标迷思》一书的作者，这本我读过并深爱的书促使我联系他进行交流。

Ken is the author of Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned, The Myth of the Objective, a book I read and loved, so I reached out and wanted to chat with him.

肯目前正在规划他的下一段冒险旅程，但不久前他还在OpenAI领导着一个研究团队。

Ken is currently deciding his next adventure, but recently led a research team at OpenAI.

在本期节目中，我们将深入探讨一个简单却值得严肃对待的理念。

In this episode, we're gonna take a simple idea and take it seriously.

这个理念就是关于目标设定问题的探讨。

That idea is the question of objectives.

当目标适度时它们看似有益，但随着野心膨胀，情况会变得复杂得多。

They seem good when they're modest, but things get a lot more complicated the more ambitious they get.

我们还将探讨对量化指标日益增长的迷恋，为何我们能接受科学中的失败，却在政治或教育等领域难以容忍，以及为何加倍努力并不总能达成预期成果。

We also explore the growing obsession with metrification, why we accept failure in science but not when it comes to things like politics or education, Why trying harder doesn't always help you achieve the outcomes you seek.

为何不能过分执着于既定目标而对意外与计划外机遇视而不见，以及为何要避开那些过于合理的想法。

Why you can't be so tied to your destination that you're not open to the unexpected and unplanned, and why you should avoid ideas that make too much sense.

现在，让我们开始聆听与学习。

It's time to listen and learn.

你写了一本质疑目标价值的书，揭示了一个惊人悖论：适度目标有益，但野心勃勃时情况会变得复杂。

You wrote a book about questioning the value of objectives, which revealed a surprising paradox that objectives are good when they're modest, but things get more complicated when they're ambitious.

你能详细阐述这一点吗？

Can you expand on that?

好的。

Yeah.

这是人们不常谈论的话题。

This is something that people don't talk about that often.

人们很少讨论设定目标所存在的问题。

People don't talk about the problem with setting objectives.

社会上存在一些争议。

There are some controversies in society.

目前这还不属于其中之一。

This is currently not one of them.

但仔细想想，这其实是我们一直在做的事。

But yet, if you think about it, this is something that we do all the time.

我认为，我们文化中最根深蒂固的观念之一，就是把成就、发现与设定目标并追求目标联系在一起。

Basically, of the, I think, deepest facets of our culture is that we think of accomplishment and achievement and discovery in terms of setting an objective and then pursuing it.

我的本职工作是从事人工智能研究。

And I do research in artificial intelligence, my normal job.

在研究过程中，我们开始看到不可否认的证据，表明这种成就实现方式存在严重缺陷。

And in the course of doing that research, we just started to see undeniable evidence that that approach to achievement has some serious flaws.

最初意识到这一点时，主要还是一种算法层面的认识，比如，好吧，这对人工智能有应用和影响。

And that realization at first was mostly just an kind of algorithmic realization like, okay, well, has applications and implications for artificial intelligence.

但随着时间的推移，我们逐渐明白，实际上它的影响远不止于人工智能领域，因为这不仅仅是人们在算法或人工智能中做的事情，而是基本上贯穿生活和我们的文化，是我们一直在做的。

But it dawned on us over time that actually it has a lot more implications than just for artificial intelligence because it's not just something people do in the algorithms or artificial intelligence, but in basically in life and in our culture, it's what we do all the time.

我开始觉得，或许几乎迫切需要将这一点引入某种公共讨论中。

And it started to seem to me maybe almost urgent that this is actually brought into a public conversation of some sort.

这就是为什么我和我的合著者乔尔·莱曼决定走一条非传统的道路，写这样一本并非关于人工智能的书，试图至少引发讨论，如果不是改变机构和人们构建行为方式的话。

So that's why myself and my coauthor, Joel Lehman, decided to kind of take the unconventional road of writing a book like this, which is not an AI book, and kind of try to provoke at least at least the conversation, if not some kind of change in the way that institutions and people structure what they're doing.

我想我们会深入探讨这种方法的某些缺点，或许还有围绕它的一些微妙之处。

I think we're going to get into sort of some of the drawbacks to this approach and maybe some of the nuances around it.

在此之前，你提到过一些伟大的想法从未成为任何人的目标，至少在它们被发现之前是这样。

Before we do, you sort of mentioned that some great ideas were never objectives for anyone, at least until they were discovered.

摇滚乐，我想青霉素是另一个例子。

Rock and roll, I think penicillin's another one.

你能详细说说吗？

Can you say more on that?

是的。

Yeah.

我的意思是，这与偶然发现的概念有关。

I mean, it's related to the idea of serendipity.

而且，你知道，在偶然的发现中，你并没有预料到会做出这样的发现。

And, you know, in serendipitous kinds of discoveries, you weren't expecting to make it.

我认为其中的洞见是，这种情况比我们通常讲述的关于发现、发明和创新如何产生的叙事要普遍得多。

And I think the insight is that this is something that is much more common than the kind of narrative that we tell ourselves about how discoveries, inventions, innovations are made.

实际上，我们为促成这类重要发现所做的很多事情，实际上是为自己创造有效的偶然性创造条件，这与我们谈论设定目标并朝着它前进时的说法不同。

And actually, lot of what we do that facilitates making these kinds of important discoveries is to actually set ourselves up for having effective serendipity, which is not the way that we talk about things when we talk about setting an objective and just moving towards it.

所以，像摇滚乐这样的例子就很好，它不是那种你可以设定为目标的东西，因为在遇到它之前，它甚至还不存在作为一个概念。

So of course, something like rock and roll, which is a good example, it's not the kind of thing that you could set as an objective because it doesn't even exist as an idea until you run into it.

然而不知何故，你知道，当猫王出现在现场时，各种条件已经就绪，让他能够偶然遇到这个。

And yet somehow, you know, the pieces were in place, like when Elvis was there on the scene, for him to kind of run into this.

我认为有趣的问题是，为什么会发生这种情况。

And the question I think that's interesting is why that happens.

什么样的情境会导致这种情况发生，又是哪种人会利用这种情境？

Like what kind of situation leads to that and what kind of person will take advantage of that kind of situation?

所有目标都是一样的吗？

Are all objectives the same?

不是。

No.

这是我观点的一个重要前提：许多目标在我看来只能算是平庸的。

And it's it's a it's an important caveat to what I'm saying that there are many objectives that I guess I would characterize them as just modest.

比如我想跑得更久些，或者想减点体重，甚至可能想拿个会计学位——对会计专业并无不敬之意。

Like for example, I want to be able to run for longer or I want to lose some weight or maybe even I want to get a degree in accounting, nothing against accounting.

我称这些目标为平庸，仅仅因为它们已被实现过无数次。

But the reason I call those things modest is just because, well, they've been done many times.

我们都知道这些事情是能够达成的。

Like, we know that these are achievable things.

我认为这些需要与我所称的雄心勃勃的目标区分开来。

And I think those need to be distinguished from what I would call ambitious objectives.

所谓雄心勃勃，我指的是那些我们还不知道如何实现的事情。

So by ambitious, I mean, these are things we don't know how to do.

我们不确定它们将如何完成，尽管我们渴望达成。

We're not sure how they're going to get accomplished, even though we want to accomplish them.

治愈癌症、实现通用人工智能或类似目标，这些才是真正雄心勃勃的。

Curing cancer or achieving artificial general intelligence or something like that, those are really ambitious.

因此当我或书中批评某些目标时，我们明确指的就是这类雄心勃勃的目标。

And so when I critique objectives or when the book does and it tries to make it clear, it's really the ambitious ones that we're talking about here.

设定适度目标不应受到这种批评的影响。

Having modest objectives, it shouldn't be affected by this critique.

试图摒弃这些目标，几乎会显得有点古怪偏执。

It would be verging on kind of nutty, cranky type of behavior to try to get rid of those.

当然，你可以设定适度的目标。

Of course, you can set modest objectives.

但必须记住，我们社会的许多进步都依赖于那些雄心壮志。

But you have to remember, that like a lot of our society runs on the ambitious ones.

我们寄希望于创新能解决各种问题，并将我们带入一个全新的世界。

We are banking on innovation to save us from all kinds of problems and also to deliver us into a new world of different types.

因此我们依赖于这类雄心勃勃的事情发生。

And so we depend on this kind of ambitious stuff to happen.

而我们以目标为导向的运作方式，或许是一种自我欺骗，实际上正在削弱我们的效率——即真正利用现有资源进行这类发现的能力，因为我们未能认清它们实际是如何运作的。

And the fact that we run things as if they actually happen through objectives is perhaps self deception that is then really grinding down our efficiency, like ability to really take advantage of the resources that we have to make these kinds of discoveries by recognizing how they actually work.

所以雄心勃勃目标的核心问题在于，多数情况下，单纯加倍努力并不能帮你达成预期结果。随之而来的另一个问题是，你不能对成就愿景过于执着，以至于对意外和计划外的情况视而不见。

So the core problem with the ambitious objectives then is that in many cases trying harder won't help you achieve the outcomes you're seeking and sort of like a follow on to that, you can't be so tied to your vision of accomplishment that you're not open to the unexpected and unplanned.

是的。

Yeah.

书中确实提到一个看似矛盾的原则：设定目标反而可能阻碍你实现目标的能力。

So it is true that like one of the principles in the book is that you can actually block your own ability to reach an objective by setting it, which is paradoxical.

应对这种矛盾既困难又重要，这也是本书试图探讨的内容——即如何应对这种困境。

Grappling with that is hard and important and something that the book tries to discuss, like how to grapple with that.

但确实，在追求宏大目标时，设定过于雄心勃勃的目标反而会让我们取得的成果更少。

But yes, we're actually causing ourselves to achieve less in these ambitious cases by setting very ambitious objectives.

我们设定雄心勃勃的目标时，通常会同时设立一些衡量进展的指标。

And one of the things that we do when we set an ambitious objective conventionally is that we would also set some metrics up to measure progress towards that objective.

我认为问题就出在这些指标或评估上，它们常常让我们陷入困境。

And that's where I think things really get tripped up, these metrics or assessments.

在我们的文化中，我们酷爱评估。

We love assessment in our culture.

我们有着非常浓厚的评估文化。

We have a very big assessment culture.

评估本质上试图给我们一种安全感，让我们感觉正在朝着目标前进并确实取得了进展。

And assessment is basically trying to give us a security blanket so we can feel like we're moving towards the objective and that we're actually making progress.

但问题是，很多时候即使你的指标分数在短期内上升，也不意味着最终能达到你期望的高度。

And the problem is that a lot of the time, even if your score on a metric is going up in the short run, it doesn't mean it will all get all the way to the point that you want it to get.

这是个根本性问题。

It's a fundamental problem.

这被称为'自欺'，是所有复杂问题的根本症结所在。

It's called deception, and it's a fundamental problem of all complex problems.

因此，我们如此依赖这些评估和指标的事实极具欺骗性，最终可能导致我们在一条虚假的道路上投入大量资源，而这条路实际上会走向死胡同。

And so the fact that we rely so much on these assessments and metrics is very deceiving and can ultimately cause us to invest a lot in a deceptive path, which is actually going to lead to a dead end.

这就是为什么虽然违反直觉，但设定一个你正在严格评估进展的严格目标实际上可能对你不利。

And that's why it can actually be, although it's counterintuitive, it can actually be bad for you to have a very strict objective that you're assessing movement towards.

让我们把这个观点具体化一下。

Let's sort of make that tangible.

你在书中举的一个例子是关于学校和提升学生表现的。

One of the examples you give in the book around that is schools and improving student performance.

我在想，这既难以反驳，尽管投入了数十亿甚至数万亿美元，似乎也从未得到改善。

And I'm thinking here that's both hard to argue with and it also never seems to improve despite billions, if not trillions of dollars.

所以进步无法简单地压缩成单一指标，但对于这类问题，我们该如何应对？尤其是当政客或决策者需要为自己的选择承担责任时。

And so progress sort of can't be packed into a single metric, but what should we do instead for something like that where we also need accountability on behalf of politicians or decision makers who have some sort of skin in the game for their choices?

‘问责’这个词总是被提及。

That word accountability always comes up.

这有点像我们为什么觉得必须要有这些指标和评估。

It's sort of like why we feel like we have to have these metrics and assessments.

教育就是这方面的一个绝佳例子。

And education is a great example of this.

教育体系确实有一个目标，只是有点模糊。

So the education system does have an objective and it's a little bit fuzzy.

虽然通常不会明确表述，但我会将其描述为：教育体系的目标是让所有学生在一系列评估测试中都能取得满分。

It's not usually stated explicitly, but I would characterize it something like the objective of the education system is for everyone that's in the education system, all of the students to score perfectly on a bunch of assessment tests.

如果每个人都能做到完美，那将是理想状态。

That would be ideal if everybody was perfect.

当然我们永远无法完全达到这个目标，但这将是最完美的终极目标。

Of course, we're never going get quite to there, but that would be the ultimate perfect objective.

是什么因素导致了这个结果？

What leads you to that outcome?

我们目前离这个目标还差得很远。

We don't come close to that outcome right now.

许多人的表现远低于我们的期望水平。

We have many people whose performance is way below what we want to see.

这就是我们的问题所在。

So that's our problem.

这就是教育体系的问题所在。

That's what the problem with the education system is.

因此我们试图通过设定目标来解决这个问题。

And so we're trying to solve it by being objective.

所以我们说，好吧，我们需要的是标准化考试。

So we say, Okay, well, what we need then is we need some standardized tests.

我们基本上要在全国范围内推行这些标准化考试，其他国家也在做类似的事情。

We're going to blanket the entire country basically with these standardized tests and other countries to do something similar.

这样我们就有了一个通用衡量标准，可以用来评估各地是否取得了进展。

And then we have a universal measure or metric that can be used to decide whether progress is going well in local locations.

比如你所在学区的表现仍然通过这种全国通用的考试来评估，这样我们就能比较不同地区的情况，看看是否朝着正确方向发展。

Like if what's going on in your local school district is still being assessed with this kind of like a global test that is used across the nation, then we can compare things and see if things are moving in the right direction in different locations.

问题在于这容易陷入一种欺骗性困境，或者说我称之为'目标悖论'的现象——表面上你的指标每年都在小幅提升，但这并不一定意味着能达到让所有人都取得满分，甚至超过我们认为合格线的水平。

And the problem is that this is subject to this deceptive problem or what I would call this objective paradox, which is that you can look like, you know, your metrics are going up a little bit from year to year, but that has nothing to do with necessarily getting to a point where everybody is scoring perfectly or even above the threshold that we would consider acceptable.

历史已经证明了这一点。

And that's borne out by history.

这种情况从未发生过。

Like it never happens.

我们每隔十年左右就会试图重振旗鼓。

We keep on trying to revive like every decade or something.

每次都会出现新一轮的推动，说什么这次我们真的要严肃对待了。

Like there's a whole new like push to like, let's really do this seriously this time.

但结果总是周而复始地重复同样的模式。

And just the same thing over and over again.

我们似乎从未从这个错误中吸取教训。

Like we don't learn from this mistake.

问题并不在于评估方式存在缺陷。

It's that the problem isn't that the assessment is somehow flawed.

问题出在评估本身。

The problem is with assessment itself.

在某些极其复杂的问题上——教育正是其中之一——我们无法仅通过设计一套评估体系并试图以此达成那个极其复杂的目标来取得进展。

We cannot make progress in certain kinds of extremely complex problems, which education is one of those, simply by just laying out some assessment system and then trying to follow it towards this global objective, which is just incredibly complex to get to.

但正如你所说，这时就涉及到问责机制的问题。

But what comes into play then is what you said, which is this accountability issue.

当你收到批评时——就像我刚才说的那样——人们显然会对标准化测试提出各种批评。

If you get a critique, like what I just said, at first, I mean, people make critiques, obviously, against standardized tests.

而通常的回应是：好吧，那问责机制从何而来？

And the response is usually like, Okay, well, where's accountability going to come from?

这是让人们承担责任的方式。

This is the way to hold people responsible.

问题在于这并不一定是非此即彼的二元选择——要么有问责机制，要么完全不做评估。

And the problem is that it's not necessarily a dichotomy the way it's being presented, where like you either have accountability or you have no assessment at all.

完全有可能通过不同的方式实现问责。

There is a possibility of having accountability with a different approach.

但我们需要一种能认识到如何在极端复杂的问题中实现创新突破的方法——这正是本书试图探讨的核心：这类突破性发现是如何产生的。

But we need to have an approach that recognizes how you actually make innovative progress in an extremely complex problem, which is what the book tries to get into in general, how those kinds of discoveries are made.

这类问题的关键在于，我们不知道实现最终目标所需的垫脚石——在这个案例中指的是普遍的高成就水平。

And really what happens in these kinds of problems is that because we don't know the stepping stones, like this is the key thing, the stepping stones that we need to traverse through in order to get to the outcome that we finally want, which in this case is like this universal high achievement.

我们实际上并不知道需要跨越什么。

We don't actually know what we need to cross through.

而我们几乎可以确定的是，其中一件事——即每个人明年都只进步一点点——绝不会是这些垫脚石之一。

And what we can almost be sure is that one of those things that's not a stepping stone is everybody getting just a tiny bit better next year.

这种情况很可能不会发生。

Like, that's not probably going to happen.

即便真的发生，也不太可能带来这种全球性的普遍高成就。

And if it did happen, that not probably going to lead to this kind of universal global high achievement.

因此这极具迷惑性。

And so it's very deceptive.

所以真正的垫脚石很可能是反直觉的。

And so the stepping stones are likely things that are counterintuitive.

这正是这些通用指标开始失效的地方——如果真正能引领我们到达目标的垫脚石是反直觉的（即它们与你预期的不同），那么这些指标就毫无用处，对吧？

And this is what where these metrics start to break down, like that we use across all these institutions, is that if the actual stepping stones that lead to where we want to go are counterintuitive, in other words, they're not what you would expect, then the metrics are useless, right?

因为它们无法识别那些垫脚石，因为这些垫脚石看起来并不符合指标试图检测的标准。

Because they won't detect those stepping stones because they don't look like what the metrics are trying to detect.

仔细想想，它们当然会是反直觉的。

And if you think about it, of course they're going to be counterintuitive.

这就像一条定律。

It's like a rule.

因为关键在于，如果垫脚石不是反直觉的，那这就不是一个难题。

Because the thing is, if the stepping stones are not counterintuitive, then it's not a hard problem.

我们早就该解决了。

So we would have solved it already.

问题的难点本质上就在于你不知道垫脚石是什么。

That's basically what makes a problem hard is you don't know what the stepping stones are.

如果你知道，那就不成问题了。

If you do, then you don't have a problem.

你甚至不需要进行评估，只需跟随垫脚石前进。

You don't even need to do the assessments, just follow the stepping stones.

正因我们不知道垫脚石是什么，我们需要做的是大量产生垫脚石候选，那些可能导向有趣事物的可能性，但我们无法预知具体是哪一种。

And so because we don't know the stepping stones, what we need to do is we need to proliferate stepping stones, like stepping stone candidates, things that could lead to something interesting, but we don't know which one.

这在某些方面与投资有诸多相似之处。

There's a lot this is related in some ways to investing.

这非常像投资行为。

It's a lot like investing.

就像你持有一个创意组合，却无法预知其中哪个会带来回报。

It's like you have this portfolio of ideas and you don't know which one is going to pay off.

但你必须持有这个组合，因为你无法事先做出这类预测。

But you need to have that portfolio because you can't a priori make that kind of prediction.

因此我们需要检验一些最终可能没有回报的垫脚石。

And so we will have some we would need to have some stepping stones that we check into that don't ultimately pay off.

但如果我们拥有组合，其中部分终将产生回报，并衍生出更多垫脚石。

But if we have a portfolio, then some will pay off and eventually branch to more stepping stones.

而其中某些将引领我们找到那个终极圣杯。

And some of those will lead to this, you know, ultimate holy grail.

但问题是，显然我们会面临一些风险，也会遇到一些行不通的事情。

But the thing is that obviously, we're going to we're going to have some risk and we're going to have some some things that don't work out.

我们需要容忍这种情况。

And we need to tolerate that.

因为只有这样，才能让垫脚石不断涌现。

And that's because that's what allows stepping stone to proliferate.

而通常这类评估和问责文化是不允许这种情况的。

And generally these kinds of assessment and accountability cultures don't allow that.

要知道，在这种问责文化下，你不会愿意容忍那些看起来不符合你简单指标的成功标准的事物。

You know, if you have this accountability culture, you're not going to be willing to tolerate having things that don't look like they're succeeding with respect to your naive metrics.

所以你需要一种完全不同的文化，同时仍要保持问责——毕竟人们离不开问责机制。

And so you need a completely different kind of a culture and you still want accountability because people just can't live without accountability.

但我认为问责需要更加细致入微。

I But think accountability needs to be much more nuanced.

它需要认识到：判断事物价值的标准在于它是否是块有趣的垫脚石，而不是某个指标是否在上升。

It needs to recognize that what makes something valuable is if it's an interesting stepping stone, not whether a metric is going up.

就好比在阿拉巴马州某个偏僻小镇上，有位老师做了件有趣的事——提升整个教育体系的关键，就是通过社交网络传播这样的案例。

It's like if there's a teacher out there in some obscure town in the middle of Alabama or something who does something interesting, like the key to getting the education system overall to improve is to disseminate that through the social network.

那位老师的做法虽不能解决教育领域的所有问题，但它会成为部分人的解决方案，他们可以在此基础上跟进，迈向下一块垫脚石，探索其可能性。

Like what that teacher did, it's not necessarily the solution to everything, all the problems you have in education, but it will be the solution for some people and they can follow-up on that and go to the next stepping stone and see where it leads.

也许其中某些尝试会走入死胡同，但如果不通过教师社交网络传播这些实践，我们永远无法知晓结果。

Maybe some of these things lead to dead ends, but we can't find out if it doesn't disseminate through the social network, in this case, the network of teachers.

我们的体系目前完全没有建立任何促进这种传播的机制。

There's nothing set up whatsoever to facilitate that in our system.

一切都高度集中和全球化，导致所有事物都用同质化的标准来衡量。

Everything is centralized and globalized, so that everything is assessed with respect to the same kind of criteria.

因此当某个偏远角落发生有趣的教学实践时，无人知晓、无人跟进、无人思考讨论。

So if something interesting happens in some obscure place, nobody's going to know about it, nobody can follow-up on it, nobody can think about it, discuss it.

但在新的评估体系中，这类创新应该被认可和奖励。

But in the new version of assessment, that should be recognized and rewarded.

具体方式我有些想法，不过——还是尽量不占用太多时间讨论这个了。

In some way, I can think of ways, but I won't, I try not to take up too much time with this.

我们可以讨论一下，如果你想的话。

We could discuss if we want.

但我们可以设想，通过同行评审等方式来识别有趣的事物。

But there are ways we can imagine that peer review and things like that could allow us to recognize interesting things.

我们还需要评估吗？

We still have assessment?

比如我们不会允许完全疯狂的事情发生。

Like we don't allow completely crazy things to go on.

你知道，如果有人提议说干脆在学校什么都不做，就让孩子到处乱跑之类的。

You know, like if somebody proposes like, let's just not do anything in school and let the kids run around or something.

好吧，这种情况会被类似同行评审的机制筛选掉。

Okay, this would get caught by something like peer review.

但我们确实需要能够识别那些有趣的事物，这意味着它们无法通过常规评估技术客观检测出来。

But we do need to be able to recognize things that are interesting, which means things that are not objectively detectable through the usual assessment techniques.

对此我有四点想法。

I have four thoughts that came from that.

同行评审难道不会本能地排斥任何反直觉的观点吗？

Wouldn't wouldn't peer review necessarily push back on anything that's counterintuitive?

这实际上涉及一个文化层面的问题。

So there's a cultural issue actually with that.

如果我们生活在一个时刻高压的文化环境中，比如你的上司随时盯着你，要求你必须严格遵循他们认定的所谓'责任线'，稍有偏差就会面临严重后果。

Like if we live in a culture where you're basically under the gun all the time, so people are basically your boss is looking at you and saying, if you don't like walk the narrow line that we consider to be the well, the accountable line, you're in trouble, like big trouble.

你可能会丢掉工作，或者失去研究经费。

Like you could lose your job or something, or you could lose funding.

那么同行评审体系也会受到这种文化的侵蚀。

Then the peer review system will also suffer from that culture.

人们会像文化警察一样，试图确保所有人都遵循这套规范。

People will be like trying to kind of patrol the culture to make sure that it's being adhered to.

但我认为事情不一定要这样运作。

But I don't think that has to be the way it works.

我认为同行评审的真正意义，是让每个个体都能从自己的独特视角发声。

I think that peer review is what it's supposed to do is allow individuals to speak from their individual perspective.

因此它基本上将个人从这种宏大的、单一视角的'何为善行'定义中解放出来。

So it basically disentangles the individual from this large kind of global monolithic view of what it means to be doing something good.

这种情况确实会发生。

And that happens.

这并非一个不可能实现的愿景。

That is not an impossible vision.

但要知道，创新实际上往往是通过个体间的联系产生的。

But because, you know, people, generally how innovation actually happens is individual connections.

大多数人看到别人的想法时都会说：这不符合常规模式。

Most people see some idea somebody had and say, well, that doesn't fit with the usual paradigm.

比如他们会说这实际上不是个好主意。

Like that's not actually a good idea.

就像我们现在都确信自己知道正确的方式，非常清楚应该做什么。

Like we know the right way now, we're all very sure right now what we need to be doing.

但总会有某个持不同意见的人能看透这一点。

But there's some one contrarian or something who sees that.

实际上，我觉得这里大有可为。

It's like, actually, like I can see a lot of potential here.

如果你给他们表达的空间——这里的表达不仅指写评论（他们当然可以写），还包括跟进、亲自尝试并在此基础上发展，因为他们看到了别人看不到的潜力火花。

And if you give them the space to express that, in fact, express means not just to write a critique, which they could, but also to follow-up and actually try it themselves and build on it, because they see the spark there of potential, which other people don't see.

是的，我认为这就是想法在网络中渗透的方式。

Then yeah, I think that that is how ideas percolate through networks.

就像有些人，个体做出的决定在某种程度上脱离了该领域的大众共识。

Like there's people, individuals make decisions that are somewhat disentangled from like the large mass of consensus around the field.

我认为同行评审可以促进这一点，但你必须开始给予人们许可，明确表示这是一种改变。

And I think that peer review can facilitate that, but you have to start giving people permit, like make it clear that this is a change.

我们不再处于这种普世评估文化中了。

We're not in this universal assessment culture anymore.

事情不会那样运作。

That's not how this is going to work.

但我们仍将利用同行作为问责机制。

But we're still going to use the peers as accountability.

你的同行会看到你的所作所为，所以你不能肆意妄为做出愚蠢的事。

Your peers will see what you do, so you can't just go crazy and do something stupid.

如果事情完全无法容忍，他们会举报，但他们也有机会做出独特的评估。

And they will report it if it's something absolutely intolerable, but they have an opportunity to make unique assessments.

我们不是在告诉他们应该喜欢什么。

We're not telling them what they should like.

就像在学术出版中，你确实会经历同行评审。

It's just like in academic publishing, you do get peer review.

在那里，同行评审作为文化的一个标准环节确实存在。

That's a place where a peer review does happen as sort of a standard aspect of the culture.

你不能指导审稿人如何思考——审稿人是他们领域的专家。

You don't tell the reviewers how to think about The reviewers are the experts in their field.

当论文提交给期刊后，会有审稿人或其他科学家参与。

So a paper has been submitted to a journal and you have some reviewers or other scientists.

你知道的，告诉他们：‘好吧，你应该这样思考这个问题。’

You know, tell them, Okay, well, here's how you should think about this.

就像他们可以按照自己的方式去思考这个问题

Like they get to think about it how they want to think about it.

但这并不意味着同行评审不存在重大问题

But that doesn't mean that there aren't big problems with peer review.

事实上，我认为科学出版物中的同行评审以及获取资助提案的评估都存在缺陷，这也是客观思维导致的

And in fact, I think peer review in scientific publication and also in the assessment of proposals for getting grants is flawed also because of objective thinking.

但在这个领域，如果我们能正确构建评审机制（虽然与现有结构会有所不同），我认为我们可以开始摆脱这种全局性思维

But it is a place where I think we can, if we structure it right, which would be somewhat different than how it's structured even there, I think we can start to escape this kind of a global thinking.

这很有趣，因为同行评审系统似乎也没有捕捉到我们面临的重复性危机——虽然'危机'这个词被过度使用了，但它确实没能发现这类错误

It's so interesting because like the peer review system has sort of also not caught the replication crisis that we've Crisis is an overuse of the term, but it hasn't caught that sort of mistake.

但听起来你真正想说的是，对于远大目标而言，它们都遥不可及

But it sounds like what you're really saying is that with ambitious goals, they're far off in the future.

我们不知道下一个垫脚石在哪里，所以最好采取一种进化式的方法：我们创造这些变异或复制错误，尝试各种小实验，然后观察哪些实验能带来有趣的见解或结论

We don't know what the next stepping stone is and so it's better to almost take an evolution ary approach where we're creating these mutations or copying errors or we're trying all these little experiments and then we see which of those experiments leads to some interesting insights or conclusions.

这样做的理念是：我们获取这些结论或有趣见解后，将其传播到所有其他节点，几乎就像大自然在奖励变异一样

Then the idea being we take those conclusions or that interesting insight and then we propagate it to all the other nodes, almost like nature sort of rewarding variations.

我们盲目地这样做，因为我们不知道什么会产生最好的结果。

And we do this blindly because we don't know sort of what will yield the best results.

你对此怎么看？

How do you think about that?

是的，这个描述很到位。

Yeah, that's a good characterization.

其实，你提到进化是个巧合，因为这本书中讨论的起源背景是我当时在研究进化算法，这是人工智能的一个分支。

Actually, it's a coincidence that you bring up evolution because the background behind the genesis of this discussion in the book is that I was working in evolutionary algorithms, and this is in a branch of artificial intelligence.

我当时试图理解自然界中的进化是如何实现那些令人难以置信的创新。

I was trying to understand what actually allows evolution in nature to make the kinds of incredible innovations that it makes.

如果从计算机科学而非生物学的角度来看待进化，它是一种非常独特的存在——就像一种搜索或学习算法，在一次运行中就发现了自然界中所有被创造出来的事物。

If you think about it from a computer science perspective, opposed to biology perspective, what evolution is, It's a very unique thing in the sense that it's kind of like a search or a learning algorithm that discovered everything that was ever created in nature in a single run.

这与典型的机器学习非常不同，后者通常是集中所有资源去解决某一个特定问题，这就是目标和运行的全部。

This is very different from what you see in typical machine learning, which is like, we're going to try to solve a very hard problem and just that one problem and all the resources go to that one problem and that's the objective and that's the run.

一个单一运行能发现所有问题的解决方案，这是非常非常独特的。

It's very, very unique that you would have a single run discover the solution to every problem.

所以我所说的问题是指，比如如何实现飞行？

And so what I mean by problems, like how do you get flight to work?

如何实现光合作用？

How do you get photosynthesis to work?

如何达到人类水平的智能？

How do you get human level intelligence?

这些都发生在同一次运行中。

Like it's all one run.

我试图从算法角度理解这一点，不是像生物教科书那样，而是思考：我们能否创造出与自然界运作方式类似的算法？

And I was trying to understand this from an algorithmic perspective, not like a biology textbook, but like, can we actually create algorithms that work in some analogous way to what nature has done?

因此，这本书中的讨论源自那项工作的一些启示，虽然看似与进化算法相距甚远，但实际上紧密相关，因为它基于对自然界创新方式的认识。

And so it comes from some of the revelations that came from that work, this discussion, which seems somewhat remote from that, but it's very connected actually, because it's based on a recognition of how nature was innovating.

你提到的一个关键点，我想特别强调一下，就是'有趣'这个词。

And one of the keys that you mentioned, I just wanted to highlight, the word interesting.

当我们讨论自然选择时，问题就变成了：谁能生存下来？

You know, when we talk about selection in nature, it's like who survives?

通常人们不会用‘有趣’这个词来形容。

Usually the word interesting isn't like what comes up.

通常你会听到‘适应性’这个词。

Usually you hear the word fitness.

但实际上，我认为我们不必深入细节，但你可以对自然采取另一种解读——它的设定方式实际上是在某种意义上检测有趣的事物，因为事实上每个生命体都必须，我有时会这么说，就像一台行走的复印机。

But actually, I think like we won't go into all detail, but you could take an alternative interpretation of nature that the way it's set up is actually a way of detecting things that are interesting in some sense, because of the fact that what everybody has to be, somehow I sometimes put it, is like a walking Xerox machine.

就像你体内必须拥有能制造副本的东西，这极其复杂，否则这个谱系就无法延续。

Like you have to have within your gut something that will make a copy, which is extremely complex, or else that lineage will not persist.

这意味着在某种意义上，几乎所有事物都会是有趣的。

And that means that pretty much everything's gonna be interesting in some sense.

这是一种非常抽象且奇怪的感觉，但你无法退化到完全无意义的状态，因为每个生命体都必须是一台行走的复印机。

It's a very abstract and weird sense, but you can't degenerate into complete meaninglessness because everybody has to be a walking Xerox machine.

这让事物保持真实且某种程度上保持趣味性。

And this keeps things honest and kind of interesting.

现在，当我们转向其他范式时，比如教育或类似的事物，或是另一种人类发明——文明，我们如何在这个可能的发明空间中前进，情况就不同了，因为在这里我们关心的是我们对‘有趣’的看法。

Now, when we move to other paradigms like education or something like that, or invention of another type of human invention, civilization, like how we progress through this space of possible inventions, then like, it's different because like here we care about our view of what's interesting.

要知道，进化某种程度上是对'有趣'这一概念的任意定义。

You know, evolution is sort of as an arbitrary concept of what's interesting.

这恰好是自然界构建的方式。

It just happens to be the way nature is structured.

但作为人类，我们关心的是自己觉得有趣的事物。

But we care about things that we find interesting as people.

所以问题的核心其实是要深入探讨什么才是有趣的。

And so really the crux of the matter is to really delve into the issue of what is interesting.

教育领域的例子就是一个可以参考的实例。

You know, the education example is an example you could look at for reference.

比如，抛开即时评估的影响，什么才是有趣的教学方法？

Like, what does it mean to have an interesting teaching technique independent from the immediate assessment implication of it?

我认为作为一个文化整体，我们其实害怕进行这样的讨论。

And we are afraid of that conversation, I think, as a culture.

我们不喜欢讨论某件事是否有趣，因为这似乎总是会绕回到责任归属的问题上。

We do not like talking about whether something's interesting, because again, it seems to somehow veer around this accountability issue.

我们不想听你主观地解释为什么你那个小想法很有趣，因为你钟爱的点子我无法从客观角度评估。

We don't want to know your subjective view of why your little thing is interesting, your pet idea, because I can't assess it in some objective sense.

所以我也讨厌听到这种讨论，我认为这是同行评审的问题之一——你们不允许真正探讨‘趣味性’。

And so I don't like to hear about this also, think is one of the problems with peer reviews that you don't allow it to really discuss interestingness.

但事实上，趣味性才是真正的魔法调料。

But the truth is interestingness is the magic sauce.

而这正是我认为人类真正擅长的领域。

And that's what I think humans are really good at.

这就是为什么文明能创造出所有令人惊叹的器物、流派、音乐艺术和文学体裁，历经千秋万代——我列举这些是为了说明这不仅关乎技术。

That is why civilization has actually created all of the amazing artifacts and genres and musical and artistic and literary genres that it's gone through over the eons is because, I mentioned those just because I don't want this only to be about technology.

它关乎一切。

It's about everything.

因为我们天生对趣味性有着敏锐嗅觉。

And it's because we have a nose for the interesting.

我们对有趣的事物超级、超级敏感。

We're super, super sensitive to what's interesting.

在我们的文化中，我们已经到了一个不被允许谈论这个话题的地步。

We're just we've gotten to a point in our culture where we're not allowed to talk about it.

我只想指出，让人们讨论有趣的事物并非没有原则，因为我们这里谈论的是专家。

And I just want to point out that it's not unprincipled to let people talk about what's interesting, because we're talking about experts here.

要知道，我们并不是说在教育领域随便找街上的路人，问他们对某个老师的行为是否觉得有趣。

You know, we're not saying that like, okay, in the field of education, we're just going to go up to some random person on the street and ask them whether some random teacher somewhere did something interesting.

我们谈论的是那些在教育领域有多年实际经验的专家。

We're talking about the people who are experts in education who have a history who are like actually been in the field for years.

认为这些专家对有趣事物的看法无效，简直是在抛弃社会数十年的投入——从他们上幼儿园到研究生毕业所接受的全部教育。

The idea that those people, that their opinions about what's interesting are invalid is like completely throwing away, like I think decades of societal investment, like all of the education that you put into that person from the time they went into kindergarten all the way up to the point that they like got out of graduate school.

如果我们不信任他们在任何主观判断上的能力，那所有这些教育还有什么意义？

Like what was the point of all that if we don't trust their judgment on anything subjectively?

事实上，主观判断才是真正有趣的，因为客观判断太容易了。

It's actually the subjective judgments are the interesting ones because like the objective judgments are easy.

测量某样东西根本不需要学位。

You don't need a degree to just measure something.

要知道，某个孩子参加考试，你拿到分数，可以计算全校学生的平均分。

You know, some kid takes some test, you get a score, you can average them across everybody at the school.

这种事谁需要学位？

Who needs to have a degree for that?

随便谁都能看一眼就告诉你情况如何。

Like anybody could look at that and just tell you how it's going.

真正需要教育、经验和深刻洞察力的，是对事物趣味性的判断。

It's the interestingness judgments that require education, experience, like deep insight.

因此，我们对'什么是有趣的'这个问题充满戒心、恐惧且无法直面，我认为这对我们的创新能力造成了严重束缚。

And so the fact that we are paranoid and afraid and unable to engage with the question of what's interesting, I think, is crippling, like, to our ability to innovate.

这个观点有几个方面很耐人寻味。

That's fascinating in a couple ways.

其中一点是你提到了'判断'这个词——主观判断，而我们总是对主观性的事物犹豫不决，反而紧紧抓住那些量化指标，对吧？

One of one of the ways is that you mentioned the word judgment and judgment subjective and we're hesitant to say or do anything that's subjective and we grab onto these metrics, right?

举个类似疫情期间的例子。

So an example would be sort of like during COVID.

如果我们能灵活变通，本可以做到让每个州、省或国家最优秀的五年级教师来教所有五年级学生，对吧？

If we were mutating, we could have done something where the best teacher in your state or your province or your country, the best grade five teacher is now teaching all grade fives, right?

这本可以实现的，你本可以接触到世界范围内各学科、各层次最顶尖的教师，哪怕是本州、本国甚至本市最优秀的老师。

This could have been set up and it could have been, you you could have had access to the best teachers in the world at whatever level that you're at in whatever subject you're at, or even the best teachers in your state or your country or even your city.

我的意思是，我们本可以在任何层级实现这一点，但我们没有，因为这首先需要尝试可能失败的新方案——这点我稍后会谈到。

I mean, we could have done this at any of those levels and we didn't because that would require, A, it would require sort of like trying something that might fail, which I want to talk about in a second.

其次，这需要我们做出主观判断——认定某位教师比其他教师更优秀。

But B, it would require us saying something subjective that this is a better teacher than somebody else.

而我们对此却如此犹豫不决。

And we're so hesitant to do that.

当我这么说时，你有什么想法？

What are your thoughts when I say that?

是的，我同意这个观点。

Yeah, I agree with the point.

我们还在争论是否应该让一位教师来教整个纽约州的学生之类的问题。

We debate about whether we should have one teacher teaching everybody in New York State or something like that.

我是说，我并不是说我们不应该这样做，但显然我们可以对此进行辩论。

I mean, I'm not saying we shouldn't, but we could debate about it, obviously.

但你提出的观点——由于系统结构我们甚至无法考虑这个问题，这确实是个问题。

But the point that you're making that we can't even consider it because of the structure of the system, that is a problem.

为什么我们不能在官方层面进行辩论？我是说，你我之间可以辩论，但这不会产生任何实际影响。

Why can't we debate about it Like in an official sense, I mean, you and I could debate about it and it will have no effect on anything.

但实际的官方系统，那个有守门人的正式体系，永远不会经历这样的辩论。

But like the actual official system, the formal system that actually has the gatekeepers inside of it will not ever go through that debate.

因为确实，它与评估体系不兼容，而且考虑到官僚体系的设置方式，这实在太笨拙了。

Because yeah, it's incompatible with the assessment system and it's just way too unwieldy given that bureaucratic system, the way it's set up.

我认为这就是阻碍我们收集垫脚石、尝试不同事物、观察结果、真正保持灵活创新并以自然精神传播思想的一个例子。

And I think that's an example of what is impeding our ability to collect stepping stones and try different things and see their outcomes and really be flexible and innovative and sort of proliferate ideas in the spirit of nature.

但我觉得这是多方面的。

But I think it's multifaceted.

所以你不能只归咎于单一原因。

So it's not only, you can't point to just one reason for it.

这种对参与和探索的恐惧渗透在我们文化的各个层面，包括你刚才简单提到的——我们害怕承担风险。

It's pervasive across all kinds of levels of the culture that we're afraid of this kind of engagement and exploration, including what you alluded to briefly, just that we are afraid to take risks.

我的意思是，这是部分原因。

I mean, that's part of it.

如果行不通怎么办？

What if it doesn't work?

这可能会是世界末日之类的。

This could be the end of the world or something.

我认为风险是否可容忍取决于具体领域。

And I think it depends on the domain whether risk is tolerable.

我们应该承认有些风险并不值得承担。

We should acknowledge that risk sometimes isn't worth it.

有些地方你可能并不一定想去探索。

There are some places you don't want to explore necessarily.

所以也许有些领域你无法创新，因为你根本无法承受风险。

So maybe there are some places you can't innovate because you just can't tolerate the risk.

这对个人来说可能是事实。

This may be true for an individual.

比如，你知道，你要养家糊口，现在没法去尝试什么疯狂的事情。

Like, you know, you've got a family to take care of, you can't really go try some crazy thing right now.

或者在社会层面也是如此，我们无法尝试全新的经济体系，尽管那可能很有趣，因为它可能造成巨大破坏，我们承担不起这个风险。

Or it could be like at a societal level, like we can't try a whole new economic system, even though it might be interesting, like it would cause potentially so much devastation that we just can't take the risk.

所以我们必须承认有些风险确实过于危险，但我认为这与我们不能讨论有趣之事是两码事。

So we have to acknowledge that like some risks are too risky, But I think that's orthogonal to the idea that we can't discuss what's interesting.

我认为我们仍然可以讨论有趣的东西。

Like, I think we can still discuss what's interesting.

我们也可以讨论风险是否过高。

We can also talk about whether the risk is too high.

但确实存在一些系统可以承受风险，且不会造成太大破坏。

But there are certainly systems where risk is tolerable, and it won't be too devastating.

要知道，我们必须根据不同系统来把握这个分寸。

And you know, we have to thread that needle depending on the system.

比如，我们不想让孩子们在学校度过一年却什么都没学到。

Like, we don't want kids to go through a year of school and learn absolutely nothing.

但这并不意味着我们完全不能尝试任何有趣的事情。

But that doesn't mean we can't try anything interesting whatsoever either.

因此，我们必须根据具体领域谨慎把握分寸。

And so we have to thread that needle carefully, depending on the domain.

在某些领域，比如存在很大的风险空间。

Some domains, like there's lots of room for risk.

以科研经费为例。

Like for example, science funding.

在我看来，它的核心意义就在于承担风险。

I mean, the whole point of it is risk, as far as I can see.

我认为我们并不指望大多数项目都能成功。

Like we don't expect most of these things to work out, I think.

虽然不确定这是否符合美国国家科学基金会的观点，但我的看法是，很多项目失败也没关系。

Don't know if that's the view of the National Science Foundation, but my view is it's okay if lots of things don't work out.

因此在这种情况下，全力贯彻我所主张的方式——即更少客观性、更多主观性，更乐于探讨有趣事物——实际上没有任何实质性的弊端。

So in a situation like that, there's not any real downside to really, really just doubling down on the way I'm advocating, which is being a lot less objective, a lot more subjective, and a lot more willing to talk about what's interesting.

而在更为脆弱的场景中，比如国家经济，我们就必须更加谨慎，因为国家经济只有一个。

And then in more kind of brittle situations, like the national economy, we have to be a little more cautious about that because there's only one national economy.

但我认为我们能做到。

But we can do it, I think.

我们只需清醒认识到可能产生的后果。

We just have to be clear eyed about what the consequences might be.

这就像自然界或进化过程——如果你愿意这么称呼的话——根本没有损失规避的概念。

It's like nature or evolution, if you want to call it that, has no concept of loss aversion.

它会不断尝试各种可能。

It'll just keep trying things.

适者生存，不适者最终会被淘汰。

And if it's fit, it'll reproduce and if it's, you know, not, it'll eventually wean itself out.

它会反复尝试同样的路径，由于没有意识，所以不会考虑错误与否、错误的后果，或是通过退步来实现进步。

And then it'll keep trying the same things over and over again and it doesn't have a consciousness so it doesn't think about being wrong or the consequences of being wrong or moving backwards to move forward.

我们拥有这些概念，比如在科学中我们接受失败，但在教育系统里却不愿接受失败。

It have any of those concepts where we do, like we accept failure in science, but we won't accept failure when it comes to an education system.

所以任何试图创新的人都会面临这个奇怪的等式，对吧？

So anybody who comes in and tries something else, they have this really weird equation, right?

其中线性增长的小收益与指数级增长的潜在损失形成鲜明对比。

Where you have a very linear small upside and a very exponential downside if things go wrong.

这导致我们不敢尝试任何新事物。

And so it prevents us from trying anything new.

所以一切创新看起来都像是旧事物的翻版，只是措辞或细节上略有不同。

So that's why everything always looks like what was before it with slight wording differences or nuances around it.

是啊。

Yeah.

确实。

Yeah.

没错。

It's true.