占星术的生存哲学：预测作为权力工具的起源
让我们从未来谈起。预测（Predictions）本质上是争夺未来控制权的“拳击场”。历史上，路易十一曾想处死一名预言精准的占星家，因为国王担心这种预知能力会威胁到自己的统治。然而，占星家机智地回答：“我将在陛下驾崩前三天死去。”路易十一因此从未发出处决信号。这个故事揭示了一个深刻的洞见：预测往往与知识无关，而与权力（Power）和自我保护紧密相连。虽然现代人不再求助于占星师，但我们却在以类似“德尔斐神谕”的方式使用 AI，而科技高管们则像古代占星师一样，在领导者耳边低语。预测往往是披着“事实”外壳的政治博弈，通过假定的科学性来为带有价值倾向的决策辩护。
Original English Source
Let me tell you about the future. Predictions are the boxing ring where fights over the future take place. As the story goes, King Louis the 11th kept an astrologer in court. One day, the astrologer predicted that a lady of the court would die within a week. When she did, Louis was shaken. Either the astrologer had murdered the woman to prove his accuracy or he was so prescient that he could threaten Louis himself. The astrologer had to be murdered. The king ordered his servants that upon his signal, they were to throw the astrologer out the window to a certain death. When the astrologer arrived to meet Louis, the king asked him one last question. "Given your prophetic abilities, tell me, how long will you live?" Not missing a beat, the astrologer replied, "I will die 3 days before your majesty." And Louis never gave the signal. Did the astrologer find his answer in the stars? I don't think so. I think he understood the power of prediction and used it to get himself life insurance. Smart astrologer. Even though we tend to associate prediction with knowledge, I'd like to invite you to consider the possibility that most of the predictions that you encounter in an everyday setting are closer to the realm of power than that of knowledge. It might seem that the days in which we sought astrologers and soothsayers to tell us about the future are very distant. But often we use AI as in the Oracle of Delphi, and tech executives whisper in the ears of our leaders much like court astrologers used to. Granted, the technology is different, but the political role is not. Predictions are often power plays in the skies. They justify value-laden decisions under the pretense of facts.磁石效应：社交预测如何弯曲现实
我们需要理解预测在自然界与人类社会中的本质区别。AI 在预测分子结构以寻找新抗生素方面表现卓越，但对人类行为（Human Behavior）的预测则完全不同。天气预报不会改变天气，但关于人的预测却会影响人的行为。社交预测（Social Predictions）具有磁石一般的特性，它们会弯曲现实，使其向预测结果靠拢。例如，一个关于未来疾病的算法预测可能导致保费上涨，而由此产生的压力本身就会损害健康。从哲学角度看，预测并非单纯的描述，而是一种言语行为（Speech Acts: 指不仅描述世界，且能通过语言本身产生实际行动效果的行为）。当你告诉孩子去打扫房间，你是在发布命令；同样，当科技高管预测未来 AI 将无处不在，他实际上是在通过这种预测诱导你行动，从而实现符合其商业利益的愿景。
Original English Source
Better understanding prediction matters more than ever because we're relying on forecasting more than ever with AI. And based on how we talk about prediction, we're being much too naive about it. But AI is science, you might think. It's cutting-edge technology, right? Well, depends on the kind of AI and how we use it. AI can be a great technology to make predictions about molecules in the search for new antibiotics. But predictions about human beings are fundamentally different than those about things. Predictions about the weather don't influence the weather. Predictions about people influence people. Social predictions tend to act like magnets. They bend reality towards themselves. They affect the reality they purport to predict. An algorithmic prediction about future disease can make someone's insurance premiums go up, leading to worse health outcomes from stress alone. Predictions sound like descriptions of the world, like facts, but they're not. Analyzed closely as assertions, they are what philosophers called speech acts. That is language that does something other than describe the world. When you tell a child to clean up their room, you're not describing the state of their room, you're issuing an order. Similarly, social predictions are veiled commands. They implicitly tell us how to act. For example, when a tech executive says that in the future we will use AI for everything and everywhere, he's trying to get you to act in a way that will fulfill his vision of the future. You know, the one that happens to line his pockets. And when you believe that prediction as if it were telling you something about the future, when you give in to the fear of missing out and you go and you buy the AI and you contribute to the self-fulfilling prophecy, what you are actually doing is obeying.必然性的谎言：算法预测中的不公与操纵
当人们宣称某种技术未来是“不可避免的”时，这通常是一个警示信号（Red Flag）。这种话术旨在终止对话，强迫人们盲目接受。预测不仅诱发操纵——比如通过在预测市场大量投注来误导公众感知——更在创造并掩盖不公。算法预测正在构建一个卡夫卡式的世界（Kafkaesque World），在这个世界里，决策不再基于清晰可验证的准则，而是基于无法挑战的概率。如果因为不符合条件被拒绝贷款，你可以申辩；但如果基于“预测”被拒绝，你根本无法反驳，因为预测是不可证伪的。这种处理方式将人视作受制于物理规律的“物体”，而非拥有能动性（Agents: 具有独立意志并能决定未来的人）的个体。它预设了人的未来是注定的，剥夺了人们挑战命运的机会。
Original English Source
Have you noticed how often people who make predictions about technology say that the future they are describing is inevitable? That's a red flag. Those predictions are designed to act as conversation stoppers. They're telling you, "Don't question me. Just accept what I'm saying as a fact." Predictions invite manipulation. Their power to shape the future creates the temptation to tamper with it and benefit from it. Take prediction markets. If you consider prediction as a quest for power, a very different picture emerges. If you have enough money, you can use it to influence public perception by heavily betting on something. Finally, predictions create and then cover up injustice. Algorithmic predictions are building this Kafkaesque world in which we can no longer contest decisions because they're not based on clearly defined criteria. If I reject your loan application because you don't fulfill a particular requirement, that's a verifiable fact. If I'm wrong, you can challenge me. But if I reject your loan application on the basis of a prediction, there's no way you can contest that. Predictions are never facts. Facts belong to the past. Predictions are unverifiable, unfalsifiable. Since they are about the future, they cannot be challenged for being false, thereby creating the perfect recipe for hidden injustice. Predictions are often unfair because they're not based on who people are, but on who we think they will become. When we predict someone's future as if it was the weather, we're treating them with disrespect, too much as things and not enough as agents who have a say in that future, who can and should be allowed to defy the odds.反抗预测：守护民主与不确定性的红利
一些显赫的现代预言家正向我们推销阴暗的未来。例如，Oracle 公司主席 Larry Ellison 预测了一个全天候监控的现代监控国家，声称人们会因为被注视而表现得更好。但一个没有犯罪的幻象世界实际上充斥着另一种罪恶——威权主义（Authoritarianism）。要避免梦游般地陷入这种境地，唯一的应对方式就是反抗这些预言。正如汉娜·阿伦特所言，面对被预言死亡的受害者，唯一恰当的反应是营救他。今天的先知们正在预言民主的消亡，而我们必须选择尊重隐私的产品，通过公开辩论来划定预测的界限。我们需要区分人口统计预测（用于风险共担）与针对个人的预测（导致不公的自证预言）。
预测的威力仅在于我们的相信。如果俄狄浦斯当时嘲笑那个预言，他就不会因为惊慌逃离而让悲剧成真。我们转向预测是因为对不确定性（Uncertainty）感到焦虑，但不确定性其实是好消息——这意味着未来尚未书写，它是属于我们的空白页。预测与控制相辅相成，因此我们必须像拳王乔·弗雷泽击败自诩必胜的阿里那样，反抗那些暴政式的预测。只有承认我们不知道未来会发生什么，并据此行动，我们才能确保生活在一个自由的社会中。
Original English Source
We're facing some pretty grim predictions from some of our most prominent prophets. Larry Ellison, the chairman of a predictive software company appropriately named Oracle, has predicted a modern surveillance state in which citizens will be on their best behavior because we're being watched all the time. But the illusion of a world without crime is a world filled with a very different kind of crime, authoritarianism. Is that the world we want? Prophets gain their power from people believing them. If we decide to defy this prediction instead of obeying it, we will choose products that are more respectful of privacy, for starters. Hannah Arendt wrote that it's pointless to argue with a murderer about whether their future victim is dead or alive. The only appropriate response is to rescue the person whose death is predicted. Well, today's prophets are predicting the death of our democracy. And the only appropriate response is to rescue it. In ancient Rome, it was illegal to predict the death of the emperor for the very simple reason that they ended up with a murdered emperor on cue. I'm not suggesting that we do away with prediction. But we need a public debate about the acceptable and unacceptable uses of prediction. It might be that in the case of insurance, we might want to make predictions at a population level, but not for individuals because it creates unfair self-fulfilling prophecies. Plus, if we're being billed according to individualized predictions, insurance loses its reason for being, solidarity and the pooling of risk. Predictions can be weapons of power. But, they only work if we believe them. We turn to prophets because we're anxious about uncertainty, but uncertainty is good news. It means that the future is unwritten, that it's ours to write. Efforts to predict the future go hand in hand with efforts to control it. So, beware of prophets and prophecies. Don't bow to people's predictions as if they were facts. Be like Joe Frazier. Find the Joe Frazier within you. Rebel against tyrannical predictions. Let us be brave enough to imagine and fight for a better world.📌 文中提及的人物和组织
人物: Larry Ellison
公司/组织: Oracle