我们真正需要的 AI:融合古老智慧与技术创新的新社会契约 TED 2026-07-20

数据的丰饶与智慧的缺席

Van Jones 表达了自己对当前人工智能热潮的担忧。在铺天盖地关于 AI 的讨论中,他担心人类正在用海量的数据去构建一个没有智慧的“美丽新世界”。为了给子孙后代一个应有的未来,他提出了古老智能(Ancient Intelligence / Ancestral Intelligence: 祖先留下的关于生命、道德与社区的古老智慧)的概念。作为第一代出生并被政府承认完整权利的非裔美国人,他深感父母为改善世界所做的努力,也更加担忧自己的四个孩子即将面对的这个完全不同的新文明。在这个新世界中,孩子们的初恋对象可能是 AI,未来的孩子可能通过生物技术定制,人类可能在 120 岁还在跑马拉松,甚至在百年内成为星际文明并葬在月球或火星。面对如此巨大的颠覆,他提出了根本性的质疑:这个未来的世界是否依然具有人性?它是否依然文明? 我们是在创造一个人类繁荣、科技助力善举的世界,还是在创造一个没有心脏的机器人统治失去自主性的人类的世界?

Original English

I am overwhelmed by all the conversations that we’ve been having -- especially about AI. I worry about what we're doing. I worry about where we're going. I worry that we're in danger of building this brave new world with all this data and no wisdom. All this data -- but no wisdom. Is there room for wisdom? Where is the wisdom going to come from in this brave new world? And so I want to talk about a different kind of AI. I want to talk about the AI that's absolutely necessary for us to give our children the future they deserve. I want to talk about Ancient Intelligence AI. I want to talk about Ancestral Intelligence AI. Do our ancestors have anything to teach us about entering new eras and creating new worlds? Or should we just push all the old folks on one side? I'm a ninth-generation American, but I'm the first one in my family that was born with all my rights recognized by this government. Why? Why? Because my mother and my father did everything they could to make sure that I grew up in a better world. And I want to do that for my children. But I'm afraid ... I don't know how to do that. I'm worried ... because a new human civilization is being born, and my children are going to grow up in it. And it is very different than the one I was born into. I have four children. Two of them are still sleeping in diapers. Here's reality for them. Just as a parent. Their first crushes probably are not going to be a rock star or an athlete. Their first crushes may well be an AI, may well be an AI. That's a different human civilization than the one I grew up in. As they get older, when they decide to start families, they might open up a laptop or a holographic interface and use biotech tools to design my grandchildren. That's a different human civilization. With longevity tech, and all these health breakthroughs, they might be running marathons at the age of 90 or 120. When, heaven forbid, it's time for them to be buried, my children, who I'm looking at right now, might be buried on the Moon or on Mars, because within a hundred years, we're going to be a fully spacefaring civilization. That's a different human civilization. But I have a question about it. Will it be human? And will it be civilized? The world that we are building, will it be human, and will it be civilized? Will it be a world of human flourishing, where all these technologies are helping people do great things? Or will be a world where robots with no hearts dominate human beings with no agency? That's my question.

适应性差距:以人类加速应对技术狂飙

为了应对科技的失控风险,人类面临着一个巨大的数学难题,即适应性差距(Adaptation Gap: 技术指数级增长与人类线性进化之间的差距)。机器人、生物技术、AI、量子计算和太空探索等技术正在以指数级曲线狂飙。过去可能需要十年才能实现的突破,如今连一天的热度都维持不了,甚至在社交媒体上都撑不过半天。与此相对,人类的进化轨迹极其缓慢,呈现线性状态。我们并没有比 5000 年前(更不用说 5 周前)的人类聪明多少或强壮多少。这种巨大的差距如果处理不当,将引发剧烈的社会动荡,让那些跟不上脚步的人感到自己被未来彻底抛弃。 面对这一危机,很多人试图通过立法或法律手段来使技术减速(Decelerate technology: 限制科技发展速度的防范机制),但 Van Jones 坦言这极难实现。根据他在华盛顿的经验,期待美国参议员那类动作迟缓的政治家去追赶一列飞速行驶的科技列车是不切实际的。因此,更可行的策略是加速人类自身的发展,而这需要科技分歧的两端重新向古老智能与祖先智慧靠拢。

Original English

Humanity now has a math problem that we're going to have to come together to solve, just what I would call the adaptation gap. Technology is now proceeding on an exponential curve. Robotics, biotech, AI, quantum computing, space exploration, these technologies are now growing their capability on an exponential curve. Some of the breakthroughs that would have been the breakthrough of a decade just a few years ago are not even the breakthrough of the day. Today, you can't even win a Twitter cycle, because by noon, something else has come out. But humans don't develop that quickly. Humans evolve on more of a linear slope. Humans are not that much smarter, that much that much faster than we were 5,000 years ago, let alone five weeks ago. And this gap is a gap that terrifies me. This is the gap that, if we don't handle it properly, can lead to social unrest, where people don't have what they need, and they're left behind, and they feel that the future doesn't need them at all. Now what I see a lot of people trying to do is to figure out some way to decelerate technology, is to figure out some way to use legislation and laws to decelerate the technology so we don't get left behind. But I have bad news for you. I spent a lot of time in Washington, D.C. If you think that Congress can catch a train moving that fast and do something about it, you have never met a US senator, OK? They're not exactly lickety-split type people. So -- I think the better move is to accelerate humanity. I think the better move is to accelerate humanity. And there's a way to do that, but it requires both sides of the tech divide to come back to Ancient Intelligence, Ancestral Intelligence.

重建社会契约:规避大众羞辱的科技契约

科技巨头与人类之间需要达成一份新社会契约(New Social Contract: 确立科技发展以人为本、惠及大众的底层共识)。过去的契约是在政府与民众之间建立的,因为权力在政府,法律在华盛顿写就;而如今,未来是由硅谷的代码写成的。因此,科技巨头必须与人类建立新的社会契约。然而,目前的发展路径并不乐观。科技公司宣称机器人加班工作会带来无限丰饶,但空洞的物质丰饶无法解决分配不均的问题。缺乏参与感与包容性的丰饶,体验起来就像是贫困。如果财富只堆积在房间的一侧,另一侧的人们将不仅感到痛苦,还会因无法给孩子提供同等的生活而感到羞愧与屈辱。 Van Jones 结合他在高墙监狱工作的经验指出,夺走一个本就一无所有的人的尊严并羞辱他,会使他成为最危险的人。当前我们面临的不仅是失业危机,更是大众羞辱(Mass Humiliation: 因社会资源极度失衡、弱势群体丧失尊严与发展机会而引发的集体耻辱感)的危机。科技领袖在共同缔造新人类文明的同时,也面临着金钱、名望和权力的巨大诱惑。他们迫切需要回归那些承载了古老智能的清真寺、寺庙、教堂和原住民仪式中去寻找道德准绳,摆脱只看重“贪婪与速度”的陷阱,多一些分享与关怀。

Original English

On the tech side, let me talk to my sisters and brothers in the technology community, and offer a prayer and an invitation. We are going to have to have a new deal between Big Tech and humanity. The original New Deal was between government and the people. That's where the power was, the power was in government. The future used to be written in laws in Washington, D.C. Now the future is written in code, in Silicon Valley. And so there has to be a new deal, a new agreement, a new social contract between Big Tech and human beings. But right now, we're not on path to doing that. Number one, our tech companies keep telling us things that we just don't believe. They keep saying, "Well, all this abundance, these robots are going to work over overtime, everything's going to be fine. It's going to be so much abundance. Everything's going to be fine." Nobody believes you. You can just stop saying that. Abundance by itself doesn't solve your problems. By the way, the opposite. Just wheeling out a wheelbarrow into this room called AI, full of diamonds and gold, technically makes the room richer, but if I dump it out on this side of the room only ... you're not richer. You're miserable. Abundance without participation, abundance without inclusion, feels like scarcity. It feels like scarcity. You think you're scaling abundance, but we experience it as you scaling scarcity. If you dump out all the good on one side of the room the people on the other side of the room, they're not just miserable. At some point, their baby asks them a question. "Mommy, Daddy, how come we don't have what they have?" And now you're not just unhappy, you're ashamed. You're humiliated. I've worked in some of the toughest prisons in this world. The one thing you don't want to do is take somebody who already has nothing and then humiliate them. They become the most dangerous person in that prison. Even if they only weigh 100 pounds. We're not just risking mass unemployment, we're risking mass humiliation. And that has to be avoided. There's another reason that coming back to the people who embody Ancestral Intelligence at the grassroots level will be helpful: because it’d be helpful for you. You are in a very difficult situation, if you're in the tech world. You have tremendous power. You have tremendous responsibilities. You're not just cofounding companies and cofounding firms. You're cofounding a new human civilization. And there's a lot of temptation -- money, fame, power, sex. These things can ruin a person. These things can ruin a nation. And it's the old ways, Ancient Intelligence. Don't underestimate those mosques and temples and synagogues and churches and Native American ceremonies and prayer circles for you to come home and get your head on straight. Because you being in a greed and speed trap, where you feel the only values that matter are greed and speed. It is not good for you. It’s not good for your decision-making. It’s not good for your heart. Don't underestimate these little Black churches that had nothing but praying hands and marching feet, and changed a whole nation. Don't underestimate your grandma. Don't underestimate ancestral wisdom. We need you to come back, and you need us too. You need us too. There is a way forward together.

跨越撕裂:从控诉文化回归梦想与包容

与此同时,草根阶层和民权运动者也需要反思自身的行为。关注社会底层、关怀那些在“少吃几顿饭”与“少吃几颗药”之间艰难抉择的普通人,以及将“汽车发动机故障灯亮起”视为头号大敌的平民大众,这固然是民权工作的核心。然而,过去十年中,草根阵营表现得有些过火,过度热衷于指责和贴标签,将所有持不同意见的人轻易扣上种族主义、性别歧视或各种恐惧症的帽子。这种做法导致了人们的疏远和恐慌。 Van Jones 呼吁人们重新审视“问责”的本质。我们应该拉近人们的距离并提升他们(Call people in and call them up: 以包容和建设性的态度引导他人,而非公开排斥或羞辱),而不是简单地把人“取消”或“叫出来公开指责”。他指出,社会运动似乎用“我有一个控诉”取代了马丁·路德·金(Martin Luther King Jr.)当年的“我有一个梦想”。金博士是一位着眼于改善明天的未来主义者(Futurist: 致力于前瞻性思考并设计更美好未来的人),“梦想”指涉的是未来。当面对极具挑战性的目标时,最聪明的策略应当是增加朋友,而不是制造敌人或取消他人。任何导致社会割裂、不断竖敌的政治手段,都背离了祖先智慧的本意。

Original English

And now on the other side. I do want to say something to my friends on the grassroots side. Yes, we want our tech folks to come back to Ancestral Intelligence -- Ancient Intelligence, grassroots intelligence. But we've gotten a little bit away from that stuff, too. Those of us who work at the grassroots, whose hearts are with people who don't have very much, whose hearts are with people who have to choose between fewer pills or fewer meals this week. That's where our hearts are. Our hearts are with people whose main enemy isn't another rival tech firm, it's the check engine light. The check engine light. When that light comes on, and you don't have enough money to go and get your car looked at, that's the enemy of the people that we care about. And I get it, I get it, but I want to say something to my grassroots sisters and brothers. We've been a bit much. We’ve been a bit much this last 10 years. We've been kind of hard to be around. Been a little bit loose with the name-calling. Everybody's a racist and a sexist and a homophobe and a transphobe. Everybody's some kind of phobe, to the point that now people are phobic about us, and don't want to be around us, because we're calling people out, and forget, sometimes, to call them in and to call them up. We forget, on the grassroots side -- We -- You know, we say we're holding people accountable, but are we holding people? Are we holding people? I think we replaced "I have a dream" with "I have a complaint." That wasn't a speech. That wasn't a speech. We forget that Dr King was a futurist. He wasn't talking about history. Dr King was trying to make tomorrow better. Don't get temporal dissociation. Dr King was a futurist trying to make tomorrow better. That's why we love him. And he said he has "a dream." A dream is about tomorrow. And the thing about it, Ancestral Intelligence ... is when you have a dream, and you’re trying to make something very hard happen, you don’t want to multiply enemies. You don't want to cancel anybody. You don't want to call anybody out. When you have a dream for your children and a dream for all children, and a dream for the children of all species, you want to multiply friends. You want to multiply friends. And so any politics that has us calling people out and multiplying enemies is not consistent with Ancestral Intelligence. And so both sides have to come back to the table and create a new world, a new human civilization that is human and is civilized.

科技与草根共创:用爱与技术赋能未来

未来的出路在于将技术人员的专业知识与草根阶层对底层需求的洞察结合起来,建立更多的孵化器、加速器、创业工坊和投资基金。Van Jones 举例说明了这种跨界合作的巨大潜力:

  • 曾被监禁的 Andre Peart 与工程师合作创办了 Untapped Solutions,为刑满释放人员提供类似 LinkedIn 的职业对接平台,现已利用 AI 智能体协助社会工作者;
  • 律师 Noella Sudbury 与技术人员合作,利用 AI 帮助有前科的人清除犯罪记录,重新融入社会;
  • Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins 和 Diana Frappier 创立的 Promise 已经成长为一家估值十亿美元的公司,旨在帮助政府机构减少低效与过度惩罚,变得更省钱、更具建设性;
  • Tadzio Smith 创办的 Rapport(获得 Reid Hoffman 支持)正利用 AI 提升企业内部的情商(Emotional Quotient: 识别、理解和管理自己及他人情绪的能力),而不仅仅是智商;
  • John Hope Bryant 启动了 HOPE AI 项目则致力于在未来十年内让 10 亿基层民众掌握 AI 读写能力,创造更多企业。

Van Jones 在结语中呼吁,科技界应当少一些贪婪与速度,多一些分享与关怀;草根阶层应当少一些指责与羞辱,多一些空间与宽容。唯有将这两者结合,我们才能发起一场充满魔法、天才、希望、爱与力量的运动,并最终成为子孙后代赖以生存的“祖先智能”。

Original English

What would it look like? It would look like more incubators and accelerators and venture studios and funds directed to pairing up grassroots folks and engineers, people with knowledge of technology, but also knowledge of what's happening at the grassroots level. It would look like Andre Peart, who was formerly incarcerated, paired up with engineers, built something called Untapped Solutions. They built a LinkedIn for formerly incarcerated people, getting people off the street and employed. Now they're deploying AI agents to help social workers. Noella Sudbury, a lawyer, teamed up with engineers, using AI to expunge people's prison records. It would look like Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins and Diana Frappier at Promise. They have built a billion-dollar company to help government not be more lethal, but more frugal and more helpful. It would look like Tadzio Smith, my buddy at Rapport, a company backed by Reid Hoffman that I'm supporting, that's using AI to increase EQ, and not just IQ, inside of firms. It would look like John Hope Bryant, who just launched HOPE AI to get thousands of grassroots people AI-literate. He's going to get a billion people literate in AI in the next ten years, so we can create even more companies. It would look like hope. It would look like hope. And so what I want to say to you, in closing, is this. On the tech side, a little less greed and speed. A little bit more sharing and caring on the grassroots side, a little bit less shame and blame, a little bit more space and grace. If we put those two things together, what we'll have is a movement that has so much magic and so much genius, and so much hope and so much love, and so much power that what we create out of that will, believe it or not, someday be the Ancestral Intelligence for our children. Thank you very much.

📌 文中提及的人物和组织

关键字: adaptation-gap social-contract grassroots-empowerment ancestral-wisdom inclusive-technology