Live an unoptimized life
这是《情感价值》里面的一段台词,我反复看了两遍。
You know,I do not believe in God at all. In our culture, religion had no place. We were not baptized. My sister and I had our civil confirmation for gifts. I has a sort of breakdown. I was still alone at home, lying in my bed, in tears. It happens to everyone, to cry in her bed...Someone said that praying is not talking to God. It is accepting one's despair. It is throwing yourself to the ground because that is all you can do. Like when, heartbroken, you think. Call me, you need to change your mind, come back to me. And I had ruined everything. I was alone, I was crying. So, for the first time, I sat down and prayed. It is difficult to explain. I don't know who I was talking to. But I said it out loud. Help me. I can't take it anymore. I can't do it alone. I want to find my place. I want to find my place.
讲的是人在孤单绝望的时候那种无力感。电影叫情感价值,我从中得到的一点体会就是,情感是我们认识自己,认识别人,和家人朋友建立连接的基础。TA是无法被优化掉的。最后,家庭,死亡,失去,孤单,拒绝,这些人类独有的情感或者情感的载体,都是无法被优化掉的。
过一种不被优化的生活,意味着正视自己的感受,carry着TA们往前走。而不是关掉自己的sensor input,把自己当作是系统里面无知无觉的螺丝,最大化自己的“效率”。
信奉“more everything forever”的现代资本主义体系和AI算法,也许真的不会停下来,除非碰到了“say no”的人类。因此,我们得知道什么时候要停下来,什么时候要拒绝提供更多的数据和更多的training time。为了这个目标,我们自己先要把自己从“more everything forever”的模型中剔除出来。不要让这一切吞噬掉我们的时间和注意力。优化可以让我们把更多的时间和注意力分配到“再生产”中。所谓的再生产,就是“more everything forever”。作为工程师,我们能够把每次迭代速度提升,而真正决定省下的资源和时间是否用于再生产的,是制度和这个体系的奖励机制。
过一种不被优化的生活,我希望省下的时间和资源,用来做一些对社会和周遭的人有意义的事情, 过一种不被优化的生活,讲的是,拒绝用外部评价体系来优化自己,而是要自己制定自己的目标函数。佛家讲“觉察”“觉观”“觉照”,我们的感官不应该只有享乐,我们的观念不应该被“宏大叙事”左右以至于我们享受压迫还自我感觉良好。过一种不被优化的生活,意味着,有摩擦,有情绪,有无力,但是在花时间修心的过程中,生出对世界的同情和平静的欢喜。
搞笑的是,more everything forever,也可以理解为,机器学习现实意义上的,“more training data”, "adapt to everything", and "(continual) learning forever"。是不是到时间想一想,什么是不应该学(优化)的,什么是不应该提供的数据,什么时候将训练(优化)停下?
