艾诚：如何预见未来 国际青年领袖论坛英文演讲实录

　　2018年2月28日，艾诚作为唯一受邀的中国青年领袖代表，在首尔举办的全球青年领袖论坛（MBN Y FORUM）做开幕演讲。一袭标志性小红裙，全英文分享了对她对未来的预言。

　　以下为艾诚在MBN全球青年领袖论坛上的发言实录：

　　Tech, Money, Humans-and the Future of Media | 科技、金钱、人 – 媒体的未来

　　I was born in a fruit orchard at the foot of the Yellow Mountains of China. Technology and finance were not a part of my childhood – there was no internet, there were no ATMs, the idea of global connectivity simply did not exist. I was seventeen years old when I first saw a train.（我生长在中国安徽黄山脚下的一个果园里。童年生活里完全没有科技和金融这回事儿 – 没有互联网，没有自动取款机，全球化的概念甚至还没有萌芽。直到我17岁那年，才第一次亲眼见到火车。）

　　But even though technology and finance weren’t part of the world around me, I was desperately curious about them. How does telephone, radio ,television, bank, school work? And I imagined the world outside Yellow Mountain, I dreamed that one day, I can find out humans behind the world. Little did I know, curiosity would have become the beginning of a journey to which I am still devoting myself fully today. （但好奇永远驱使着我，探求每个事物背后的人物。我总是想象黄山以外的世界是什么样？于是许下梦想，我要记录未来人物，探索创新创富。）

　　Determined to complete my dream, I went on to Beijing, and later Boston to study. Upon graduation from Harvard, I became a New York based Anchorwoman for China Central Television.（怀着寻梦的决心，我踏上了去往北京和波士顿的求学道路。哈佛大学肯尼迪学院毕业后，我受邀成为中央电视台驻纽约财经主持人。）

　　I traveled around the world interviewing heads of states, well-known public figures, and celebrities. my interviews were aired through a program called “The Leaders”.But at the peak of it all, I quit China Centra l Television and started a new media company called iAsk. （环球出访，记录各国总统总理和明星大腕，在央视我参与主持节目叫《领导者》。但巅峰时刻，我选择离开平台，创办新媒体公司《艾问》。为什么？在科技和金融对我们的生活深刻影响的当下，一定还有更多真正的创新领导者们，我要发现你们！）

　　Why? With all that asking, one thing became pretty clear: technology and finance have shaped our society more than any other sectors. What I needed to do is to start a new media with the mission of profiling China’s and world most influential innovators and investors to inspire the youth who want to dream bigger.（创办一个“记录时代人物探索创新创富”的新媒体公司，激励更多寻梦的年轻人勇敢想象，改变世界，因为我就是曾经在黄山脚下充满好奇和想象的孩子。）

　　Then I realize the boudaries between Tech – Money – and Humans is treated so differently in Asia and the West.（但是，惊人的发现是“科技、金钱、人”之间的关系在东西方社会中非常迥异！这种差异是如何体现的呢？）

　　Let’s look at that relationship in the West.（我们先来看一下西方社会。）

　　The wave of innovation that came out of Silicon Valley has been very personality-driven. the founder’s names are synonymous with the companies and products they build.Think about…（以硅谷为例，作为全球创新思潮和公司的中心，重要创始人的名字直接等同于企业品牌和产品。）

　　Steve Jobs means Apple（史提夫乔布斯 等同于苹果）

　　Mark Zuckerberg means Facebook（马克扎克伯格 等同于脸书）

　　Elon Musk means Tesla（埃隆马斯克 等同于特斯拉）

　　Why?

　　This makes sense from a brand perspective — a founder gives a technology a face and a voice that no logo ever could.（我认为从树立公司品牌角度值得学习，正是因为这个卓越的创始人赋予了这家公司最强大的名片和声音。而这样的影响力是一个简单的企业LOGO很难赋予的。）

　　But it also reflects a truth — that all technology, all investment, can ultimately be traced back to the vision of a person or group of people.（但更重要的是，这揭示了一个事实，所有的技术和资本都可以追溯到至少一个人的远见或者一群人的共识。）

　　Why?It’s a well-worn cliche to say that Asian societies are organized around the collective and Western societies are organized around the individual, but its not wrong. In China — and similarly I believe in Korea and Japan — it’s the company that comes first, and the founder/CEO often takes a low profile.（但在亚洲却少有企业家直接代表公司的案例。我认为社会原因在于亚洲社会崇尚集体主义，西方社会鼓励个人主义，这话不假。不仅在中国，我相信在韩国和日本也是如此。往往在品牌建设中，公司永远是第一，而创始人匿于公司身后。）

　　The result is the “faceless rise” of Chine se technology. Recently, international media has started to pay more attention to Chinese innovation — but it always seems to be the companies that go global, not the entrepreneurs. Besides Jack Ma, none of the Chinese visionaries behind this innovation have achieved international recognition at scale. Most of you have probably heard of Huawei, but how many of you have heard of Ren Zhengfei? The humans behind the innovation, the decision-makers behind the investment, are largely left out of the story of China’s rise.（但这有一个需要被改变的现状：在世界腾飞的中国创新企业却找不到谁是他的主人？“无主”的中国特色现象就出现了。近年来，国外媒体越来越关注中国的创新发展， 但是获得世界关注的通常都是公司，而非公司的创始人。事实上，除了马云之外，几乎没有其他中国创新者或者投资人能够达到像马云这样的国际认知度。让我们做项简单测试？这是一家2017年获得超过100亿美金收入的中国科技公司，知道的请举手。看来大家都知道华为。但这位是谁呢？有多少人听过任正非？看来，这些科技背后的创新者，投资背后的决策人在中国式崛起的浪潮中被忽略或淹没了。）

　　That’s why I started iAsk Media with the mission of profiling China’s most influential innovators and investors.（这是创立艾问的初心和使命。我希望在艾问人物记录下中国最具影响力的创新者和投资人。我们相信，对这些人的理解越深入。）

　　We believe a better understanding of these humans will inform our understanding of the future: because at the end of the day, their character will shape the technologies that will in turn shape our lives.（我们就越能更好地认识我们即将面对的未来：因为说到底，这些人的人物特性决定了他们所创造的科技的属性和温度，而这些科技将会在方方面面直接影响我们的日常生活。）

　　In the process, they’ll also radically re-shape the future of media. （在这个过程中，这些人物还将重新定义我所在的媒体未来。）

　　Whether you’re in Asia or the West, whether you’re in news or entertainment, there’s no doubt that emerging trends in technology and finance are disrupting the media industry.（不管你是在亚洲还是在西方国家，不管你是在新闻圈还是娱乐圈，我们都相信科技和金融都已开始入侵和瓦解传统的媒体行业。）

　　The rise of mass social media and user-generated content has left journalists essentially competing with their own audiences for attention and mindshare. Content aggregators such as Facebook and Toutiao use big data to gauge audience preferences and fuel massive recommendation engines; that is, editors are being replaced by AI. Add to that Twitter bots, fake news, and a populist distrust in the media, and it can genuinely feel like we’re under attack from all sides.（传统媒体腹背受敌，比如大众社交媒体和用户原创内容的崛起把新闻工作者和他们的受众一起推上了PK台，共同争夺关注度和流量。此外，Facebook和今日头条这样的内容整合者利用大数据分析受众的偏好并随之进行大量相关内容推送。换句话说，编辑的工作由人工智能取代完成。再加上Twitter bots, 虚假新闻，大众对媒体信任度的降低等各项挑战，我们媒体人可谓是腹背受敌，四面楚歌。）

　　At the same time, the boundaries between tech, finance, and media are rapidly blurring.（与此同时，科技、金融、媒体各自的边界也在迅速模糊化。）

　　Tech firms invest tens of millions of dollars in content marketing to acquire users and distribute products.Investment funds also publish content to establis thought-leadership, attract LPs, and secure access to hot deals.Both tech and finance firms are entering the media space through M&A, as well — think Jeff Bezo’s acquistion of the Wall Street Journal, or Nikkei’s purchase of the Financial Times.（科技公司各个毫不吝啬在内容营销上砸重金以获得更多用户和销售他们的产品。投资基金公司也在自行生产和输出能建立他们思想领导者地位的内容，一方面为了吸引更多投资人的青睐，另一方面也让他们自身作为投资人在热点项目招商中更加脱颖而出。科技和金融公司都正在通过企业并购的方式进军媒体行业，比如亚马逊CEO杰夫贝索斯收购了华尔街日报，日本经济新闻收购金融时报。）

　　So a lot of media workers are asking, where do we go from here? How do we survive as an industry in the face of overwhelming technological disruption and fierce market competition?（于是很多媒体工作者会问，我们要何去何从？我们要如何在高新科技的暴风式来袭下和愈加惨烈的市场竞争中生存下来？）

　　As a media entrpeneur, I think about this every day. But rather than frame the question as “how do we survive?”, I ask my team “what are the opportunities?” What can we do different? How can we leverage the power of tech and finance the way that tech and finance have leveraged the power of media?（作为一个媒体创业者，这是我每天都会思考的问题。但是与其把问题框定在“我们如何生存和自保”，我对我的团队提出的问题是“有哪些机遇？”“我们可以做哪些新的尝试？”“我们可不可以像科技和资本向媒体借力一样反借力于它们？”）

　　Often the best way to conquer your fears is to embrace them. Is it possible that in the future, my role as a host could be replaced by a robot? Absolutely! Remember, my name is Gloria Ai — A.I.!! But rather than be threatened by that possibility, I want to embrace it. I’ve begun working with some of China’s top AI, NLP, and robotics companies to explore the possibility of making a Gloria-bot — if machines can learn to imitate my voice and my style and my thought-process, I’m ready to sit there and train the algorithms for as long as it takes. If technology can automate my job out of existence, that’s great! I just want to be a part of the process！（其实战胜恐惧最好的方式就是直面迎接恐惧。在未来有没有可能我的主持人角色完全由机器人取代担当？当然有可能！记得吗我的名字是Gloria Ai – AI (人工智能)！ 但是我可不受这个可能性的威胁，我的做法是坦然地面对和接受这个可能性。我已经开始了和中国一些顶级人工智能、自然语言处理和机器人公司的合作，尝试与他们共同开发一个Gloria机器人 –等有一天这个机器人学会了模仿我的声音，我的风格，和我的思考过程，我就只需要坐在那按照既定的算法“训练”它就好了。如果科技可以让我现在做的工作自动化，失业我也乐意！我期待这一天的来临。）

　　The truth is, media workers are in an excellent position to embrace our own future — we have access to the greatest innovators, the biggest investors, the widest audiences, and most importantly: we know what the market opportunities are. Think of it this way: everything weak point in the media industry represents an opportunity to invest!（事实上，媒体工作者在把控自己的行业未来上享有得天独厚的优势 – 我们能第一线、近距离地接触这些最伟大最成功的创新者、企业家并且拥有广泛的受众，最重要的是，我们知道市场的机遇是什么。我们这样想：我们现在媒体行业的每一个弱点都代表着一个投资的机会！）

　　That’s why at iAsk, we’ve begun making equity investments in media-tech startups. We start by identifying what’s frustrating in our own business, and then find and support the entrpreneurs that are tackling those problems.（这就是为什么艾问这几年陆续开始规模地投资一些媒体科技公司。在发现我们目前行业的痛点后，我们有选择地投资和支持试图解决这些行业问题的初创公司。）

　　For example, we were having trouble managing and monetizing a lot of the content we created at iAsk–> so we invested in INK, the world’s first tech-driven blockchain project for copyright and IP transactions.（解决版权交易痛点：艾问生产的某些内容难以实现盈利是一个困扰我们已久的问题， 于是我们投资了INK，世界上第一家建立在区块链技术基础上的提供版权交易解决方案的公司。）

　　We hated how long it took to process photos from the events iAsk would participate, so we invested in vPhoto, a photo-technology company that uses connected cameras and automated photo editing to produce brilliant images that are instantly available in the cloud.（解决摄影行业痛点：在艾问参与的很多会议和活动上，向主办方获取现场照片常常需要耗费很多时间和精力， 于是我们投资了vPhoto, 一个通过云技术提供即时影像拍摄、精修、和共享服务的平台。）

　　Our corprate partners would complain about the cost and complexity of product placement in live filming… so we invested in Moviebook, which uses advanced image processing technology to digitalize product placement in post-production. （解决广告行业痛点：艾问合作的品牌企业有时候会抱怨在电影和电视或视频中植入广告，既耗费高昂又极其复杂，于是我们投资了Moviebook, 它通过运用先进的后期影像处理技术实时在视频中植入广告和产品。）

　　Ladies and gentleman:

　　I was born in a place and time when technology, finance, and media were all very distant things.In the future, they will dominate every aspect of our lives.（在我出生的那个地方和年代，科技、金融和媒体都是很遥远的事。在未来，科技、金融和媒体却会渗透于我们生活的方方面面。）

　　As a media professional, I want to discover, understand, and support the human beings that will shape that future.（作为一个专业媒体人，我的使命是发现、理解、和支持打造未来的那群人。）

　　And I want all of you to join me.（我希望你们都可以加入我。）

　　Together, we can make that future our own.（只有我们一起携手，那个未来才会成为我们每一个人的未来。）

　　“’致敬那些离经叛道者，那些格格不入的反叛分子，他们不满条条框框，从不墨守成规，你尽可以支持或者反对他们，可以赞美或者中伤他们，但你唯一不能做的就是忽视他们，因为他们改变了局面，他们推动了人类进步，虽然有人视他们为疯子，我们却称其为天才，因为那些妄想改变世界的人，正在改变世界。’能与当代中国这些足够改变河流方向的人对话，是我身为媒体人的责任与荣耀。”艾诚如是说，也如是行。