施密特眼中最为重要的六大技术趋势

在其整个职业生涯中，谷歌母公司Alphabet的执行董事长艾里克•施密特一直都在预测技术会给这个世界带来什么样的变化。作为公司的全球形象大使，即使在与世界领袖会面或发表演讲期间，施密特也会滔滔不绝地讲述他眼中那些最为重要的未来技术。

周一，施密特提到了六大颠覆性的技术或他所谓的“超前技术”。他表示，这些技术将有助于社会重要领域的进步。数千名参加梅肯研究院全球会议的投资者和商业高管齐聚洛杉矶的一个多功能厅，倾听他的演讲。

以下便是施密特所宣扬的超前技术（并非是Alphabet在其秘密谷歌X实验室所研究的那些难以实现的技术）：

1)植物取代牲畜：施密特认为一场革命即将到来，即使用植物食材代替肉产品。他认为，通过种植、收获植物来代替牲畜饲养可以减少温室气体排放，并应对气候变化。特别是肉类行业、牲畜饲养厂商，它们释放了大量的温室气体。

人们可以用植物蛋白取代肉类，而这种植物蛋白的开发也将降低发展中国家的食品成本。在那里，食物属于稀缺资源。与交付一磅含有多种蛋白的植物相比，向百货店交付一磅肉（涉及饲养、屠宰和运输环节）是一个效率低下、成本高昂的流程。

施密特表示，在计算机和数据分析的帮助下，人们目前随时都可以生产品质更好的源自植物的合成食品。技术能够帮助研究人员和科学家发现最优良的植物和植物组合，并藉此打造出特定的口味，满足特定的营养需求。

2) 用3D打印技术来建造建筑：施密特指出，不管是建造居住用还是商用建筑，建造建筑都是十分耗时、耗能的，同时也需要大量的资金。但是，由最新的计算和软件技术催生的3D打印技术能够降低建造成本和时间，也十分环保。这些3D打印建筑可以进行大规模生产或定制，然后在现场组装，其效率要比在建筑用地上一砖一瓦地搭建房屋高得多。3D打印还有助于鼓励人们使用可回收的材料。

3) 虚拟现实：很多技术行业观察家一直都在关注由Facebook的Oculus等制造商推出的最新虚拟现实头戴设备和游戏。但是施密特表示，虚拟现实最吸引人的用途很快便会出现在游戏和娱乐之外的领域。该技术带来的“增强现实”效果能够增进人们对周边环境的了解，并在这一领域发挥至关重要的作用。同时，它也可以为汽车、职场或教育等环境增添视觉和音频效果。

4) 医疗数据移动化：施密特指出，手机是用于检测个人健康、搜集个人健康数据的绝佳设备。我们每周拿起手机的次数平均有1,500次，而此举也让手机成为了与我们身体最亲近、联系最紧密的设备。施密特说，手机的计算能力、网络连接、相机和其他传感器也让其拥有了异常强大的功能，能够通过医疗数据将病患和医生连接起来。

5) 无人驾驶汽车：施密特与硅谷的很多人有着同样的看法，即无人驾驶汽车是一个巨大的商机。但是他还认为，让计算机来驾驶汽车将让世界变得更加安全。

施密特说：“32,800人今年将在美国的马路上丧命，只是我们目前还不知道死者的具体身份罢了。”施密特建议，全世界应就无人驾驶汽车设立一项全球性的超前计划。他自己的公司也在开发这项技术。

6)利用技术完善教育：施密特表示，每个学生的学习方式都是不同的，这是众所周知的事情。然而，计算机可以改变教育方式，并让每个人获得最高效和最有成效的教育。计算机技术可以轻松地监控学生的学习方式，然后针对每个人提出一套最为有效的教学方式。施密特说，我们需要打造更多的工具来帮助教师提升其教学效果，并让教育变得更富成效。（财富中文网）

译者：Pessy

校对：詹妮

Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google’s parent, Alphabet, has spent his entire career predicting how technology can change the world. While traveling the globe as essentially the company’s global ambassador, meeting with world leaders and giving talks, he isn’t slowing down on espousing about what he says are the most important future technologies.

Schmidt laid out six game changing technologies, or moonshots, as he called them, that he says will improve important parts of society on Monday. Thousands of investors and business executives filled a ballroom in Los Angeles at the Milken Institute’s Global Conference to hear him speak.

Here are Schmidt’s tech moonshots (not to be mistaken with the moonshots that Alphabet GOOGL 0.90% is working on in its secretive Google X labs):

1) Nerds over cattle: Schmidt sees a revolution coming in using plants to replace meat. Replacing livestock with growing and harvesting plants could reduce greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change, he argued. The meat industry, cattle producers, in particular, emit significant greenhouse gases.

The development of plant proteins that communities could use to replace meat would also lower the cost of foods in developing countries where food is sometimes scarce. Delivering a pound of meat to the grocery store (raising it, slaughtering it, shipping it) is a relatively inefficient and costly process compared with delivering a pound of many protein-based plants.

Schmidt said the world is now ready to better produce synthetic food from plants with the help of computers and data crunching. Technology can help researchers and scientists identify the best plants and plant combinations for creating certain tastes and meeting certain nutritional needs.

2) 3D printing for buildings: Constructing buildings, both residential and commercial, is time consuming, energy intensive, and costly, Schmidt points out. But 3D printing technology, spurred by the latest in computing and software, can create buildings that are lower cost, quicker to build, and better for the environment. These 3D printed buildings can be generated in an industrial and customizable way and assembled on site, which is far more efficient than building a house piece by piece on the plot of land where it’s going to reside. 3D printing can also encourage the use of recycled materials.

3) Virtual reality: Many tech industry watchers have been following the latest virtual reality headsets and games emerging from manufacturers like Facebook’s Oculus FB 0.84% . But Schmidt says the most compelling uses for virtual reality will soon emerge from outside of video games and entertainment. The technology will play a critical role in making society better informed by “augmenting reality,” or adding visual and audio cues in environments like cars, in the workplace or in education.

4) Medical data goes mobile: Cell phones are the perfect device for monitoring personal health and for collecting health data, says Schmidt. We touch our phones 1,500 times a week, making the devices one of the most intimate and connected to our bodies. The phone’s computing capacity, network connection, camera, and other sensors make it a surprisingly powerful device for connecting patients and doctors with medical data, said Schmidt.

5) Self-driving cars: Schmidt agrees with much of Silicon Valley that self-driving cars will present a huge business opportunity. But he also thinks that having computers drive our cars will make the world much safer.

“32,800 people will die this year on the roads in the U.S., we just don’t know who they are yet,” said Schmidt. The world should have a global moonshot program focused on self-driving cars, advocated Schmidt, whose own company is also working on the technology.

6) Fixing education using tech: Everybody knows that every student learns differently, said Schmidt. But computers can help change education so that it’s the most efficient and effective for everyone. Computing technology can easily monitor how students learn and then identify the most effective teaching methods for each one of them. We need to create more tools to help teachers augment their teaching and make education more effective, said Schmidt.