文化與技術三部曲 · SF-05｜專訪 Mei Lin Fung

---

Yu: So, hi, Mei Lin.So first of all, can you make a brief introduction to you? So this is a documentary about personal computing history and the counterculture movement. We know that you have been working a lot in the technology industry for decades. Can you briefly let us know what kind of works you have done these years ?

Yu: 嗨，梅琳。首先，你能簡單介紹一下自己嗎？這是一部關於個人計算歷史和反文化運動的紀錄片。我們知道你在科技行業工作了很多年。你能簡要告訴我們這些年你做過哪些工作嗎？

Mei: Okay. So it’s really nice to be interviewed because this month, September, marks four decades in Silicon Valley for me. So I’ve been here since September of 1983 when I first came to Intel. I worked for Intel for five years and then Oracle for five years. But before that I was at MIT studying finance and before that I was in Australia. My husband is Australian and I grew up in Singapore.

梅：好的。很高興能接受採訪，因爲這個月，九月，對我來說是在硅谷度過的四十年。所以我從1983年九月開始在這裏，當時我第一次來到英特爾。我在英特爾工作了五年，然後在甲骨文工作了五年。但在那之前，我在麻省理工學院學習金融，而在那之前我在澳大利亞。我丈夫是澳大利亞人，而我在新加坡長大。

The work that I do really comes from my entire heritage. Growing up in Singapore meant that I could see that people can decide what they want their lives to be. The miracle of Singapore was really that we in Singapore decided we could take control of what the country would be. So when I come here and I’m looking at all of the changes that digital is providing in terms of the opportunities, I see it as opportunities. But what I see the missing piece that we had in Singapore that we don’t have here in Silicon Valley and not in the world today is the sense of why are we doing this? What are we doing it for? And in Singapore it was so that people could eat, so they could have housing, so they could bring up their children. And why I think the particular relevance to China is that the story of Singapore was inspiring for China. That there was the same thing. We want people to eat, to have housing, to be able to have their children have better lives. So I think there’s great relevance of coming here to Silicon Valley to see how can digital allow us to have better lives.

我所從事的工作真的源自我的整個傳承。在新加坡長大意味着我能看到人們可以決定他們想要的生活。新加坡的奇蹟真的是我們決定我們可以掌控國家的未來。所以當我來到這裏，看到數字化帶來的機遇和變革時，我將其視爲機會。但我所看到的缺失是，我們在新加坡擁有的，而在硅谷和當今世界卻沒有的，是我們爲什麼要這樣做的意義？我們爲什麼要這樣做？在新加坡，我們這樣做是爲了讓人們能夠喫飽飯，有住房，撫養孩子。我認爲這與中國有着特殊的相關性，因爲新加坡的故事對中國來說是鼓舞人心的。他們也有同樣的願望，讓人們能夠喫飽飯，有住房，讓他們的孩子過上更好的生活。因此，我認爲來到硅谷，看看數字化如何讓我們過上更好的生活，對中國來說具有重要意義。

Yu: We know that you began the CRM system in 1988, if I’m not mistaken. And you did the long-term modeling for Shell Australia. Could you briefly explain to our audiences what makes you begin the CRM and what it is? And what is the original concern of you and your colleagues about this system?

Yu: 我們知道你在1988年開始了CRM系統，如果我沒記錯的話。而且你爲Shell Australia進行了長期建模。你能否簡要向我們的觀衆解釋一下是什麼促使你開始使用CRM系統，以及它是什麼？你和你的同事對這個系統最初的關注是什麼？

Mei: It’s funny to talk to art students about this. Because it’s actually possible that art students can understand this more than technologists or digital people. Because as an artist you have to have an idea of what is the end result, what is the outcome you’re trying to achieve. I think my work doing financial modeling for Shell in Australia, I did the financial modeling for 25-year long projects. Eight billion dollars, it was the Northwest Shell Gas Exploration. So it’s very complicated, but it’s like a complicated piece of art. You have to see how the pieces fit together. And you have to think ahead about how and what order you will do things. So financial modeling is like that. It’s like a model is like a piece of art. What I discovered when I was doing that was that I didn’t understand many things. I didn’t understand how to project the financial calculations, what it meant. And so like an artist I decided I should study more about how to do better art. And the better art that I studied was financial modeling in MIT. I was very lucky to study under people who were inventing modern finance theory at MIT.

梅：和學藝術學生談這個話題真有趣。因爲藝術學生可能比技術人員或數字人士更能理解這一點。因爲作爲一個藝術家，你必須對最終結果有一個想法，你試圖達到的目標是什麼。我在澳大利亞爲Shell做財務建模工作，爲了25年的項目做了財務建模。這是一項價值80億美元的西北Shell天然氣勘探項目。所以這非常複雜，但就像一件複雜的藝術品。你必須看到這些部分如何相互配合。你必須提前考慮如何以及以什麼順序進行工作。所以財務建模就是這樣。它就像一個模型，就像一件藝術品。當我在做這個工作時，我發現我不懂很多事情。我不懂如何預測財務計算的意義。所以像一個藝術家一樣，我決定應該更多地學習如何做更好的藝術。我在麻省理工學院學習的更好的藝術就是財務建模。我很幸運能在麻省理工學院的人們指導下學習，他們正在創造現代金融理論。

So two of the people I studied under won the Nobel Prize. Two separate people, Franco Modigliani and Robert Merton. But the person that I most appreciated was Fisher Black. And he would have won the Nobel Prize, but he died before it was given. And Fisher Black is known for the Black-Scholes options pricing formula. And so it’s the application of mathematics to real-world problems that really fascinated me. And when I came to Intel I was looking at that. In 1988 I went from Intel to Oracle. All of this, very few companies were using IT, information technology, in their operations. But Intel was a chip maker, so it was quite natural for them to use IT. They were not afraid of technology. But it was still very new. Very few companies used information technology. Intel was one of the first, and this was under Andy Grove, who is famous for high-performance management. He had a concept of dividing the entire operations of Intel into 160 pieces. One forecast would feed the other, so that we had a precision of prediction at Intel in the 80s, which even today very few companies do. But that precision I was able to truly understand because I was the alpha test user for Intel’s own sales and marketing system. And I wrote many of the algorithms for Intel’s in-house proprietary sales and marketing system. So then Tom Siebel at Oracle had the vision that relational databases could help have better business and customer relationships. Before he found me, he had interviewed 35 people and nobody understood what he wanted. But when he told me what he wanted, I understood immediately because I had just done it at Intel. So there’s a way in which Andy Grove helped to invent CRM because I did it first at Intel, and then I was able to implement it at Oracle under Tom Siebel.

所以我在學習時有兩位老師獲得了諾貝爾獎。兩位不同的人，分別是弗朗科·莫迪格瑞安尼和羅伯特·默頓。但我最欣賞的人是費雪·布萊克。他本來應該獲得諾貝爾獎的，但在頒獎前去世了。費雪·布萊克以布萊克-謝爾斯期權定價模型而聞名。所以，將數學應用於現實世界的問題真的讓我着迷。當我來到英特爾時，我就一直在研究這個。1988年，我從英特爾轉到了甲骨文。在當時，很少有公司在運營中使用信息技術。但英特爾是一家芯片製造商，所以他們使用信息技術是很自然的。他們並不害怕技術。但這仍然是很新的事物。很少有公司使用信息技術。英特爾是其中一家最早的公司，這都歸功於安迪·格羅夫，他以高效管理而聞名。他有一個將英特爾的整個運營分爲160個部分的概念。一個預測會影響另一個，這樣在80年代的英特爾，我們有了非常精確的預測，即使在今天，很少有公司能做到這一點。 但那種精確度我能夠真正理解，因爲我是英特爾自己銷售和營銷系統的α測試用戶。而且我爲英特爾的內部專有銷售和營銷系統編寫了許多算法。所以後來Oracle的湯姆·西貝爾有了一個願景，即關係數據庫可以幫助建立更好的商業和客戶關係。在找到我之前，他面試了35個人，沒有人理解他想要的。但當他告訴我他想要什麼時，我立刻明白了，因爲我剛在英特爾做過這件事。所以有一種方式，安迪·格魯夫幫助發明了CRM，因爲我在英特爾首先做到了這一點，然後在湯姆·西貝爾的領導下在Oracle中實施了它。

I’m quoted as saying it was a big step for software, but it was a small step for me because I had actually done it at Intel and I was adapting it at Oracle. The big difference is that at Oracle, because it was so new, nobody knew how it would work, I said, it can’t be in my head. We have to involve everybody. We have to involve the sales team, the sales managers, the telemarketers. Everyone was involved in helping to shape CRM. So this proto-CRM was probably the first collective piece of software. And I’m very proud of it because it is now the largest software category that there is, $40 billion. But it came from an Asian woman and one man, two of us, we did this. I believe that the combination of male, female, Asia, Silicon Valley, made it a more practical and pragmatic solution that many people around the world wanted to use.

我曾說過，這對於軟件來說是一大步，但對我來說只是一小步，因爲我實際上在英特爾已經做過了，而在甲骨文我只是在進行適應。最大的區別在於，在甲骨文，因爲這是如此新穎，沒有人知道它會如何運作，我說，它不能只存在於我的腦海中。我們必須讓每個人都參與進來。銷售團隊、銷售經理、電話銷售員，每個人都參與了塑造CRM的過程。因此，這個原型CRM可能是第一個集體開發的軟件。我爲此感到非常自豪，因爲它現在是最大的軟件類別，市值達到了400億美元。但它來自一個亞洲女性和一個男性，我們兩個人做到了這一點。我相信，男性、女性、亞洲、硅谷的結合，使它成爲了世界上許多人想要使用的更實際和務實的解決方案。

Yu: The next question is about the spreading of CRM and the problems it has faced. Because you mentioned in your interview that CRM was accepted, but also kind of being misused by a lot of big companies for their using it to manage their customers rather than supporting them. In your opinion, what drives them to do that? What is the social, political, and cultural environment to make big companies at that time to misuse that?

YU：下一個問題是關於CRM的傳播和它所面臨的問題。因爲你在採訪中提到CRM被接受了，但也被很多大公司濫用，用來管理客戶而不是支持他們。在你看來，是什麼促使他們這樣做的？當時的社會、政治和文化環境是什麼讓大公司濫用CRM的原因？

Mei: The use of information technology in corporations is kind of a new way of telling people what to do. And it used to be that there would be typed out letters and there would be instructions to everyone. But with CRM, suddenly the computer can do many typed out letters and it looks like it’s a command, an order from up high. The introduction of computer technology into corporations is a socio-technical intervention. And it’s not just a technology intervention. So what happened is that people tried to game the system in order to use these printed out pieces of paper to enforce their power or their agenda. Now, this wouldn’t be so bad except that the accounting systems in corporations today are very top-down. And so when it’s top-down like that, when people want to change things, they use whatever they can. And CRM is just a technology that produces reports. If you understand how to game that technology, you can produce any kind of report. And it looks like the truth. It looks as though this is like a perfect picture of the corporation.

梅：在公司中使用信息技術有點像是一種告訴人們該做什麼的新方式。以前會有打字的信函和對每個人的指示。但是有了CRM，突然間計算機可以打出很多信函，看起來像是從高層下達的命令。將計算機技術引入公司是一種社會技術干預。這不僅僅是技術干預。所以事情的發展是，人們試圖操縱系統，以利用這些印出來的紙張來強化他們的權力或議程。現在，這本來不是什麼壞事，除非今天的公司會計系統非常自上而下。所以當事情是自上而下的時候，人們想要改變事物時，他們會利用一切可以利用的東西。CRM只是一種生成報告的技術。如果你懂得如何操縱這個技術，你可以生成任何類型的報告。而且它看起來像是真實的。看起來就像是公司的完美圖像。

But in fact, it’s not the truth. It’s just one person’s agenda. So what happens with powerful, powerful technology like printing, like information technology, it’s like fire. It comes in, people use it, and it can burn you up. And that’s what happened with CRM. Wells Fargo had a terrible scandal where 7,000 employees were told to disobey the law or they’d lose their jobs. And for many years it continued to happen until they found out and the CEO was pulled up to Congress to say, why did you do this? So powerful, powerful new tools need social responses to help protect people. If we don’t try to do that, it can burn us up. So that’s what happened with CRM, and I knew that that would happen with the Internet. And so that’s why I formed the People-Centered Internet in 2015 with Bill Cerf, because I had already seen it in the 90s with CRM. I can tell terrible stories about how people’s lives are destroyed by people using CRM technology.

但事實上，這不是真相。這只是一個人的計劃。所以，當像印刷技術、信息技術這樣強大的技術出現時，它就像火一樣。它進入人們的生活，人們使用它，但它也可能燃燒你。這就是CRM所發生的事情。富國銀行曾經發生了一起可怕的醜聞，7000名員工被告知違法，否則就會失去工作。多年來，這種情況一直在發生，直到他們發現並將首席執行官傳到國會，問他爲什麼這樣做？因此，強大的新工具需要社會響應來保護人們。如果我們不試圖做到這一點，它可能會對我們造成傷害。這就是CRM所發生的事情，我知道這也會發生在互聯網上。所以，我在2015年與比爾·瑟夫共同創立了以人爲中心的互聯網，因爲我在90年代已經看到了CRM的情況。我可以講述關於人們的生活如何被使用CRM技術的人摧毀的可怕故事。

Yu: Yes, and the next question is that you also mentioned that nowadays CRM has become much more customer-centered. Do you think this progress is also benefit from the Internet environment? Does the Internet make it more customized because information can spread more widely? So maybe you want to know more about what the real deal is?

Yu: 是的，接下來的問題是你也提到現在的CRM更加以客戶爲中心。你認爲這種進步也受益於網絡環境嗎？因爲信息可以更廣泛地傳播，所以它使得CRM更加個性化？所以也許你想更多地瞭解實際情況是什麼？

Mei: Can I answer? I already know what I want to say.

梅：我可以回答嗎？我已經知道我想說的了。

Yu: Go ahead, please.

請繼續，謝謝。

Mei: So CRM first started as customer relationship management. But customer relationships managed by a business is different from a customer relationship like between two people. Between two people, you want it to be fair. A business-customer relationship that is managed by the business means that it becomes technology that’s used by the business to control and manage the customers. The difference with the Internet is that the customers now have more information than the business. So the balance of power between the business and the customer is being renegotiated. It means that businesses can no longer manage customers the way they used to 10 years ago because the customers know much more than the business. And so what the Internet is offering is something they now call CX, customer experience. Customer experience is not customer relationship management. Customer experience is how can a customer make up their own mind about what is best for the customer. And that information for making that decision can come from anywhere on the Internet.

美：所以CRM最初是指客戶關係管理。但是企業管理的客戶關係與兩個人之間的客戶關係是不同的。在兩個人之間，你希望它是公平的。由企業管理的企業-客戶關係意味着它成爲企業用來控制和管理客戶的技術。與互聯網的不同之處在於客戶現在擁有比企業更多的信息。因此，企業與客戶之間的權力平衡正在重新協商。這意味着企業不能再像10年前那樣管理客戶，因爲客戶比企業更瞭解得多。因此，互聯網提供的是他們現在稱之爲CX的東西，即客戶體驗。客戶體驗不是客戶關係管理。客戶體驗是客戶如何自行決定什麼對客戶最好。而做出這個決定的信息可以來自互聯網的任何地方。

So it’s a much more challenging problem for businesses. CX will help to bring the power to the customer. However, businesses don’t like this because they used to have all this control for customers. And now they have to adjust. The customers have more power, have more choices, have more ability to not be manipulated by the businesses. It’s more challenging and the businesses are going to avoid that as long as possible. What we at the People Centered Internet are saying is that digital should help people make the best decisions, most pragmatic for their lives, for their children, for their parents, for their community. And this shift in power from businesses and the state calling the shots because they had all the information, we are in that process of transition to a much more balance of power.

所以對企業來說，這是一個更具挑戰性的問題。客戶體驗將有助於賦予客戶更多權力。然而，企業並不喜歡這一點，因爲他們習慣了對客戶擁有全部控制權。現在他們必須做出調整。客戶擁有更多權力，更多選擇，更有能力不受企業操縱。這更具挑戰性，企業將儘可能避免這種情況。我們在人本互聯網中心所說的是，數字技術應該幫助人們做出最佳決策，最實用的決策，爲他們的生活、子女、父母和小區着想。而這種權力從企業和政府擁有全部信息並主導一切的情況中轉移，我們正在進行一個更加平衡權力的過程。

Yu: Since you have already mentioned the People Centered Internet, it is a career to make people co-operative. What’s your biggest expectation to the people? If we’re talking about People Centered Internet, do you have expectations?

YU：既然你已經提到了以人爲中心的互聯網，那就是一個讓人們合作的事業。你對人們有什麼最大的期望？如果我們談論以人爲中心的互聯網，你有什麼期望嗎？

Mei: So I think it’s not enough known the role of Douglas Engelbart. Douglas Engelbart was on the first two nodes of the Internet, UCLA and SRI. What Douglas Engelbart said is that the power of technology is really to help communities learn from each other and not for personal computing, not for individuals to take the power of the technology and make that person very rich or very powerful,but for humanity to progress has always been the balance of power between many agendas between individuals. He realized very early that the power of technology was going to be very, very dangerous for humanity. And we’re seeing that danger now with misinformation, human trafficking, or ransomware. He tried to avoid that. He said we should have networks of communities. That was how the Internet spread. The Internet spread because there was Douglas Engelbart’s concept that this technology could help us operate in networks and use the network to share and learn from each other and progress in ways that are augmenting our humanity, not augmenting the power of one person or one country.

梅：所以我認爲道格拉斯·恩格爾巴特的角色並不爲人所知。道格拉斯·恩格爾巴特是互聯網的第一和第二個節點，分別是UCLA和SRI。道格拉斯·恩格爾巴特說的是，技術的力量真正在於幫助社區相互學習，而不是用於個人計算，也不是讓個人利用技術的力量變得非常富有或非常強大，而是爲了人類的進步，一直都是在許多議程和個人之間的權力平衡中。他很早就意識到技術的力量對人類來說將是非常非常危險的。我們現在正面臨着這種危險，包括錯誤信息、人口販賣或勒索軟件。他試圖避免這種情況發生。他說我們應該建立社區網絡。這就是互聯網的傳播方式。互聯網的傳播是因爲道格拉斯·恩格爾巴特提出了這個概念，即這種技術可以幫助我們在網絡中運作，利用網絡相互分享和學習，並以增強我們的人性的方式取得進步，而不是增強一個人或一個國家的權力。

Yu: Do you think Douglas Engelbart hopes for the development of technology has been laterally realized a lot in nowadays?

你認爲道格拉斯·恩格爾巴特對技術發展的期望在現今得到了很大的實現嗎？

Mei: People are much more aware of it. At the time that I began working with him, it was in 1999, I worked with him closely from 1999 to 2004. That was the time when Facebook started to emerge. So when I first worked with him, there were no social networks. There was just CRM. There was just email. But what he has been always talking about is, in fact, community networks, going beyond social networks and people dating or finding better products to buy, social networks for commerce. He believed that community networks could allow communities to actually collaborate better together in order to improve the lives of people in the community. And it would allow families to actually do more to make the decisions for their own families. Today we see this in something called digital public goods. We have digital public goods at the community level or the country level. These digital public goods are about getting data so that you can use it in new ways for the benefit of the people. That’s what we at the People-Centered Internet do, is carry on Douglas Engelbart’s original concept at the very beginning of the Internet, which is how can we use digital technology, how can we use data to allow people to make better decisions for themselves, their families, and their communities?

梅：人們對此更加意識到了。我與他合作的時間是從1999年開始，一直到2004年。那時Facebook開始崛起。所以當我第一次與他合作時，還沒有社交網絡。只有CRM（客戶關係管理）和電子郵件。但他一直在談論的是小區網絡，超越社交網絡，讓人們約會或找到更好的產品，以及商業社交網絡。他相信小區網絡可以讓小區中的人們更好地合作，改善小區居民的生活。這也可以讓家庭更多地爲自己做出決策。如今，我們在所謂的數字公共產品中看到了這一點。我們在小區層面或國家層面上有數字公共產品。這些數字公共產品是爲了獲取數據，以便以新的方式造福人民。 這就是我們在以人爲中心的互聯網組織所做的事情，延續道格拉斯·恩格爾巴特在互聯網初期提出的概念，即我們如何利用數字技術，如何利用數據，讓人們能夠爲自己、家庭和小區做出更好的決策？

Yu: It is because you mentioned before that you think that there are some similarities between reading and writing and the digital. You think it’s a way to make people see things through different ways. Do you think this kind of concern has been for a long time when you guys began to work for the technology career or it’s only happened later, maybe 10 years before or 20 years before?

YU：因爲你之前提到過你認爲閱讀和寫作與數字有一些相似之處。你認爲這是一種讓人們以不同方式看待事物的方式。你認爲這種關注在你們開始從事技術職業時就存在了很長時間，還是只是在後來，也許是10年前或20年前纔開始出現的？

Mei: I began studying computer science in 1976. It’s a long time ago. At that time we didn’t know what would happen or how it would be used. In 1970, I was 14 years old, I realized that computer technology was going to change everything. I was standing in the library in Singapore and I just knew that in my lifetime there would be huge changes in society because of technology. We faced a time when there would be a fork in the road, one where a few people would decide everything and another way where there could be participation by all in shaping the future. When I was 14 years old, I decided I would work towards this, participation by all. So I committed that I would be at the breaking wave of technology wherever it was and I would change so that we would not go down the bad path.

梅：我在1976年開始學習計算器科學。那是很久以前的事了。當時我們不知道會發生什麼，也不知道它會如何被應用。在1970年，我14歲的時候，我意識到計算器技術將會改變一切。我站在新加坡的圖書館裏，我就知道在我的一生中，由於科技的原因，社會將會發生巨大的變革。我們面臨着一個十字路口，一條路是少數人決定一切，另一條路是所有人都能參與塑造未來。當我14歲的時候，我決定會爲此而努力，讓所有人都能參與其中。所以我承諾，無論科技的浪潮在哪裏，我都會站在最前沿，並做出改變，以免走上錯誤的道路。

In 1999, I found Douglas Engelbart and we had the same vision. He tried to stop personal computing because he knew it would go down the power for individuals. And so we joined forces and I chaired his core planning committee since 2000 to 2004. I brought him to Singapore where he addressed the World Library Summit. He spoke at the IBM co-evolution symposium here. He has written and talked about the idea of networks of communities and what I carry on is his concept. So we now look at in the US here, there’s the federally qualified health centers, there’s 8,000 locations. They are using Engelbart’s ideas to share and learn together to improve the health of the people in their community. This has been written up by Duke Medical School, which is a top medical school in the country. This is a way for more affordable, high quality care, but it’s not care. It’s people caring for each other and themselves. We have to be involved in keeping ourselves healthy and having healthy communities. We have to be involved in having the kind of education that we want or the kind of transportation that we want. But today, transportation gets decided far away. Health gets decided in hospitals. We need to shift to what the internet can enable, which is the people helping to improve our health and helping to have the kind of future that we want.

1999年，我遇到了道格拉斯·恩格爾巴特，我們有着相同的願景。他試圖阻止個人計算機的發展，因爲他知道這將削弱個人的力量。於是我們聯手合作，我從2000年到2004年擔任他的核心規劃委員會主席。我帶他來到新加坡，他在世界圖書館峯會上發表了講話。他還在這裏參加了IBM共同進化研討會。他曾經寫過並談論過網絡社區的概念，而我所堅持的就是他的理念。現在我們看看美國，有聯邦合格的醫療中心，有8000個地點。他們正在使用恩格爾巴特的理念，共同分享和學習，以改善他們社區人民的健康狀況。這一點已經被美國頂尖醫學院杜克醫學院所記錄。這是一種更經濟、高質量的護理方式，但它不僅僅是護理，而是人們互相關心和照顧自己。我們必須參與保持自己的健康，建立健康的社區。我們必須參與我們想要的教育或交通方式的決策。但是今天，交通決策離我們很遠，健康決策則在醫院中進行。 我們需要轉向互聯網所能帶來的，那就是人們幫助改善我們的健康，幫助我們實現我們想要的未來。

Yu: So do you think it’s realized as an idea or ideologies more than the physical technology development?

Yu：那你認爲這是更多地實現爲一個理念或意識形態，而不僅僅是現實技術的發展嗎？

Mei: I think people outside the Silicon Valley seem to think, oh, this must be some magic place of heroes and only the heroes there can decide what the future is going to be. But this is so ridiculous because you come here and you see that people are just normal people just like anywhere else. But what it is, is that they see others daring to dream, having a commitment and intention to try harder to not give up. When you look at a swimmer who can swim a hundred kilometers, that person has worked very hard to learn how to swim 100 kilometers. In Silicon Valley, everybody swims 100 kilometers because we’re used to it. This is the level of energy that you have to put out to live here. So other people, they say it’s magic. It’s not. We just try harder. They say the impossible takes a little longer. The people here don’t give up. And what I want to say to people anywhere, and especially in China, you can have the future you want, but you cannot give up

梅：我覺得在硅谷之外的人似乎認爲，哦，這一定是一個英雄的魔法之地，只有那些英雄才能決定未來會是什麼樣子。但這太荒謬了，因爲你來到這裏就會發現，這裏的人和其他地方的人一樣，都是普通人。但不同的是，他們看到其他人敢於夢想，有着堅定的承諾和意願去更加努力，不放棄。當你看到一個能遊100公里的游泳者時，那個人一定付出了很多努力去學會遊100公里。在硅谷，每個人都遊100公里，因爲我們已經習慣了。這就是你在這裏生活所需要付出的能量水平。所以其他人說這是魔法，其實不是。我們只是更加努力而已。他們說不可能只是需要更長的時間。這裏的人不會放棄。我想對任何地方的人，特別是中國的人說，你可以擁有你想要的未來，但你不能放棄。

Yu: Do you think it’s a kind of culture over this place for a long time? Or do you think there’s any society reasons for this culture?

你認爲這是這個地方長期以來的一種文化嗎？還是你認爲這種文化有社會原因？

Mei: Anyone can do this. Singapore was one of the first, right? People didn’t give up. They said, we are not going to be a colony. We are not going to be a failed state. We are not going to be taken over by another country. We are going to fight for our future. And by doing that, Singapore broke through and became the economic miracle of the 20th century, helping China to see you can do it your own way. You don’t have to do it a Western way or another way. You can do it your own way. I’m so proud to come from Singapore, because Singapore provided a model for China to take 800 million people out of poverty. And it’s not about a Singapore model. It’s just like, we can do it. You can do it. Everyone can do it, but you have to decide that you want to do it. And that’s what I want the young people of China to know. Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t have your dream. You have to fight for your dream.

梅：任何人都可以做到這一點。新加坡是最早的之一，對吧？人們沒有放棄。他們說，我們不會成爲殖民地。我們不會成爲一個失敗的國家。我們不會被其他國家佔領。我們要爲我們的未來而戰。通過這樣做，新加坡突破了，成爲了20世紀的經濟奇蹟，幫助中國看到你可以用自己的方式做到。你不必按照西方的方式或其他方式去做。你可以用自己的方式去做。我爲自己來自新加坡感到驕傲，因爲新加坡爲中國提供了一個模式，讓8億人擺脫貧困。這不是關於新加坡模式。就像是，我們可以做到。你可以做到。每個人都可以做到，但你必須決定你想要做到。這就是我想讓中國的年輕人知道的。不要讓任何人告訴你，你不能實現你的夢想。你必須爲你的夢想而戰。

Yu: I also noticed that you have a lot of Chinese and Japanese styles of art heritage in your home. Do you think there is any connection between your taste in the arts and your works recently?

崔雨：我也注意到你家裏有很多中日藝術遺產的風格。你覺得你對藝術的品味和最近的作品有什麼關聯嗎？

Mei: I cannot help where I was born or where I grew up. So I have an Eastern consciousness in my mind, but my body lives in the West. So I believe that it put me in a special position to be a bridge. A bridge that says that digital technology can provide ways where we can integrate our consciousness wherever it came from.Whether you’re Indian or from the Amazon or from a tribe in the Philippines, it’s possible to take your cultural heritage and use modern technology to engage with the rest of the world on your own terms. You do not have to give up your culture. And I never gave up my culture. So I’m very proud. I went to Tiananmen Square in 2000 and I went to the museum and I bought all of these because it makes me remember how proud I am of my Chinese heritage. But I need to bring this to Silicon Valley and I helped to create the Ding Ding TV gets start where we had Future Talk, a television series in Chinese and Mandarin.

梅：我無法選擇我出生的地方或成長的環境。所以我的思想裏有東方的意識，但我的身體卻生活在西方。因此，我相信這使我處於一個特殊的位置，成爲一座橋樑。這座橋樑傳達的是，數字科技可以提供方式，讓我們能夠將自己的意識與來自任何地方的人融合在一起。無論你是印度人、亞馬遜人還是菲律賓部落的人，都有可能利用現代科技以自己的方式與世界互動。你不需要放棄自己的文化。我從未放棄我的文化，因此我感到非常自豪。2000年，我去了天安門廣場，參觀了博物館，買了這些東西，因爲它們讓我記起我對中國文化的自豪。但我需要將這種自豪帶到硅谷，我幫助創建了Ding Ding TV，我們推出了《未來談話》這個以中文和普通話播出的電視節目系列。

For me, it was important that we don’t always speak in English because every language has a culture and a philosophy that can only be conveyed in its own language. So I think digital technology can now allow that. So Mozilla.org is allowing anyone who speaks any language to go to their site and speak their language. And somebody who knows that language and knows another language can say, that person said this, this, this. So it’s a crowd sourced way to do language translation and to allow all the languages of the world to be enabled by digital technology. This is very important right now because of artificial intelligence and the training data. If the training data is done only in English or only in Mandarin or only in Spanish, then those cultures become predominant in the AI. I want to make sure that the future of digital encompasses the culture of the world, all the languages, all the people.

對我來說，重要的是我們不要總是用英語交流，因爲每種語言都有其獨特的文化和哲學，只有用其本身的語言才能傳達。所以我認爲數字技術現在可以實現這一點。Mozilla.org允許任何會說任何語言的人進入他們的網站並使用自己的語言交流。而懂這種語言並且懂另一種語言的人可以說，這個人說了這個、這個、這個。這是一種羣衆共享的方式來進行語言翻譯，並且讓世界上所有的語言都能夠通過數字技術得到應用。這非常重要，因爲人工智能和訓練數據的關係。如果訓練數據只用英語、普通話或西班牙語，那麼這些文化就會在人工智能中占主導地位。我希望確保數字的未來包含了世界的文化、所有的語言和所有的人。

Yu: I also remember you mentioned that Eastern philosophy also inspired you in your work. I’m just wondering because there is a lot of philosophy in traditional China about community. Are you inspired by that since you are a person who is concerned a lot about people’s inter-cooperative?

崔雨：我還記得你提到過東方哲學也在你的工作中給你帶來了靈感。我很好奇，因爲中國傳統文化中有很多關於社羣的哲學，你是否受到了啓發，因爲你是一個非常關心人們相互合作的人？

Mei: I grew up in Singapore. When you are part of a Singapore family, you are less than the family. The family is less than the neighborhood. The neighborhood is less than the society. This is how I grew up. It is difficult for me to actually live in the West because this idea that the individual is more important than anything else, that the individual human rights, it is tricky for me because one person’s human rights should not interfere with our collective good. For humanity, not just in China, but in all places, the only way we have survived is to help each other. If we don’t put a priority on working together, we could run into very dangerous situations. I think we are in a transition period where digital has been… You need rugged individuals to have a great idea and push forward by themselves. But then we need the rest of society to say, okay, how do we take that idea and make sure it works for everybody, not just one person or a few. At this stage, we are in the transition where technology has benefited a few, a lot, billionaires. Now we can take technology and see how to benefit the whole planet, all the people. And it’s not benefiting, it is where the people themselves shape their future.

梅：我在新加坡長大。當你是新加坡家庭的一員時，你比家庭更小。家庭比社區更小。社區比社會更小。這就是我成長的方式。對我來說，實際上在西方生活是困難的，因爲個人比任何其他事物都更重要，個人的人權，這對我來說很棘手，因爲一個人的人權不應該干擾我們的集體利益。對於人類來說，不僅僅是在中國，而是在所有地方，我們唯一能夠生存下來的方式就是互相幫助。如果我們不把合作放在首位，我們可能會遇到非常危險的情況。我認爲我們正處於一個過渡期，數字化已經……你需要堅韌的個人來擁有一個偉大的想法，並獨自推動前進。但是我們需要社會的其他成員來說，好的，我們如何將這個想法變成對每個人都有效的東西，而不僅僅是一個人或少數人。在這個階段，我們正處於技術造福少數人的過渡階段，億萬富翁們從中受益匪淺。現在我們可以利用技術來想辦法造福整個地球，造福所有人。 而且這不是在受益，而是人們自己塑造他們的未來的地方。

Huang: Actually we want to know if it is possible, like 70s the vibe, the people, a lot of students movements…How to imagine the vibe keep things all come together? Can you talk more about the vibe?

黃：其實我們想知道是否可能，就像70年代的氛圍，人們，很多學生運動...如何想象這種氛圍將所有事情聚集在一起？你能多談談這種氛圍嗎？

Mei: San Francisco has always been countercultural. San Francisco is a place where people who don’t like rules, this is where the people come. 1968 was the Summer of Love. The Summer of Love in San Francisco is where young people came from all over to say, we want a different future. We don’t want the way the current society works. It was the time of the Vietnam War and there were tremendous protests. Young people were saying, we are very uncomfortable with our current society. So yes, there were drugs. However, I think that Engelbart’s lab was really looking at what can technology do to realize the possibilities of life that the young people were seeking. They didn’t wanted dull,boring lives. They wanted to explore. They could see the potential for a very different kind of future.

梅：舊金山一直以來都是反主流文化的代表。舊金山是一個不喜歡規則的人們聚集的地方。1968年是愛的夏天。在舊金山的愛的夏天，年輕人們從各地匯聚在此，表達了他們對不同未來的渴望。他們不想要現行社會的方式。那是越戰時期，有大規模的抗議活動。年輕人們在表達，他們對現行社會感到非常不舒服。所以，是的，有毒品的存在。然而，我認爲恩格爾巴特的實驗室真正關注的是技術能爲年輕人所追求的生活可能性做些什麼。他們不想要乏味、無聊的生活。他們想要探索。他們能夠看到一個非常不同的未來的潛力。

So I feel like the vibe here as the Homebrew Computer Club people just like want to hear each others: What do you think? What is your idea? It was a time of great opening up of listening to ideas. I feel that that has really got lost now. And it is such a pity because digital technology is a place for having many new ideas. Young people today, they are going to decide how the world is going to work for the next 100 years. So why are you sitting around complaining about the past? Why aren’t you thinking, how can I use digital technology to have a better future, to have the future that I want? Why aren’t we talking about what kind of lives we want? So we within the People-Centered Internet, we are running a film challenge for young people to say, what do you want to see in the next 50 years? We believe this question has not been asked.Stop Think! We have so much possibility. Stop complaining! Think about how you could use it to realize a different kind of future. In San Francisco, the counterculture allowed people to think about a different kind of future. The Internet was born out of that spirit. 50 years later, I throw down the challenge to the young people that they should think, what is the next 50 years?

所以我覺得在這裏的氛圍就像是Homebrew Computer Club的人們只是想聽聽彼此的聲音：你覺得怎麼樣？你有什麼想法？那是一個開放聽取想法的偉大時代。我感覺這種精神現在真的失去了。這真是太可惜了，因爲數字技術是一個擁有許多新想法的地方。如今的年輕人將決定未來100年世界的運作方式。那麼爲什麼你們還在抱怨過去呢？爲什麼不思考，我如何利用數字技術創造一個更美好的未來，實現我想要的未來？爲什麼我們不談論我們想要的生活方式？所以我們在People-Centered Internet內部爲年輕人舉辦了一個電影挑戰，問他們在未來50年裏想看到什麼？我們相信這個問題還沒有被提出。停下來思考！我們有如此多的可能性。別再抱怨了！想想你如何利用它實現一個不同的未來。在舊金山，反主流文化讓人們思考不同的未來。互聯網就誕生於那種精神中。 50年後，我向年輕人提出挑戰，讓他們思考下一個50年會是什麼樣子？

Huang: Do you want talk about more about like gender issue ? Because I think you definitely have a very special perspective.

黃：你想多談談性別議題嗎？因爲我覺得你絕對有一個非常特別的觀點。

Yu: Do we need a specific question?

Yu：我們需要一個具體的問題嗎？

Mei: No, it’s alright. I can talk. Do you want me to talk about Asian as well, or just gender?

梅：不，沒關係。我可以說。你想讓我談談亞洲，還是隻談性別？

Huang: Okay okay. Do it both.

黃：好好好。兩個都做。

Mei: So I want to talk about Intel and what happened in Intel for Asian Americans. There was a very senior guy called Albert Yu. He was Chinese. And he made a special effort to reach out to all the Asian Americans in Intel. That was quite unusual in the 80s that a technology company would think about the issues of Asian Americans. And so I began to see that it was very important to bring out my Chinese heritage, because otherwise technology was being invented for white people. There were very few African Americans here. There were very few Latinos working in Intel. It became more important to me because of the experience working at Intel, and Albert Yu’s leadership for bringing out the voice of Asian Americans.

梅：所以我想談談英特爾以及亞裔美國人在英特爾所發生的事情。有一位非常資深的人叫做阿爾伯特·餘，他是華裔。他特別努力地與英特爾的所有亞裔美國人聯繫。在80年代，科技公司關注亞裔美國人的問題是相當不尋常的。因此，我開始意識到展現我的中國文化背景非常重要，因爲否則科技就只是爲白人而創造的。這裏幾乎沒有非裔美國人，也很少有拉丁裔在英特爾工作。在英特爾工作的經驗以及阿爾伯特·餘爲亞裔美國人發聲的領導地位使這一點變得更加重要。

But now I want to now touch on the experience of being a woman in Silicon Valley. I feel that Silicon Valley has become a very male-dominated philosophy, where if you don’t just say, oh, it’s about greed and power and making a lot of money, this is not going to work. You are not important. You are too caring. You’re too altruistic. Well,you know Women have taken care to make sure that the human race survives. We know that we cannot survive without caring for each other. So it’s very difficult for women to look at where technology is going and say, I want to be part of that. Why do I want to be a selfish, uncaring, greedy leader? This is not what a woman wants to do. We are not trained. Our whole genetic heritage is to look after other people. So Silicon Valley has been identified by Emily Chang, an Asian woman, as bro-topia, the utopia for bros. This is a terrible thing for the world because bro-topia will take us to extinction. What we need to do is understand how technology can support the caring economy, the informal economy. With Internet of Things, we can measure the informal economy. We don’t have to put everything in terms of dollars and cents. We can say, you know what, we care about the fact that the grandmother babysits the grandchildren and she isn’t paid for that. But today, we don’t count it, so it’s as though that work doesn’t matter.

但現在我想談談在硅谷作爲一個女性的經驗。我覺得硅谷已經成爲一個非常男性主導的理念，如果你不只是說，哦，這是關於貪婪、權力和賺很多錢，這是行不通的。你不重要。你太關心他人。你太無私。嗯，你知道，女性一直努力確保人類的生存。我們知道，如果沒有互相關心，我們無法生存。所以對於女性來說，很難看到科技的發展方向，然後說，我想參與其中。爲什麼我要成爲一個自私、冷漠、貪婪的領導者？這不是女性想做的事情。我們沒有接受過這樣的訓練。我們的基因遺傳使我們注重照顧他人。所以硅谷被亞洲女性埃米莉·張稱爲兄弟天堂，這對世界來說是一件可怕的事情，因爲兄弟天堂將導致我們滅絕。我們需要做的是瞭解科技如何支持關懷經濟、非正式經濟。通過物聯網，我們可以衡量非正式經濟。我們不必把一切都用金錢來衡量。 我們可以說，你知道嗎，我們關心的是奶奶照顧孫子孫女的事實，而且她並沒有得到報酬。但是今天，我們不把這算在內，所以這份工作好像不重要了。

So we are working ,People Centered Internet is working with the U.S. Census Bureau to look at how the 2040 census can count the informal economy, can count the caring economy. Because if we don’t count what counts to us as humans, we are not making the right decisions to allocate resources, to allocate attention, to allocate investment to build a better future. So I believe that it is now, in the next 15-20 years, that we can start to measure the things that matter to us as humans, as women, as grandmothers, as stewards of the planet, to make sure that we have a planet to hand over to the future generations.

所以我們正在與美國人口普查局合作，研究如何在2040年人口普查中統計非正式經濟和關懷經濟。因爲如果我們不統計對我們作爲人類來說重要的事情，我們就無法做出正確的決策來分配資源、分配關注和投資，以建設一個更美好的未來。所以我相信，現在，在接下來的15-20年裏，我們可以開始衡量對我們作爲人類、作爲女性、作爲祖母、作爲地球的守護者來說重要的事情，以確保我們有一個地球可以傳給未來的世代。

Yu: Okay that’s cool.

Yu: 好的，那很酷。