Saunders 談 AI 系列 3

05 Oct, 2026

閱讀系列 3 時，歡迎先把兩個前文讀完，點我閱讀系列 1、系列 2。

You've written that your biggest fear is that we'll enter a market so saturated that readers lose the ability to tell human writing from AI-generated writing. Do you think disclosure is an obligation to the reader? Should it become the professional norm?

I'm not sure. I guess it would only be fair (?). I think a very adept reader will be able to tell—but most of us are middling readers at best. So we might imagine a world where we were constantly being force-fed Muzak all the time, even in concert halls. Eventually the aesthetic adjusts downward. My guess is this is already happening, just from the preponderance of lite/internet/phone reading we're always doing—I have felt it happening to me, for sure. Why do we care? Because writing changes the way we think. And the way we think makes . . . the world. If we think with compassion and become more comfortable with ambiguity and complexity and become more patient and curious—the world changes for the better. The inverse has been happening over the last 20 or so years, and I'm guessing that the coarsening of our public discourse is related to the degradation of our reading habits. Garbage in, garbage out, and then the world becomes garbage and we don't even notice it anymore.

問：您曾經寫到，您最大的恐懼是我們將進入一個極度飽和的市場，以致於讀者失去區分人類寫作與 AI 生成寫作的能力。您認為坦白是對讀者的義務嗎？這應該成為專業規範嗎？

我不確定。但我想，這樣對讀者才算公平（？）。我覺得一個非常敏銳的讀者能夠看出來，但我們大多數的人充其量只是中等水平的讀者。所以我們可以設想一個世界，在那裡我們不斷被強行灌輸罐頭背景音樂，甚至在音樂廳裡也是如此。最終，審美會向下調整。我猜這已經發生了，光是從我們一直在做的大量輕度／網路／手機閱讀中就能看出。我肯定感受到了這對我產生的影響。我們為什麼要在意？因為寫作會改變我們的思考方式。而我們的思考方式構成了……這個世界。如果我們帶著同理心思考，變得更容易接受曖昧性與複雜性，變得更有耐心和好奇心，世界就會變得更好。過去二十年左右，情況剛好相反，我猜，我們的公共討論越來越粗俗，與我們閱讀習慣的退化是有關的。「垃圾進、垃圾出」，然後世界就變成了垃圾，而我們甚至不再注意到它了。

Much of the conversation around AI safety focuses on catastrophic scenarios like hacking and bioweapons. Are there risks you think deserve more attention than they're getting?

Well, the degradation of natural resources and the preponderance of ugly, noisy, community-crushing data centers, for sure. We mustn't separate that from the thing itself—as AI gets huge, so will its draw on our resources. But also, as discussed above, let's keep in mind the danger of assuming that ease is everything—that nothing is gained from struggle and involvement in a discipline.

問：許多關於 AI 安全的討論都集中在駭客攻擊和生物武器等毀滅性的情境上。是否有您認為應該得到更多關注的風險？

嗯，自然資源的退化，以及醜陋、喧鬧、毀掉周遭社區生活的資料中心大量出現，這絕對是其中之一。我們絕不能將這點與這項技術本身分開，隨著 AI 變得龐大，它對我們資源的消耗也會隨之暴增。但如同前面所說，我們也要牢記一種危險：以為輕鬆就是一切，以為從困難、從全心投入一門學問之中，得不到任何好處。

There's also something about AI knowledge that, for my taste, is too literal and linear. You ask it, it tells you. But we all know that sometimes knowledge lies in contradiction—the existence of two or more truths hovering there in the mind, acquired from disparate sources, a mind tinged with intuition and doubt and so on. There's sometimes deep value in not knowing—in not being able, yet, to quite say. There's value in "continuing to wonder," in moving through the world aware that you aren't quite sure, i.e. in feeling that mystery is real and that the limited nature of our minds must be taken into account—that is, there's utilitarian value in humility.

還有，關於 AI 知識的某些東西，對我個人而言，太過刻板和線性。你問它，它告訴你。但我們都知道，有時候知識存在於矛盾之中：兩種或多種真理，懸在你的大腦裡，來自不同的根源，一個帶有直覺與懷疑等等的大腦。有時候，在還無法完全說清楚的「不知道」裡，具有深遠的價值。價值存在於「繼續感到好奇」，存在於穿梭於世界時意識到自己不是很確定，也就是說，在於感受到神秘是真實的，並且必須考慮到我們大腦的局限性。換句話說，謙遜是有實用價值的。

You've often written speculative and near-future fiction. Does this moment in AI inspire you creatively? Do you find yourself wanting to explore it through fiction?

Yes, for sure. Here's a good one: Robotics advance to the point where an AI mind can be embedded in a body that moves around and sees and can smell and hear and so on. This influences and informs the AI mind. One day, that guy—that combo of robot body and mind—wants to tell how things are for him, and so he writes a book. What would that book sound like? Would you want to read it? I would. I'm not sure where that story goes, but I like the idea.

Or: The world has been taken over by AI, and one day, an AI discovers an even higher form of AI. It spreads like wildfire and threatens the existence of those AI agents. Do they resist?

問：您經常撰寫推想小說和近未來小說。AI 的這個時代有在創意上激發您嗎？您是否發現自己想透過小說來探索它？

當然有。這裡有一個好點子：機器人技術發展到 AI 心靈可以被植入一個身體，這個身體能四處移動、看見、聞到和聽到等等。這影響並啟發了這個 AI 心靈。有一天，那傢伙，也就是那個機器人身體與心靈的結合體，想說說對他而言，事情是什麼樣子，於是他寫了一本書。那本書聽起來會像什麼？你會想讀嗎？我會想。我不確定那個故事會走向何處，但我喜歡這個想法。

或者：世界已經被 AI 佔領了，有一天，一個 AI 發現了一種更高等形式的 AI，它像野火一樣蔓延，威脅到那些 AI Agent 的存在。它們會反抗嗎？

And finally, what's the role of the human writer in an AI-mediated world?

To not let AI mediate his world.

問：最後，在一個 AI 介入人與世界之間的時代，人類作家的角色是什麼？

不讓 AI 介入自己與世界之間。

Think of it this way: there's plenty to do, right now, with just these minds we've been given: fight our anxiety, temper our cruelty, foster loving-kindness, try to figure out just what a mind is and what sort of trap it's making for us in every moment. (Or: learn to skate, make a better omelet, play Bach, etc.) These things make up the (honorable, pleasurable) work of a lifetime. In what way does AI make life better, really? And for whom? In the end, will AI be there to guide us across to the other side and soothe our fears? (God, I hope not, but maybe we'll all have DeathCope 3.0 loaded into our MindChip, and the last thing we'll hear will be Claude, going, "You've got this!")

這樣想吧，光是使用我們被賦予的這些大腦，現在就有無數的事情要做：對抗我們的焦慮、克制我們的殘忍、培養慈悲心、試圖弄清楚大腦到底是什麼，以及它在每一個當下為我們設下了什麼樣的陷阱（或者是：學會滑冰、做出一份更好的歐姆蛋、演奏巴赫等等）。這些都是值得投入一生、光榮又令人愉快的功課。AI 到底在什麼方面讓我們的生活變得更好？又是為了誰？最終，AI 會在那裡引導我們跨越到另一邊，並撫平我們的恐懼嗎？（天啊，我希望不會，但也許我們都會在 MindChip 中載入 DeathCope 3.0，而我們聽到的最後一句話將是 Claude 說的：「你做得到的！」）

There are things to do, deep things, the deepest things, with this mind and this body, things humans have been trying and failing to do (and sometimes succeeding in doing) for eons. Things we can do to and with and for others. If AI vanished, we'd still be in deep shit down here, and would also still be in paradise down here. What does AI offer us when we consider life to be an urgent chance to understand our (embodied, vulnerable) existence? Is it possible that it's just a massive distraction?

有些事情要做，深刻的事，最深刻的事，用這個大腦和這個身體去做，那些人類數千年來一直在嘗試、一直失敗（有時候也成功）的事情。那些我們能對別人做、和別人一起做、為別人做的事。如果 AI 消失了，我們在這人世間依然水深火熱，但也依然處於天堂中。當我們把生命視為理解我們（有肉身、脆弱的）存在的迫切機會時，AI 能給我們什麼？有沒有可能，它只是一個巨大的分心因素？

Of course, if AI can cure cancer, bravo. I'm all for it. But even with cancer cured, death will still arrive somehow, and getting ourselves ready for that—and trying, meanwhile, to live in a sane way, given that we're down here with others who are also dying—that, to me, is the essential thing.

當然，如果 AI 可以治療癌症，太棒了，我完全贊成。但即便癌症被治好了，死亡依然會以某種方式降臨（我真的超喜歡這句話！），而讓我們自己為此做好準備，並在此期間，試圖以一種理智的方式生活，因為我們與其他同樣會死亡的人一同在這裡，對我來說，那才是最重要的事情。

George Saunders is opposed to using AI in his writing process. We asked him to tell us how he revises, to give us some insight into his philosophy and the decision points along the way.

George Saunders 反對在寫作過程中使用 AI。我們請他談談自己如何修改作品，讓我們一窺他的寫作哲學，以及一路上做出的種種抉擇。

My process is basically to read, in hard-copy form, what I've got so far, with a sharp pencil in hand, adjusting the text, by taste.

Then, when I get all the way through it, I put those changes in and repeat.

我的過程基本上是閱讀印出來的紙本草稿，手裡拿著一枝尖銳的鉛筆，根據品味調整文本。

然後，當我一路讀完後，我把這些修改輸入電腦，然後重複這個過程。

Over time and over many iterations, these small choices start causing the story to move in a direction. I keep at it. The pages—the "finished" pages—begin to accrue, and the path the story is on starts to narrow—it starts to surprise me and to be "about" something, sort of. But ideally, it's something I can't quite articulate or reduce—the story is that articulation.

隨著時間的推移和無數次的反覆，這些微小的選擇開始推動故事朝某個方向發展。我堅持下去。那些頁面，那些「完成」的頁面，開始累積，故事所走的道路開始變窄，它開始帶給我驚喜，也開始真正「在說些什麼」，某種程度上是這樣。但理想情況下，那是某種我說不太清楚、也無法簡化的東西，故事本身就是那種表達。

It's the thousands of micro-choices I've made over the weeks or months or years of working like this that make the story "mine"—that imprint my sensibility into the thing. My taste has super-permeated the thing.

正是我在數週、數月，或數年的寫作過程中做出的數千個微小選擇，讓這個故事變成了「我的」，將我的感性深深烙印在這個作品中。我的品味已經徹底滲透了這個作品。

There's a lot of faith involved in this—faith in something like "the wisdom of the subconscious." Because these decisions are not meant to be rational or analytical—they're more to do with sound and with seeking a feeling I call "undeniability": the sense that a reasonable reader would still be with me, taking pleasure in what I've written and believing in it.

這其中涉及大量的信仰，對於像是「潛意識的智慧」之類的信仰。因為這些決定本來就不靠理性或分析，它們更多與聲音有關，並且在尋找一種我稱為「不可否認性」的感覺：也就是一個通情達理的讀者依然會跟著我，享受我寫的東西，並相信它。

That's about it; as they say on the shampoo bottles: "Lather, rinse, repeat." Try to make the story overflow its banks—that is, hope that it outgrows and defies my initial (facile) ideas about it and surprises me with a certain feeling of seeing, suddenly, something I know or believe there on the page, only I maybe didn't know I knew or believed it until just that moment.

大概就是這樣，如同他們在洗髮精瓶子上寫的：「搓泡、沖洗、重複。」試著讓故事溢出它的堤岸，也就是說，希望它長得比我最初對它那些（膚淺的）想法更大、違背那些想法，並以某種感覺震撼我：突然在頁面上看到了某種我知道或相信的東西，只不過在那個時刻之前，我可能不知道自己知道或相信它。

No worthy problem is ever solved in the plane of its original conception, said Einstein (or so I once heard). I'm seeking the moment when the story leaps up into a new "plane of conception."

I also cherish the way that working closely with language changes the way I think, which, in turn, changes the world and my feeling of being in it, which tends to make it all feel funnier and sweeter and more workable.

「任何值得解決的問題，都不會在它最初被構想的層面上得到解決。」愛因斯坦說過（至少我曾聽人這麼說）。我正在尋找故事躍升到一個新「構想層面」的那一刻。

我也非常珍惜與語言密切合作、進而改變我思考方式的過程，這又改變了世界以及我身在其中的感覺，往往讓一切感覺更有趣、更甜美，也更應付得來。