Alan Kay

摘要

Alan Curtis Kay（1940-05-17 生于马萨诸塞州 Springfield）——个人计算之父级人物：Dynabook 愿景（1968-72）、"object-oriented programming" 一词的创造者与 Smalltalk 的设计者、Xerox PARC 学习研究组（LRG）创始人、重叠窗口 GUI 的主要发明人之一。图灵奖（2003）、京都赏（2004）、Draper Prize（2004）得主。他也是三人档案（Turing / Shannon / Kay）中唯一一位把"如何组织研究"本身当作毕生课题反复书写的人——ARPA/PARC 研究文化的第一见证人与最系统的阐释者。

他最著名的一句话有确切的一手出处——1971 年对 Xerox 规划主管说的气话：

"Look. The best way to predict the future is to invent it. Don't worry about what all those other people might do, this is the century in which almost any clear vision can be made!"

"听着。预测未来最好的方式就是发明它。别操心其他那些人会做什么——这是一个几乎任何清晰愿景都能被实现的世纪！"

"The Early History of Smalltalk", 1993（自述 1971 年对 Xerox 规划主管 Don Pendery 所言）

而 2025 年、85 岁的他对这句话的最新注脚是："我有指示，这句口号不许刻在我墓碑上"——口号本身是中性的，"它没说你该发明一个好的未来。此刻掌权的人们正忙着通过发明未来来预测未来，但他们在发明一个坏的。"（The Generalist 访谈，Podwise QA 提炼）

读他的一手文本，有两条主线贯穿六十年：其一，计算机不是工具而是媒介——"人类历史上第一个元媒介"，其真正的革命是像印刷术改变思想那样改变思想，而这场革命"还没有发生"；其二，语境（context）大于天才——"观点值 80 个 IQ 点"，ARPA/PARC 的奇迹不是聪明人的奇迹，而是一种资助与组织方式的奇迹：

"When I think of ARPA/PARC, I think first of good will, even before brilliant people."

"想到 ARPA/PARC 时，我首先想到的是善意——甚至排在聪明人之前。"

"The Power of the Context", 2004

一、生平时间线

第一章：阅读、Buchenwald 与音乐（1940–1961）

Kay 生于 1940 年（公共记录）。他把一生最重要的事定位在入学之前：

"I think the most important thing that happened to me in my entire life happened very early: learning to read fluently several years before I went to school. My earliest memories are of books."

"我想我一生中发生过的最重要的事发生得很早：在上学前好几年就学会了流利阅读。我最早的记忆就是书。"

"The Center of 'Why?'"（京都赏纪念演讲）, 2004

大量阅读给了他第一个认识论装备——同一件事存在多个版本：

"For the first time I got a sense that different groups made up different stories for the same topics. More importantly, there was more than one point of view, and they could all be written down, so there was no particular reason to accept anything that was written down (or spoken) at face value; more was needed."

"我第一次意识到：不同的人群会为同一主题编出不同的故事。更重要的是，观点不止一个，而且都可以被写下来——所以没有任何理由对写下（或说出）的东西照单全收；还需要更多东西。"

同上

于是学校成了冲突现场——每科只有"一本书"：

"But I was surprised to find that in school there was just One Book about each subject: The Text Book that the teacher used for the Final Authority for all opinions and questions."

"但我惊讶地发现，学校里每个科目只有'一本书'：那本被老师当作一切观点与问题之最终权威的教科书。"

同上

"Pretty quickly I realized that the teacher did NOT want to discuss any of these interesting ideas AT ALL. ... But, through books, I found that if I wanted to learn something, I could do it myself, and so school was only somewhat painful, not completely painful."

"很快我就明白：老师完全、根本不想讨论这些有趣的想法。……但通过书，我发现如果我想学什么，我可以自己学——所以学校只是有些痛苦，不算彻底痛苦。"

同上

七岁那年的一本旧《Life》杂志，成了他自述的人生转折点——Margaret Bourke-White 拍摄的 Buchenwald 集中营照片：

"But the thing that traumatized me occurred a couple years later, when I found an old copy of Life magazine that had the Margaret Bourke-White photos from Buchenwald. ... That's when I realized that adults were dangerous. Like, really dangerous."

"但真正给我造成创伤的事发生在几年后：我翻到一本旧《Life》杂志，里面有 Margaret Bourke-White 拍的 Buchenwald 照片。……就是那时我意识到：成年人是危险的。真正地危险。"

Dr. Dobb's 采访（Andrew Binstock）, 2012

"It shattered me. And when I could think about it again, one of my thoughts was oh, that's what fairy tales are about. I had this dim realization that the ogres, the giants and the ogres in fairy tales were actually adults."

"它击碎了我。等我能重新思考这件事时，我的念头之一是：哦，原来童话讲的就是这个。我朦胧地意识到，童话里的食人魔和巨人，其实就是成年人。"

CHM 口述史, 2008

这直接定义了他此后做教育的动机——罕见的、不煽情的版本：

"That probably was the turning point that changed my entire attitude toward life. It was responsible for getting me interested in education. My interest in education is unglamorous. I don't have an enormous desire to help children, but I have an enormous desire to create better adults."

"那大概就是改变我整个人生态度的转折点。是它让我对教育产生了兴趣。我对教育的兴趣并不光鲜。我没有帮助儿童的巨大渴望——我有的是创造更好的成年人的巨大渴望。"

Dr. Dobb's 采访, 2012

另一个塑造性人物是四年级老师 Mary Quirk——她在教室后面放一张堆满工具、电线、齿轮、电池和书的桌子，从不解释。Kay 用桌上的书和电池做出了电磁铁：

"I let out a shriek: 'It works!' The class stopped. I hunched down expecting some form of punishment as had often happened to me in my previous school. But Miss Quirk did nothing of the kind. She stopped the class and asked, 'How did you do that?'."

"我尖叫了一声：'成了！'全班停了下来。我缩起身子，等着挨罚——在之前的学校这是常事。但 Quirk 老师完全没有。她停下课问：'你是怎么做到的？"

"The Center of 'Why?'", 2004

多年后他在 Utah 读研时才明白这段经历的份量：

"Still later when I lucked into a terrific grad school at the University of Utah, my first thought was that this was just like 4th grade! And then I realized that Mary Quirk had made 4th grade just like a great graduate school! This is a critical insight. Children are in the same state of not knowing as research scientists."

"很久以后，当我幸运地进了 Utah 大学那所了不起的研究生院，我的第一反应是：这跟四年级一模一样！然后我才醒悟：是 Mary Quirk 把四年级办得像一所伟大的研究生院！这是一个关键的洞察。儿童与研究科学家处于同一种'不知道'的状态。"

同上

（他的家庭：艺术家兼音乐家的母亲、科学家父亲——"I've been driven by beauty, romance and idealism, and owe more intellectual debts than most, starting with my artistic and musical mother and scientist father."——"驱动我的是美、浪漫与理想主义；我欠下的智识之债比多数人都多，从我那位艺术与音乐的母亲和科学家父亲算起。"《The Power of the Context》。他后来做过职业音乐人，1977 年论文作者简介仍注明"乐器设计至今是他的业余兴趣之一"。）

第二章：空军程序员——对象的第一次"隐约看见"（1961–1966）

大学中途，Kay 进入空军服役并通过资质测验成为程序员（约 1961 年；细节以他自述为准）。在 Burroughs 220 上，他遇到了一位无名设计者留下的文件传输格式——数据、访问数据的过程、指向过程的指针三段式。三十年后他在研究史里把这标记为 OOP 思想的第一次"隐约看见"：

"True to the stages, I 'barely saw' the idea several times ca. 1961 while a programmer in the Air Force. The first was on the Burroughs 220 in the form of a style for transporting files from one Air Training Command installation to another."

"与那些阶段相符，我在 1961 年前后、还是空军程序员时，就'隐约看见'过这个想法几次。第一次是在 Burroughs 220 上——一种在空军训练司令部各基地之间传送文件的格式。"

"The Early History of Smalltalk", 1993

1997 年 OOPSLA 演讲里他补上了对这位无名者的注脚——"几乎可以肯定是个士兵，因为那时军官不编程"——并把这个 1961 年的设计与后来的 HTML 对照，得出他最愤怒的判断之一（见"深度洞察·对当下产业的批判"）。退役后他在科罗拉多大学完成数学与分子生物学学位（公共记录；两个专业的组合日后成为 OOP 的思想底料）。

第三章：Utah——ARPA Dream、两份文档与"object-oriented"的命名（1966–1969）

1966 年秋，Kay "一无所知地"进入 Utah 大学研究生院：

"Through a series of flukes, I wound up in graduate school at the University of Utah in the Fall of 1966, 'knowing nothing.' That is to say, I had never heard of ARPA or its projects ... until I actually walked into Dave Evans' office looking for a job and a desk. On Dave's desk was a foot-high stack of brown covered documents, one of which he handed to me: 'Take this and read it."

"由于一连串的偶然，1966 年秋我'一无所知地'进了 Utah 大学研究生院。也就是说，我从没听说过 ARPA 或它的项目……直到我走进 Dave Evans 的办公室找工作和一张桌子。Dave 桌上摞着一英尺高的棕色封面文档，他抽出一份递给我：'拿去读。"

"The Early History of Smalltalk", 1993

那份文档是 Ivan Sutherland 的 Sketchpad 论文；桌上另有一卷带着字条的磁带——"这是 1108 的 Algol。它不能用。请把它弄能用。"——那就是 Simula。他和另一个研究生把程序清单在走廊里摊开 80 英尺，趴在上面互相喊出发现。顿悟随之而来：

"This was the big hit, and I've not been the same since. ... The 220 file system, the B5000, Sketchpad, and finally Simula, all used the same idea for different purposes. Bob Barton ... had said in one of his talks a few days earlier: 'The basic principle of recursive design is to make the parts have the same power as the whole.' For the first time I thought of the whole as the entire computer and wondered why anyone would want to divide it up into weaker things called data structures and procedures. Why not divide it up into little computers ...? But not in dozens. Why not thousands of them, each simulating a useful structure?"

"这是那记重击，此后我再也不是原来的我。……220 的文件系统、B5000、Sketchpad、最后是 Simula——全都在为不同的目的使用同一个想法。Bob Barton 几天前刚在演讲里说过：'递归设计的基本原则，是让部分拥有与整体相同的力量。'我第一次把'整体'想成整台计算机，并且纳闷：为什么有人要把它切分成数据结构和过程这些更弱的东西？为什么不把它切分成一台台小计算机……？而且不是几十台。为什么不是几千台，每台模拟一个有用的结构？"

同上

"It was probably in 1967 when someone asked me what I was doing, and I said: 'It's object-oriented programming'."

"大概是 1967 年，有人问我在做什么，我说：'这是面向对象编程。"

致 Stefan Ram 的邮件, 2003（被问"是你造的这个词吗"，他的回答只有一句："I'm pretty sure I did."——"我很确定是我。"）

• 结果：与 Ed Cheadle 合作 FLEX machine（他们称之为 "personal computer"）；这条路线经 Smalltalk 影响了此后一切。他后来的自我总结：

"My best results have come from odd takes on ideas around me—more like rotations of point of view than incremental progress."

"我最好的成果都来自对身边想法的古怪取用——与其说是增量进步，不如说是观点的旋转。"

"The Power of the Context", 2004

• 来源：EHS 1993、2003 邮件、Power of the Context 2004。

Utah 的环境本身是这段历史的另一半。导师 Dave Evans 的研究生培养观：

"Dave Evans was not a great believer in graduate school as an institution. As with many of the ARPA 'contractors' he wanted his students to be doing 'real things'; they should move through graduate school as quickly as possible; and their theses should advance the state of the art."

"Dave Evans 不太相信'研究生院'这个建制。和许多 ARPA 承包人一样，他要学生做'真东西'；学生应该尽快穿过研究生院；论文应该推进最前沿。"

"The Early History of Smalltalk", 1993

"Dave Evans, my advisor, mentor, and friend, was simply amazing in his ability to act as though his graduate students were incredible thinkers. Only fools ever let him find out otherwise!"

"Dave Evans——我的导师、引路人与朋友——有一种惊人的能力：表现得仿佛他的研究生都是了不起的思想者。只有傻瓜才会让他发现事实并非如此！"

"The Power of the Context", 2004

第四章：三次顿悟与 Dynabook 的诞生（1967–1969）

1967-68 年间，三次外部冲击把 FLEX machine 的想法推向了 Dynabook。第一次：Engelbart 来访 Utah——

"A prophet of Biblical dimensions, he was very much one of the fathers of what on the FLEX machine I had started to call 'personal computing."

"一位圣经尺度的先知——他正是我在 FLEX machine 上开始称为'个人计算'的东西的奠基人之一。"

"The Early History of Smalltalk", 1993（指 Doug Engelbart）

叠加 Moore 定律的推演，产生了他自述的"哥白尼时刻"：

"For the first time I made the leap of putting the room-sized interactive TX-2 or even a 10 MIP 6600 on a desk. I was almost frightened by the implications; computing as we knew it couldn't survive—the actual meaning of the word changed—it must have been the same kind of disorientation people had after reading Copernicus and first looked up from a different Earth to a different Heaven."

"我第一次完成了那个跳跃：把房间大小的交互式 TX-2、甚至 1000 万指令每秒的 6600 放到一张桌子上。其含义几乎让我害怕——我们所知的计算无法幸存，'计算'这个词的实际含义变了。那一定就像人们读过哥白尼之后的那种眩晕：第一次从一个不同的地球抬头，望见一个不同的天空。"

同上

第二次：RAND 的手写笔系统 GRAIL——"It was direct manipulation, it was analogical, it was modeless, it was beautiful."（"那是直接操纵的、类比的、无模式的、美的。"）第三次也是决定性的一次：Seymour Papert 与儿童：

"As with Simula leading to OOP, this encounter finally hit me with what the destiny of personal computing really was going to be. Not a personal dynamic vehicle, as in Engelbart's metaphor opposed to the IBM 'railroads', but something much more profound: a personal dynamic medium. With a vehicle one could wait until high school and give 'drivers ed', but if it was a medium, it had to extend into the world of childhood."

"就像 Simula 引出 OOP 一样，这次相遇终于让我明白个人计算的天命究竟是什么。不是一辆个人的动态载具——如 Engelbart 与 IBM'铁路'相对的那个比喻——而是深刻得多的东西：一种个人的动态媒介。如果是载具，可以等到高中再教'驾驶课'；但如果是媒介，它就必须延伸进童年的世界。"

同上

"And when I saw that children really had gotten fluent in this stuff in just a couple of months ... for me, that was the big 'holy shit,' and it was simple one that just wow, this thing is really the next 500 year thing after the printing press."

"当我看到孩子们真的在短短几个月里就对这东西运用自如……对我来说那就是那声巨大的'我操'——很简单：哇，这东西真的是印刷术之后下一个五百年级别的东西。"

CHM 口述史, 2008

回程飞机上他画下了那幅著名的草图——两个孩子在户外用"儿童的计算机"学物理。他给它起名 Dynabook，纸板模型灌铅弹试出两磅的重量上限。1969 年他在斯坦福 AI 实验室（SAIL）真正读懂了 LISP：

"I could hardly believe how beautiful and wonderful the idea of LISP was."

"我几乎不敢相信 LISP 这个想法有多美、多奇妙。"

"The Early History of Smalltalk", 1993

"[T]he question was very helpful when it came time to invent Smalltalk, because this started a line of thought that said 'take the hardest and most profound thing you need to do, make it great, and then build every easier thing out of it'."

"到了发明 Smalltalk 的时候，这个问题帮了大忙——它开启了一条思路：'找到你需要做的最难、最深刻的那件事，把它做到极好，然后用它构建出所有更容易的东西。"

同上

第五章：Xerox PARC——发明个人计算的十年（1970–1981）

1970 年 7 月 Xerox 设立帕洛阿尔托研究中心；离开 ARPA 办公室的 Bob Taylor 受聘组建计算机科学实验室，找到了 Kay：

"Bob visited Palo Alto and we stayed up all night talking about it. The Mansfield Amendment was threatening to blindly muzzle the most enlightened ARPA funding in favor of directly military research, and this new opportunity looked like a promising alternative. But work for a company? He wanted me to consult and I asked for a direction. He said: follow your instincts."

"Bob 来到帕洛阿尔托，我们彻夜长谈。Mansfield 修正案正威胁着要盲目封杀最开明的 ARPA 资助、转向直接军事研究，这个新机会看起来是个有希望的替代。但是——为公司工作？他要我做顾问，我问方向是什么。他说：跟着你的直觉走。"

"The Early History of Smalltalk", 1993

他组建了学习研究组（LRG）。建组方法本身就是一份组织文本：

"I needed a group because I had finally realized that I did not have all of the temperaments required to completely finish an idea. I called it the Learning Research Group (LRG) to be as vague as possible about our charter. I only hired people that got stars in their eyes when they heard about the notebook computer idea. I didn't like meetings: didn't believe brainstorming could substitute for cool sustained thought. When anyone asked me what to do, and I didn't have a strong idea, I would point at the notebook model and say, 'Advance that."

"我需要一个组，因为我终于意识到：把一个想法彻底做完所需的各种性情，我并不齐备。我把它叫作'学习研究组'，就是为了让章程尽可能含糊。我只雇那些一听到笔记本电脑的想法就两眼放光的人。我不喜欢开会：不相信头脑风暴能替代冷静的持续思考。有人问我该做什么而我没有强主意时，我就指着那个笔记本模型说：'推进它。"

同上

预算观来自 ARPA 时代的 Utah：

"I'm afraid that I really did ask Bill, 'What's a budget?' I remembered at Utah, in pre-Mansfield Amendment days, Dave Evans saying to me as he went off on a trip to ARPA, 'We're almost out of money. Got to go get some more.' That seemed about right to me. They give you some money. You spend it to find out what to do next. You run out. They give you some more. And so on."

"恐怕我真的问过 Bill：'预算是什么？'我记得在 Utah、Mansfield 修正案之前的日子里，Dave Evans 动身去 ARPA 时对我说：'钱快花完了。得去再弄点。'在我看来这就对了。他们给你一笔钱。你花掉它，以弄清接下来该做什么。花完了，他们再给一笔。如此往复。"

同上

1971 年，与 Xerox 规划部门的冲突中诞生了那句名言（出处见摘要）。1972 年发表《A Personal Computer for Children of All Ages》——Dynabook 愿景书，开篇自我定位是"应当当作科幻来读"，结尾是一句"Let's just do it!"。同年秋天，两场赌局同时开动。其一是硬件——Butler Lampson 与 Chuck Thacker 趁主管外出"偷造"Alto：

"First, Butler and Chuck came over and asked: 'Do you have any money?' I said, 'Yes, about $230K for NOVAs and CGs. Why?' They said, 'How would you like us to build your little machine for you?' ... Butler said: 'I want a "$500 PDP-10", Chuck wants a "10 times faster NOVA", and you want a "kiddicomp". What do you need on it?"

"先是 Butler 和 Chuck 走过来问：'你有钱吗？'我说：'有，大约 23 万美元，本来要买 NOVA 和字符发生器。怎么了？'他们说：'让我们替你造你那台小机器怎么样？'……Butler 说：'我想要一台"500 美元的 PDP-10"，Chuck 想要一台"快十倍的 NOVA"，而你想要一台"儿童机"。你要在上面放什么？"

同上

其二是语言——走廊赌局催生 Smalltalk：

"With as much panache as I could muster, I asserted that you could define the 'most powerful language in the world' in 'a page of code.' They said, 'Put up or shut up."

"我拿出所能拿出的全部气派，断言可以用'一页代码'定义'世界上最强大的语言'。他们说：'要么拿出来，要么闭嘴。"

同上

"For the next two weeks I got to PARC every morning at four o'clock and worked on the problem until eight."

"接下来的两周，我每天早晨四点到 PARC，一直做到八点。"

同上（Dan Ingalls 数日后就在 NOVA 上让它跑了起来——"As he liked to say: 'You just do it and it's done.'"——"用他爱说的话：'你就去做，然后它就成了。'"）

1973 年 4 月，第一台 Alto（绰号 Bilbo）点亮，屏幕上几分钟内出现了 Kay 在绘画系统里画的饼干怪。此后数年 PARC 造了上千台 Alto 联网使用——"This anticipated the commercial availability of this genre by 10-15 years."（"这比这一品类的商业面世早了 10-15 年。"《The Power of the Context》）

"I was very interested in high-quality text and graphical presentations because I thought it would be easier to get the Dynabook into schools as a 'trojan horse' by simply replacing school books rather than to try to explain to teachers and school boards what was really great about personal computing."

"我对高质量文本与图形呈现非常感兴趣，因为我认为让 Dynabook 以'特洛伊木马'的方式进学校更容易——直接替代教科书就行，而不用向教师和校董会解释个人计算真正伟大之处。"

同上

• 结果：桌面出版、重叠窗口、所见即所得从这条线溢出，被世界采纳；但他真正的目标（儿童的思想媒介）没有——他 1974 年教 20 个成人失败后数出"17 个非显然想法"，承认了素养问题的深度（见"深度洞察·教育"）。
• 来源：EHS 1993；Personal Dynamic Media 1977。

1976 年 1 月他把全组拉到海边开了三天题为 "Let's Burn Our Disk Packs"（烧掉我们的磁盘包）的闭关会——因为强范式会"吃掉自己的孩子"：

"Strong paradigms like LISP and Smalltalk are so compelling that they eat their young: when you look at an application in either of these two systems, they resemble the systems themselves, not a new idea. When I looked at Smalltalk in 1975, I was looking at something great, but I did not see an enduser language ... I wanted to stop, dynamite everything and start from scratch again."

"LISP 和 Smalltalk 这类强范式太有魅力，以至于会吃掉自己的孩子：看这两个系统里的任何应用，它们都长得像系统本身，而不像一个新想法。1975 年我看着 Smalltalk，看到的是伟大的东西，但我没有看到一门终端用户的语言……我想停下来，把一切炸掉，从零再来。"

同上

1976 年 8 月，Xerox 做出他称为"决定命运的"决策——不把 Alto III 推向市场。1979 年 Steve Jobs 一行到访看 demo；1997 年演讲里他对那个时代的总结是："Xerox (and PARC) were now into 'workstations' as things in themselves—but I still wanted 'playstations'."（"Xerox 和 PARC 已经把'工作站'当成目的本身——而我想要的仍是'游戏站'。"）

第六章：PARC 之后——Atari、Apple、Disney、VPRI 与晚年公开写作（1981–2025）

PARC 之后的轨迹，按他本人的自述与公共记录：Atari 首席科学家（1981-84）、1984 年被 Jobs 聘为 Apple Fellow——

"I knew Steve very well after this while I was Chief Scientist at Atari, and he hired me as an Apple Fellow in 1984. I was the person who took Steve to the group in Marin County who became Pixar. Steve used to send me 'things' (like the iPad before it came out) for my opinion."

"此后我和 Steve 非常熟——那时我是 Atari 的首席科学家，1984 年他聘我做 Apple Fellow。是我带 Steve 去见了 Marin County 那个后来成为 Pixar 的团队。Steve 以前常把'东西'（比如未发布的 iPad）寄给我听意见。"

Hacker News 评论 (id 14606628), 2017

之后是 Disney Fellow（1996-2001，期间团队发布面向儿童的开源 Smalltalk 环境 Squeak/Etoys）、2001 年创立 Viewpoints Research Institute（VPRI，运营至 2018 年前后；其间主持 NSF 资助的 STEPS 项目——用两万行代码重造整个个人计算栈；以上为公共记录+其 VPRI memo 佐证）。2003 年图灵奖、2004 年京都赏与 Draper Prize（公共记录；两篇获奖文本《The Power of the Context》《The Center of "Why?"》是本档案的核心来源）。

晚年他成为罕见的"在论坛里亲笔回帖的图灵奖得主"——2016-2021 年在 Hacker News 留下 461 条可回溯的评论（含 2016 年著名 AMA），在 Quora 长期亲笔作答。2025 年 7 月（85 岁），他在 The Generalist 播客与 Daylight Computer 创始人对谈——距他 1997 年那场"计算机革命还没发生"的演讲 28 年，主持人问：革命现在正式发生了吗？他的回答（Podwise QA 提炼，非逐字）：革命确实发生了一场，"但不是我们想要或需要的那场"——二十年把早期研究组的发明商业化，得到的是一组模仿旧媒介的便利品。接近逐字的开场句：

"What we don't need is something that mimics fallible human beings magnified by the Industrial Revolution."

"我们不需要的，正是那种模仿易错人类、又被工业革命放大了的东西。"

The Generalist 播客, 2025-07-15 [00:00:00]

二、深度洞察

1. 如何组织研究：ARPA/PARC 方法论全解

这是 Kay 一手文本中最丰富、也是他自认最被世界忽视的部分。他把 ARPA/PARC 的研究文化本身称为那个时代"最伟大的艺术品之一"：

"One of the greatest works of art from that fruitful period of ARPA/PARC research in the 60s and 70s was the almost invisible context and community that catalysed so many researchers to be incredibly better dreamers and thinkers. ... That it was almost invisible, in spite of its tremendous success, is revealed by the disheartening fact today that, as far as I'm aware, no governments and no companies do edge-of-the-art research using these principles."

"六七十年代 ARPA/PARC 那个丰产时期最伟大的艺术品之一，是那个近乎不可见的语境与共同体——它催化了如此多的研究者，使他们成为不可思议地更好的梦想者与思想者。……而它虽然成功至此却近乎不可见，这一点由今天这个令人沮丧的事实揭示出来：据我所知，没有任何政府、任何公司在用这些原则做最前沿的研究。"

"The Power of the Context", 2004

原则一：愿景而非目标（visions rather than goals）。

"It is no exageration to say that ARPA/PARC had 'visions rather than goals' and 'funded people, not projects'. The vision was 'interactive computing as a complementary intellectual partner for people pervasively networked world-wide'. By not trying to derive specific goals from this at the funding side, ARPA/PARC was able to fund rather different and sometimes opposing points of view."

"毫不夸张地说，ARPA/PARC 拥有的是'愿景而非目标'，资助的是'人而非项目'。愿景是：'交互式计算成为人的互补性智力伙伴，全球无处不在地联网。'正因为资助方不试图从中推导出具体目标，ARPA/PARC 才能资助相当不同、有时彼此对立的观点。"

同上（Engelbart 与 McCarthy 对 ARPA 之梦的理解截然相反，而两条线的成果都成了今日世界的组成部分）

艺术家类比是这条原则的论证核心：

"Giving a professional illustrator a goal for a poster usually results in what was desired. If one tries this with an artist, one will get what the artist needed to create that day. ... The pursuit of Art always sets off plans and goals, but plans and goals don't always give rise to Art. If 'visions not goals' opens the heavens, it is important to find artistic people to conceive the projects."

"给职业插画师一个海报的目标，通常能得到想要的东西。对艺术家这么干，你得到的将是艺术家那天需要创造的东西。……对艺术的追求总会引发计划与目标，但计划与目标并不总能引发艺术。如果说'愿景而非目标'打开了天堂，那么找到有艺术家气质的人来构想项目就至关重要。"

同上

Licklider 的原始版本，他在口述史里复述过：

"Licklider's idea was, 'I have a vision and the vision is that the destiny of computers are to be intellectual amplifiers for every person on earth, pervasively networked worldwide, period."

"Licklider 的想法是：'我有一个愿景。愿景是：计算机的天命是成为地球上每个人的智力放大器，全球无处不在地联网。句号。"

CHM 口述史, 2008

"[H]is idea was well, we'll let the technical guys figure out ways to do this and I'm going to fund everybody I think is really smart and I'm not going to care whether they agree with each other or not. So what he didn't have was a dogma."

"他的想法是：好，让技术人自己去想实现的路。我要资助所有我认为真正聪明的人，而且不在乎他们彼此是否同意。所以他没有的东西是——教条。"

同上

原则二：资助人而非项目（fund people, not projects）——以及它针对的疾病。

"Because of the normal distribution of talents and drive in the world, a depressingly large percentage of organizational processes have been designed to deal with people of moderate ability, motivation, and trust. ... ARPA/PARC had two main thresholds: self-motivation and ability. They cultivated people who 'had to do, paid or not' and 'whose doings were likely to be highly interesting and important'. Thus conventional oversight was not only not needed, but was not really possible."

"由于世上才能与驱力呈正态分布，多到令人沮丧的组织流程都是为能力、动机与可信度中等的人设计的。……ARPA/PARC 只有两道门槛：自驱与能力。他们培养的是那种'给不给钱都非做不可'、且'所做之事很可能高度有趣且重要'的人。因此常规监管不仅不需要，而且根本不可能。"

"The Power of the Context", 2004

"The situation was 'out of control', yet extremely productive and not at all anarchic. 'Out of control' because artists have to do what they have to do. 'Extremely productive' because a great vision acts like a magnetic field from the future that aligns all the little iron particle artists to point to 'North' without having to see it. They then make their own paths to the future."

"局面是'失控'的，却极其高产、毫无无政府状态。'失控'，因为艺术家必须做他们必须做的事。'极其高产'，因为一个伟大的愿景就像一块来自未来的磁场，让所有的小铁屑艺术家不必看见'北方'就一齐指向它。然后他们各自开出通往未来的路。"

同上

原则三：problem finding 先于 problem solving。 这是他晚年在 HN 上对研究资助现状最系统的一句诊断：

"The basic principle of both points above is that 'problem finding' is the hardest thing in 'real research', so a lot of things need to be done to help this ... virtually all funders today want to know what problems their fundees are going to solve - so they underfund (to the point of 0!) the finding processes ... The ARPA/Parc process 'funded people, not projects' -- and today this seems quite outre to most."

"上述两点的基本原理是：'找到问题'是'真研究'中最难的事，因此需要做许多事来帮助它……今天几乎所有资助者都想知道被资助者将要解决什么问题——于是他们对'找问题'的过程投入不足（不足到零！）……ARPA/PARC 的流程是'资助人而非项目'——而今天这在多数人看来相当离经叛道。"

Hacker News 评论 (id 11955508), 2016 AMA

原则四：容忍失败率——"捕获天堂"而非"避免失败"。

"Our game is more like art and sports than accounting, in that high percentages of failure are quite OK as long as enough larger processes succeed. Ty Cobb's lifetime batting average was 'only' .368, which means that he failed almost 2/3s of the time. But the critical question is: what happened in the 1/3 in which he was succeeding? If the answer is 'great things' then this is all the justification that should be needed."

"我们这行更像艺术和体育，而不像会计——只要足够多的更大过程成功，高失败率完全没问题。Ty Cobb 的生涯打击率'只有'0.368，意味着他几乎三分之二的时间在失败。但关键问题是：在他成功的那三分之一里发生了什么？如果答案是'伟大的事'，这就是所需的全部理由。"

"The Power of the Context", 2004

"The administrators seem to prefer to be completely in control of mediocre processes to being 'out of control' with superproductive processes. They are trying to 'avoid failure' rather than trying to 'capture the heavens'."

"管理者们似乎宁可完全控制平庸的过程，也不愿在超高产的过程中'失控'。他们在努力'避免失败'，而不是努力'捕获天堂'。"

同上

口述史里的对应版本更辛辣：

"[I]f you're uncomfortable with the batting average of .350 and you want a batting average of .950 or something you basically have to put adults and get them to play T-ball with three-year-olds and of course you'll bat a thousand, but what's the point?"

"如果你对 0.350 的打击率不安、想要 0.950 之类的打击率，那你基本上得让成年人去和三岁小孩打 T-ball——当然你会打出千分之千，可那有什么意义？"

CHM 口述史, 2008

原则五：善意（good will）与社区先于聪明。

"Good will and great interest in graduate students as 'world-class researchers who didn't have PhDs yet' was the general rule across the ARPA community."

"把研究生当作'还没拿到博士学位的世界级研究者'来怀有善意与浓厚兴趣，是整个 ARPA 共同体的通则。"

"The Power of the Context", 2004

"The research community was 'an arguing community', and knew how to argue 'in good ways' (i.e. no personal attacks, only trying to illuminate the issues, etc.)"

"这个研究共同体是一个'争论的共同体'，而且懂得'以好的方式'争论（即不做人身攻击，只求照亮问题本身，等等）。"

Hacker News 评论, 2016 AMA

"[E]very single one of 'em at least from the ARPA community will say without any collusion beforehand will say 'Well it was the community that made us better than we were and better than we would be in an ordinary group without this context."

"至少 ARPA 共同体出来的每一个人，都会在没有任何事先串通的情况下说：'是那个共同体让我们比原本的自己更好，也比我们在缺少这种语境的普通团队里会成为的样子更好。"

CHM 口述史, 2008

工程纪律：Butler Lampson 的"100 用户军规"与 Living Lab。

"He called for two general principles: that we should not make anything that was not engineered for 100 users, and we should all have to use our creations as our main computing systems (later called Living Lab). ... The result was almost miraculous. Many of the most important projects got to a stable, usable, and user-testable place a year or more earlier than our optimistic estimates."

"他提出两条通则：我们不该做任何不是按 100 个用户来工程化的东西；我们全都必须把自己的造物当作自己的主力计算系统来用（后来称为 Living Lab）。……结果近乎奇迹。许多最重要的项目抵达稳定、可用、可被用户测试状态的时间，比我们的乐观估计还早了一年以上。"

"The Power of the Context", 2004

Error-33 与工具自造的二阶理论。

"One committed Error-33 by putting any externally controlled system, in-house or out, on one's critical path."

"把任何外部控制的系统——无论司内司外——放上自己的关键路径，就是犯了 Error-33。"

同上（因此 PARC 的几十名研究员自造了几乎全部软硬件：分时主机、Alto、以太网、激光打印机、操作系统、语言、工具）

"[T]here's a First-Order Theory in computing, 'You should never do your own tools' ... and the First-Order Theory is true. But what's interesting is that the Second-Order Theory is exactly the opposite and is also true, 'If you can do your own tools ... then the world is different."

"计算领域有一条一阶理论：'绝不要自造工具'……这条一阶理论是对的。但有意思的是，二阶理论恰恰相反、而且也是对的：'如果你有能力自造工具……那世界就不一样了。"

CHM 口述史, 2008

Finessing：种一个能生长的内核，而不是从零搭复杂物。

"Instead of trying to build the complex artifacts from scratch—like trying to build living things cell by cell—many of the most important projects built a kernel that could grow the artifact as new knowledge was gained—that is: get one cell's DNA in good shape and let it help grow the whole system."

"与其从零建造复杂的造物——就像试图一个细胞一个细胞地拼出生命——许多最重要的项目是先造一个内核，让它随着新知识的获得把造物生长出来。也就是说：把一个细胞的 DNA 调到良好状态，让它帮着长出整个系统。"

"The Power of the Context", 2004

设计帽与优化帽不可兼戴——PARC 为什么要造"来自未来的硬件"：

"The point that is missed is not what the hardware could do, but what can you do without optimizing. It is very very hard to put on the optimization hat without removing the design hat, and once you've removed the latter you are lost. The key to the Parc approach was to be able to do many experiments in the future without having to optimize."

"被忽略的要点不是硬件能做什么，而是你在不做优化的情况下能做什么。戴上优化帽而不摘下设计帽是非常非常难的——而一旦摘下后者，你就迷路了。PARC 方法的关键在于：能够在未来做大量实验，而不必去优化。"

Hacker News 评论 (id 11955020), 2016 AMA

用人标准：硬学科出身——因为新领域里要能识别扯淡：

"[G]enerally speaking, [they had] gotten a degree of one kind or another ... in something difficult that was established. And the reason that's a good idea when you're in a new field is it's hard to tell the bullshit ... there isn't any air guitar for any of these fields."

"一般来说，（他们）都在某个已确立的困难学科里拿过某种学位。在新领域里这是个好主意，原因是（新领域里）扯淡很难辨认……而那些硬学科里不存在'假弹吉他'。"

CHM 口述史, 2008

他自己的最大组织遗憾——只建了一个组：

"I had the world's greatest group, and I should have made the world's two greatest groups. I didn't realize there are benefits to having real implementers and real users, and there are benefits to starting from scratch every few months."

"我拥有世界上最好的组，而我本该建成世界上最好的两个组。我当时没有意识到：拥有真正的实现者与真正的用户各有其益，每隔几个月从零重来也有其益。"

ACM Queue 对谈, 2004

"I hired finishers because I'm a good starter and a poor finisher, but it took me a long time to realize that I was interfering with them by trying to improve things."

"我雇了收尾型的人，因为我是个好的起头者、差的收尾者——但我花了很久才意识到，我试图改进东西的举动其实在干扰他们。"

同上

对这段黄金年代，Bob Taylor 有句他转述的盖棺之语：

"[S]omebody from the crowd asked, 'Well, basically old farts always claim there was a golden age.' And Taylor stopped and looked at the guy and thought for a minute and he says, 'God damn it. It was a golden age."

"人群里有人问：'反正老家伙们总说曾有一个黄金年代。'Taylor 停下来盯着那人想了一分钟，说：'妈的，那就是一个黄金年代。"

CHM 口述史, 2008

[推断] 把这些原则压缩成一句话：ARPA/PARC 的方法 = 用一个够大的愿景替代一切 KPI，把门槛设在"自驱 × 能力"，然后用善意、争论文化与自造工具的基础设施把失败率高的天才过程保护起来。Kay 反复强调的是：这不是怀旧——是一套至今无人复刻、而他认为完全可以"凭理性再做一次"的可运行制度（"Isn't it time to do this again by Reason, even with no Cold War to use as an excuse?"——"难道不是时候凭理性再做一次了吗——哪怕没有冷战可当借口？"）。

2. 计算机是什么：媒介、元媒介与还没发生的革命

Kay 对"计算机是什么"的回答经历了一次他自述的范式撞击——读 McLuhan：

"Though much of what McLuhan wrote was obscure and arguable, the sum total to me was a shock that reverberates even now. The computer is a medium! I had always thought of it as a tool, perhaps a vehicle—a much weaker conception."

"尽管 McLuhan 写的许多东西晦涩可议，但它的总和对我是一次至今仍在回响的冲击。计算机是一种媒介！我此前一直把它当作工具，或者载具——弱得多的概念。"

"User Interface: A Personal View", 1989

"When he said 'the medium is the message' he meant that you have to become the medium if you use it. That's pretty scary. It means that even though humans are the animals that shape tools, it is in the nature of tools and man that learning to use tools reshapes us."

"他说'媒介即讯息'，意思是：使用一种媒介，你就必须变成它。这相当可怕。它意味着：尽管人是塑造工具的动物，但工具与人的本性决定了——学会使用工具这件事，会反过来重塑我们。"

同上

"元媒介"的正式定义有两个版本。1977 年与 Adele Goldberg 合写的版本：

"The ability to simulate the details of any descriptive model means that the computer, viewed as a medium itself, can be all other media if the embedding and viewing methods are sufficiently well provided. Moreover, this new 'metamedium' is active—it can respond to queries and experiments—so that the messages may involve the learner in a two-way conversation. This property has never been available before except through the medium of an individual teacher."

"能够模拟任何描述性模型的细节，意味着计算机——把它本身看作一种媒介——可以成为所有其他媒介，只要嵌入与呈现的方法足够完备。而且这个新'元媒介'是主动的——它能回应提问与实验——讯息因此可以把学习者卷入一场双向对话。这种性质从前只在'一位教师'这种媒介里存在过。"

"Personal Dynamic Media"（与 Adele Goldberg）, 1977

1984 年《Scientific American》的版本：

"It is a medium that can dynamically simulate the details of any other medium, including media that cannot exist physically. It is not a tool, although it can act like many tools. It is the first metamedium, and as such it has degrees of freedom for representation and expression never before encountered and as yet barely investigated. Even more important, it is fun, and therefore intrinsically worth doing."

"它是一种能动态模拟任何其他媒介之细节的媒介——包括物理上不可能存在的媒介。它不是工具，尽管它能扮演许多工具。它是第一个元媒介，因而拥有前所未见、也几乎尚未被探究的表征与表达自由度。更重要的是：它好玩，因此本身就值得做。"

"Computer Software", Scientific American, 1984

计算机独有的论证方式——模拟——是这一切的根：

"And we all knew that the important thing about a computer was it had a different way to argue than anything ever had before, which was by simulation. So instead of making claims, you actually put the model there."

"我们都清楚计算机的要害在于：它拥有一种前所未有的论证方式——模拟。你不是提出主张，而是把模型直接摆在那里。"

CHM 口述史, 2008

由印刷术类比推出"革命还没发生"的判词：

"The real printing revolution was a qualitative change in thought and argument that lagged the hardware inventions by almost two centuries. The special quality of computers is their ability to rapidly simulate arbitrary descriptions, and the real computer revolution won't happen until children can learn to read, write, argue and think in this powerful new way."

"真正的印刷革命是思想与论证方式的质变——它比硬件发明滞后了几乎两个世纪。计算机的特殊品质在于快速模拟任意描述的能力；而真正的计算机革命，要等到儿童能用这种强大的新方式去读、写、论证和思考时才会发生。"

"The Power of the Context", 2004

素养（literacy）因此有了计算机时代的定义：

"The ability to 'read' a medium means you can access materials and tools created by others. The ability to 'write' in a medium means you can generate materials and tools for others. You must have both to be literate. In print writing, the tools you generate are rhetorical; they demonstrate and convince. In computer writing, the tools you generate are processes; they simulate and decide."

"读'一种媒介，意味着你能取用他人创造的材料与工具；'写'一种媒介，意味着你能为他人生成材料与工具。两者兼备才算有素养。在印刷书写里，你生成的工具是修辞性的——它们演示并说服；在计算机书写里，你生成的工具是过程——它们模拟并决断。"

"User Interface: A Personal View", 1989

他对终端用户编程的信条与 UI 哲学同源：

"I believed then (and still do) that the nirvana of personal computing comes when the end users can change their tools and build new ones without having to become professional-level programmers."

"我当时相信（现在仍然相信）：个人计算的涅槃，在终端用户无须成为职业程序员就能改造自己的工具、建造新工具之时到来。"

同上

"The strongest test of any system is not how well its features conform to anticipated needs but how well it performs when one wants to do something the designer did not foresee."

"对任何系统最强的测试，不是它的功能与预期需求贴合得多好，而是当用户想做设计者未曾预见的事情时，它表现得如何。"

"Computer Software", 1984

而 OOP——他造的词——的本意也在"媒介/生物"这一侧，而非后来的产业理解：

"OOP to me means only messaging, local retention and protection and hiding of state-process, and extreme late-binding of all things. It can be done in Smalltalk and in LISP. There are possibly other systems in which this is possible, but I'm not aware of them."

"OOP 对我而言只意味着：消息传递，状态-过程的局部保有、保护与隐藏，以及一切事物的极端晚绑定。这在 Smalltalk 和 LISP 里做得到。也许还有别的系统能做到，但我不知道。"

致 Stefan Ram 的邮件, 2003

"I made up the term object-oriented, and I can tell you I did not have C++ in mind. [Laughter and applause]"

"面向对象'这个词是我造的，而且我可以告诉你们：我造它的时候心里想的可不是 C++。[笑声与掌声]"

OOPSLA 1997 演讲

"I have apologized profusely over the last twenty years for making up the term object-oriented, because as soon as it started to be misapplied, I realized that I should have used a much more process-oriented term for it."

"过去二十年我一直在为造出'面向对象'这个词而反复道歉——它一开始被误用我就意识到，我本该用一个远更侧重过程的词。"

同上（他随后举了日语的"間/ma"——"我们看不见的、对象之间的东西"）

3. 对当下计算产业的批判：流行文化、业余者的 Web 与"重新发明瘪胎"

Kay 对现状的批判有一个统一的诊断框架——计算变成了无视历史的流行文化：

"It is. Complete pop culture. I'm not against pop culture. Developed music, for instance, needs a pop culture. ... But pop culture holds a disdain for history. Pop culture is all about identity and feeling like you're participating. It has nothing to do with cooperation, the past or the future — it's living in the present. I think the same is true of most people who write code for money."

"是的。彻头彻尾的流行文化。我不反对流行文化。比如成熟的音乐就需要流行文化。……但流行文化蔑视历史。流行文化的全部是身份认同和'我在参与'的感觉。它与合作无关、与过去和未来无关——它活在当下。我想大多数为钱写代码的人也是如此。"

Dr. Dobb's 采访, 2012

这个判断的教育学版本（ACM Queue 2004）：

"You could think of it as putting a low-pass filter on some of the good ideas from the '60s and '70s, as computing spread out much, much faster than educating unsophisticated people can happen. ... So I think the lack of a real computer science today, and the lack of real software engineering today, is partly due to this pop culture."

"你可以把它想成给六七十年代的一些好想法加了一个低通滤波器——因为计算的扩散速度，远远快于对不成熟人群的教育所能达到的速度。……所以我认为，今天之所以缺少真正的计算机科学、缺少真正的软件工程，部分原因就是这种流行文化。"

ACM Queue 对谈, 2004

对软件规模问题，他的比喻体系是建筑史——金字塔与哥特教堂：

"Most software today is very much like an Egyptian pyramid with millions of bricks piled on top of each other, with no structural integrity, but just done by brute force and thousands of slaves."

"今天的大多数软件非常像一座埃及金字塔：数百万块砖彼此堆叠，毫无结构完整性，全凭蛮力和成千上万的奴隶堆成。"

同上

"I would compare the Smalltalk stuff that we did in the '70s with something like a Gothic cathedral. We had two ideas, really. One of them we got from Lisp: late binding. The other one was the idea of objects. Those gave us something a little bit like the arch ... but I wouldn't put us much past the engineering of 1,000 years ago."

"我会把我们七十年代做的 Smalltalk 比作哥特教堂之类的东西。我们其实只有两个想法。一个来自 Lisp：晚绑定。另一个是对象。它们给了我们一点像'拱'的东西……但我不会把我们的水平估到一千年前的工程之上多少。"

同上

对 Web 与浏览器，他的判词直接而有完整上下文——先扬 Internet、再抑 Web：

"The Internet was done so well that most people think of it as a natural resource like the Pacific Ocean, rather than something that was man-made. When was the last time a technology with a scale like that was so error-free? The Web, in comparison, is a joke. The Web was done by amateurs."

"Internet 做得如此之好，以至于大多数人把它当成太平洋那样的自然资源，而不是人造物。上一次有这种规模的技术如此无差错是什么时候？相比之下，Web 是个笑话。Web 是业余者做的。"

Dr. Dobb's 采访, 2012

"You want it to be a mini-operating system, and the people who did the browser mistook it as an application. They flunked Operating Systems 101. ... The job of an operating system is to run arbitrary code safely."

"你想要的（浏览器）是一个迷你操作系统，而做浏览器的人把它误解成了一个应用。他们的操作系统 101 不及格。……操作系统的职责是安全地运行任意代码。"

同上（1997 年的版本更狠："HTML on the Internet has gone back to the dark ages. ... This has to be one of the worst ideas since MS-DOS."——"Internet 上的 HTML 倒退回了黑暗时代……这必须算 MS-DOS 以来最糟糕的想法之一。"——因为 1961 年那位空军中士的自携格式早已解决了这个问题）

无视历史的代价，他有一个专用短语：

"I like to say that in the old days, if you reinvented the wheel, you would get your wrist slapped for not reading. But nowadays people are reinventing the flat tire. I'd personally be happy if they reinvented the wheel, because at least we'd be moving forward."

"我爱说：在过去，你要是重新发明轮子，会因为不读文献挨手板。而如今人们在重新发明瘪胎。我个人倒宁愿他们重新发明轮子——那至少还在往前走。"

同上

定量的控诉也有——被糟糕 CPU 架构吃掉的一千倍：

"A benchmark from 1979 at Xerox PARC runs only 50 times faster today. Moore's law has given us somewhere between 40,000 and 60,000 times improvement in that time. So there's approximately a factor of 1,000 in efficiency that has been lost by bad CPU architectures."

"1979 年 Xerox PARC 的一个基准测试，今天只快了 50 倍。而摩尔定律在此期间给了我们四万到六万倍的改进。也就是说，大约一千倍的效率被糟糕的 CPU 架构丢掉了。"

ACM Queue 对谈, 2004

以及"逆向破坏"（inverse vandalism）——因为能做就做：

"Now we can make things almost trivially, especially in software, but most of the designs are trivial as well. This is inverse vandalism: the making of things because you can. Couple this to even less sophisticated buyers and you have generated an exploitation marketplace similar to that set up for teenagers. A counter to this is to generate enormous dissatisfaction with one's designs using the entire history of human art as a standard and goal. Then the trick is to decouple the dissatisfaction from self worth—otherwise it is either too depressing or one stops too soon with trivial results."

"如今我们几乎可以不费吹灰之力地造东西，尤其在软件里——但大多数设计也同样不费思量。这是逆向破坏：因为你能做，所以就做。再配上更不成熟的买家，你就造出了一个类似为青少年设立的收割市场。对抗它的办法，是以整部人类艺术史为标准和目标，对自己的设计生成巨大的不满。诀窍在于把这种不满与自我价值感解耦——否则要么太压抑，要么早早停在琐碎的结果上。"

"The Early History of Smalltalk", 1993

对自己作品被神化，他同样不留情面——1997 年演讲的核心句：

"What they missed was, to me, the deepest thing I would like to communicate with you today, and that is we don't know how to design systems yet. Let's not make what we don't know into a religion, for God's sake."

"他们错过的，在我看来正是我今天最想传达的最深的一点：我们还不知道该怎么设计系统。看在上帝份上，别把我们不知道的东西变成宗教。"

OOPSLA 1997 演讲

"The thing I am most proud of about Smalltalk, pretty much the only thing, from my standpoint, that I am proud of, is that it has been so good at getting rid of previous versions of itself, until it came out into this world."

"Smalltalk 最让我骄傲的一点——从我的立场看几乎是唯一让我骄傲的一点——是它曾如此擅长干掉先前版本的自己，直到它流入这个世界为止。"

同上（配套判断："There should be a half-life on software so old software just melts away over 10 or 15 years."——"软件应该有半衰期，老软件应在十到十五年里自行消融。"ACM Queue 2004）

4. 对 AI 的看法：从 Advice Taker 到 "wisdom, not intelligence"

Kay 不是 AI 研究者，但 AI 贯穿他的一手文本六十年——作为他"够不着的理想"。2008 年他坦白 PARC GUI 本身就是一次向 AI 的退而求其次：

"Now I cheated when I invented the PARC GUI. I wanted what McCarthy. I wanted an Advice Taker so badly ... because I needed something that would transcend putting adults in the loop for teaching children things. Adults are the biggest problem in improving education but I wasn't very good at AI."

"我发明 PARC GUI 的时候其实作弊了。我想要 McCarthy 那个东西。我太想要一个 Advice Taker 了……因为我需要某种能绕开'让成年人参与教学环节'的东西。成年人是改进教育的最大障碍——可我不擅长 AI。"

CHM 口述史, 2008（于是退而求其次："So I'll make a tool base interface that makes a theatrical presentation of computer things as objects that you can move around like you can in the real world."——"那我就做一个基于工具的界面，把计算机里的东西剧场化地呈现为可以像在真实世界里那样挪动的对象。"）

1984 年他公开预言了 agent 时代——直接杠杆与间接杠杆：

"What I call direct leverage is provided when the illusion acts as a 'kit,' or tool, with which to solve a problem. Indirect leverage will be attained when the illusion acts as an 'agent': an active extension of one's purpose and goals."

"我所谓的直接杠杆，是当'用户幻象'作为一套工具箱帮你解决问题时提供的；而间接杠杆将在'幻象'作为一个 agent——你的目的与目标的主动延伸——时达成。"

"Computer Software", Scientific American, 1984

"A retrieval 'tool' won't do because no one wants to spend hours looking through hundreds of networks with trillions of potentially useful items. This is a job for intelligent background processes that can successfully clone their users' goals and then carry them out. Here we want to indirectly manage agents, not directly manipulate objects."

"检索'工具'不够用——没人想花几个小时在几百个网络、数万亿条潜在有用条目里翻找。这是智能后台过程的活儿：成功克隆用户的目标，然后替他执行。在这里我们想要的是间接管理 agent，而不是直接操纵对象。"

"User Interface: A Personal View", 1989

对 2010 年代的"机器学习"热潮，他在 HN 上的一句转译立场鲜明：

"For example, the real issues are not 'big data' but 'big understanding', not 'Machine Learning' but 'Machine Thinking'."

"比如，真正的问题不是'大数据'而是'大理解'，不是'机器学习'而是'机器思考'。"

Hacker News 评论 (id 14120251), 2017

2025 年（85 岁）的完整立场在 The Generalist 访谈里（以下均为 Podwise QA 提炼，非逐字）：被问"AI 时代，一千倍数量的'前 20% 聪明人'是否更好"，他的回答把关键词从 intelligence 换成了 wisdom——人类极其聪明但并不智慧，认知偏误来自演化于匮乏与危险世界的基因；单纯放大聪明没有意义，需要的是帮人接入前额叶而非"蜥蜴脑"的系统。被问 PARC 当年是否预见了计算的成瘾性：他们当年以"公用事业"想象网络化个人计算，没料到蜥蜴脑经济——"印刷机可以印《我的奋斗》也可以印反恶之书，计算同理"；真正的危险在于媒介改变了人生活的环境，而人类有适应环境的基因倾向。接近逐字的两句：

"The kind of thinking we use to get into trouble is not going to be able to get us out of it. We need a different kind of thinking."

"我们用来陷入麻烦的那种思维，无法把我们从麻烦里带出来。我们需要一种不同的思维。"

The Generalist 播客, 2025-07-15 [01:11:43]

"When we're trying to do something fundamentally creative or innovative, the best algorithm is not a reverse engineering optimization algorithm, but a bottom-up approach."

"当我们试图做根本上有创造性、有革新性的事时，最好的算法不是逆向工程式的优化算法，而是自底向上的路径。"

同上 [01:13:05]

[推断] 把 1984 的 agent 预言、2017 的 "Machine Thinking" 与 2025 的 "wisdom, not intelligence" 连成一线：Kay 对 AI 的一贯立场不是能力怀疑论，而是目的批判——他要的从来是"帮助人类思考的智力放大器"（ARPA 之梦的原始表述），并以此为尺度衡量每一代 AI 离题多远。

5. 教育与三观：更好的成年人、青蛙与艺术的目的

Kay 三观的底层是一组认识论命题。"现实"是每个人头脑内部的建构：

"What we call reality is a kind of hallucination happening inside here. It's a waking dream."

"我们所谓的现实，是发生在这里面的一种幻觉。一场清醒的梦。"

TED 演讲, 2008 [00:03:24]

"There's a nice saying from the Talmud: We see things not as they are, but as we are. That is, whenever we're looking out into the world, we're always seeing ourselves, we're not really seeing what's out there. We have to learn very carefully how to see what's out there."

"《塔木德》里有句妙语：我们看见的事物不是它们的样子，而是我们的样子。也就是说，每当我们望向世界，我们总在看见自己，而不是真正看见外面有什么。我们必须非常小心地学习如何看见外面的东西。"

"The Center of 'Why?'", 2004（配套的是青蛙实验：面对被麻醉不动的苍蝇会饿死的青蛙——"Now, of course, we are not like frogs! Or are we?"——"当然，我们不像青蛙！……还是说，我们像？"）

科学因此被定义为"不被愚弄的诸种技艺"：

"The arts of science are to find ways not to be fooled, to make the invisible more visible, and to create theories that are the best maps we can make of what we can't get at directly."

"科学的技艺在于：找到不被愚弄的方法，让不可见的更可见，并创造理论——那是我们能为无法直接触及之物绘制的最好的地图。"

同上（并转述 Einstein 的教诲："You should be careful to distinguish what is true from what is real"——"你应当小心区分'为真的'与'实在的'"）

教育的目的由此推出——看见不可见之物，首先是看见自己：

"The most important invisible thing today is ourselves. Most people live in stories made up by them and their societies, and they call these stories 'reality'. We are the most dangerous force on Earth, to ourselves and the environment. It is the main aim of education to provide not information or techniques, but a better set of perspectives for better seeing the invisible."

"今天最重要的不可见之物是我们自己。大多数人活在自己与其社会编出的故事里，并把这些故事称为'现实'。我们是地球上最危险的力量——对我们自己、对环境都是。教育的主要目的不是提供信息或技术，而是提供一组更好的视角，以更好地看见不可见之物。"

同上

"You can't learn to see until you realize you are blind. Education is to help people realize they are blind and show them how to see a little."

"在意识到自己是盲的之前，你学不会看。教育就是帮助人们意识到自己是盲的，然后教他们看见一点点。"

同上

艺术在他的体系里承担同一职能：

"The purpose of art is to remind us that our normal isn't reality."

"艺术的目的，是提醒我们：我们的'正常'并不是现实。"

CHM 口述史, 2008

对儿童与学习，他的判断反复回到同一处：

"One way to think about children is that they all are artists until they're talked out of it by society, and if you want to educate children, try to keep their artistic motivations intact."

"看待儿童的一种方式是：他们全都是艺术家——直到被社会劝到放弃为止。如果你想教育儿童，就设法让他们的艺术家动机保持完好。"

"The Center of 'Why?'", 2004

"So it doesn't count if only 10 percent of the kids get good at it. ... we have to find pedagogies that will help at least 90 percent of the children in the population get fluent. So that led to 25 or more years of complete failures with little successes here and there."

"只有 10% 的孩子学得好，那不算数。……我们必须找到能让至少 90% 的儿童达到流利的教学法。这导致了二十五年以上的彻底失败，间或有零星的小成功。"

CHM 口述史, 2008（对失败的坦白与坚持并存——他说自己最自豪的正是"能在一个想法是好的、值得做的时候撑在那里"）

工具与心智的关系，他最著名的警句有完整的原始上下文——针对"教编程能让人变聪明"的迷思：

"The first siren's song we need to be wary of is the one that promises a connection between an interesting pursuit and interesting thoughts. The music is not in the piano, and it is possible to graduate Juilliard without finding or feeling it."

"我们需要警惕的第一支塞壬之歌，是那支许诺'有趣的活动'与'有趣的思想'之间存在必然联系的歌。音乐不在钢琴里——从茱莉亚学院毕业而从未找到或感受到它，是完全可能的。"

"The Early History of Smalltalk", 1993

"Tools provide a path, a context, and almost an excuse for developing enlightenment, but no tool ever contained it or can dispense it."

"工具提供一条路径、一个语境、几乎是一个走向开悟的借口——但没有任何工具曾经装着开悟，或能把它分发出来。"

同上

素养的门槛他定得极高——并直斥社会的自我降格：

"Our society has lowered its aims so far that it is happy with 'increases in scores' without daring to inquire whether any important threshold has been crossed. Being able to read a warning on a pill bottle or write about a summer vacation is not literacy. ... Another kind of 20th century literacy is being able to hear about a new fatal contagious incurable disease and instantly know that a disastrous exponential relationship holds and early action is of the highest priority."

"我们的社会已把目标降到如此之低，以至于满足于'分数上涨'，而不敢追问是否跨过了任何重要的门槛。能读懂药瓶上的警示、能写一篇暑假作文，不是素养。……另一种二十世纪的素养是：听说一种新的致命、传染、无法治愈的疾病时，立刻知道一个灾难性的指数关系正在成立、尽早行动是最高优先级。"

同上

关于读书——他晚年在 HN 上亲笔澄清过流传的神话，也给出了方法：

"I probably read about 2 hours a day, maybe a little more. This is enough to finish most books. ... Why bother thinking about competing? What point is there? Why not just enjoy knowledge and the fun of interrelating it?"

"我大概每天读两小时，也许多一点。这足以读完大多数书。……何必想着比拼？有什么意义？为什么不干脆享受知识、享受把它们相互关联起来的乐趣？"

Hacker News 评论 (id 14436018), 2017

"And I tell a lot of young people that you can easily be smarter than any single person back 30, 40, 50 years ago, but there's no way you can be smarter than a hundred of them."

"我常对年轻人说：你可以轻易比三四十、五十年前的任何单个人更聪明，但你不可能比他们中的一百个人加起来更聪明。"

CHM 口述史, 2008（被问"你的写作为何有历史纵深"，他的回答只有四个字："I read a lot."——"我读得多。"）

给年轻人的择路建议，是一条三层的价值排序：

"Leonardo was smarter than most people have ever been and he couldn't invent a single engine for any of his vehicles because he was born in the wrong century. What that says is that knowledge almost always trumps IQ. Henry Ford was not as smart as Leonardo but he was born in the right century ... the thing that trumps knowledge is outlook."

"Leonardo 比古往今来大多数人都聪明，却造不出他任何载具的哪怕一台发动机——因为他生错了世纪。这说明：知识几乎总是胜过 IQ。Henry Ford 不如 Leonardo 聪明，但他生对了世纪……而胜过知识的东西，是眼界（outlook）。"

同上

最后是自我认知的两句——他从不把自己描绘成天才程序员：

"I was never a great programmer. That's what got me into making more powerful programming languages."

"我从来不是一个了不起的程序员。正是这一点把我推去做更强大的编程语言。"

Dr. Dobb's 采访, 2012

"And I never got one iota of pleasure in my entire computing career from surmounting something that was ugly. ... Hackers delight in finding a way around some horrible feature. And non-hackers don't want to have horrible features. It's just two different worlds."

"在我整个计算生涯里，我从未从征服丑陋的东西中得到过一丁点快乐。……黑客以绕过某个可怕的特性为乐；而非黑客不想要可怕的特性。这就是两个不同的世界。"

CHM 口述史, 2008

6. 未来与"发明未来"：预测的方法论

那句名言的方法论内核，散见于他对创造力的论述。Koestler 的粉红平面与蓝色平面：

"Progress, in a fixed context, is almost always a form of optimization. ... Creative acts, generally, are ones that don't stay in the same context that they're in."

"在固定语境里的进步，几乎总是某种形式的优化。……而创造性的行动，一般都不会停留在它们所处的语境里。"

OOPSLA 1997 演讲

"He also pointed out that you have to have something blue to have blue thoughts with. ... When you specialize, you are basically putting yourself into a mental state where optimization is pretty much all you can do."

"他还指出：你得先有某种蓝色的东西，才能用它产生蓝色的念头。……当你专门化时，你基本上是把自己放进一种'差不多只会优化'的心智状态。"

同上（Koestler 语境；这是他反专门化、重跨域阅读的理论根据）

面对新技术的两种反应，是他判断力框架的核心：

"You can take this technological advance and you could decide this is a better way of doing the stuff I'm doing now ... That's staying in the pink plane. Or, you can say this is not a better old thing, this is almost a new thing, and I wonder what that new thing is trying to be."

"面对一项技术进步，你可以断定：这是把我现在做的事做得更好的方式……那是留在粉红平面里。你也可以说：这不是一个更好的旧东西，这几乎是一个新东西——我想知道这个新东西想要成为什么。"

同上

创造力与玩笑同构：

"All creativity is an extended form of a joke. Most creativity is a transition from one context into another where things are more surprising. ... Our job is to remind us that there are more contexts than the one that we're in—the one that we think is reality."

"一切创造力都是玩笑的扩展形式。大多数创造力是从一个语境到另一个更令人惊讶的语境的迁移。……我们的职责是提醒自己：语境不止我们身处的这一个——不止那个我们以为是现实的语境。"

ACM Queue 对谈, 2004

标准（而非技术）决定何为可能——Engelbart demo 给他的终生一课：

"One kid, who was a sophomore at UCLA ... he basically said, 'Because they wanted to.' Because most people think there's some law of nature that presents and they can't do the arithmetic ... it's more a matter of what your standards are."

"只有一个孩子——UCLA 的一个大二学生……他的回答基本是：'因为他们想做到。'大多数人以为有某种自然律摆在那里、以为他们算不过来那笔账……其实这更多取决于你的标准是什么。"

CHM 口述史, 2008（他每次演讲都放 Engelbart 1968 demo，然后问听众：半 MIP 的分时机器、192K 内存，他们怎么做到亚秒级响应的？）

而 2025 年，他给那句最著名的话补上了道德维度（Podwise QA 提炼）：口号是中性的——观点值 80 个 IQ 点，但如果观点坏了，它也可以值负 80 个 IQ 点；"我们看到人们表现得远比他们实际上愚蠢，因为他们的视角被扭曲了。我们需要小心我们实际在建造什么。"

三、数据来源

一手文献（13 件，全部缓存于 cache/web/；raw/ 另存 21 份原始文件）

播客（2 期，本人受访/演讲）

已确认存在但本档案未及折入（记入 sources.json 待 /refresh 回收）：CHM "2021 Fellow Awards Tribute by Alan Kay"（致辞，边缘价值）、CHM "Things Kids Do, 1974-1976"（PARC 儿童实验档案影像）、GOTO Conferences 2021 集（待确认是否 Kay 本人演讲）。

gaps 与未验证语录（如实交代）

• Quora 亲笔回答：抓取到 profile 页（raw/quora-profile.html）但逐条回答的系统摘录未完成——收集 agent 两次停滞于此。HN 语料（461 条全量 JSON）已可覆盖同期观点，Quora 留待 /refresh 补。
• raw/ 中另有 kay1990-mtcw.html 与 kay2007-realrev.pdf（"The Real Computer Revolution Hasn't Happened Yet", VPRI 2007）两份全文已落盘但未及摘录——本档案主题已由其他来源覆盖，留待 /refresh 深挖。
• 未在一手文本中找到出处、本档案不使用的流传语录：~~"Simple things should be simple, complex things should be possible."~~（广泛归于 Kay，本次抓取的文本中未出现原句）；~~"Technology is anything that wasn't around when you were born."~~（同上）；~~"People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware."~~（常归于 Kay 转述，未在本次一手文本中找到——注意 01 号文件中有同义的 Error-33/自造工具论述可替代引用）。
• "Point of view is worth 80 IQ points" 与 "The best way to predict the future is to invent it" 均已在一手文本中核实（01/02 号文件），前者在 2025 年访谈中被他本人补充为"也可能值负 80 个 IQ 点"。

与本档案纪律的说明

1. 《Dealers of Lightning》《The Dream Machine》等二手 PARC 史不采信；Kay 本人对两书的评价（HN id 14120251：前者"太英雄之旅"、后者"清晰准确得多"）已收录，供后续研究者参考。
2. 播客 QA 为 Podwise 生成的提炼（非逐字），凡引用处均已标注"QA 提炼"；接近逐字的 highlights 附时间戳。
3. 引文中的原文拼写错误（"indispensible"、"exageration"、"got to to"）原样保留。
4. Kay 仍在世（85 岁）——本档案为活体档案，/refresh 时优先方向：Quora 亲笔回答、kay2007-realrev.pdf、VPRI STEPS 报告、新的公开访谈。