詩人何以能做出更好的搜索引擎

By+Nathaniel+Popper

“詩歌能幫我們制造出更好的搜索引擎。”這是肯碩公司創始人之一丹尼爾·納德勒（Daniel Nadler）的高見。早在哈佛讀書時，這位科技奇才就曾拜在普利策得獎詩人喬麗·格雷厄姆門下……他說，每個清晨和周末都是留給詩歌創作的，不查郵件、不接電話甚至不照鏡子，因為就想嘗試一種最質樸的寫作方式，即：驅除一切干擾，擁抱本我，吐露心聲。 Daniel Nadler spends most of his waking hours running the technology start-up Kensho， which has become a darling of the financial industry， attracting big investments from Goldman Sachs and venture capitalists.1

But in the mornings and on weekends， Mr. Nadler， 33， writes poetry—an art he studied while at Harvard， where he was a student of the Pulitzer Prize2-winning poet Jorie Graham. Mr. Nadlers first collection， “Lacunae： 100 Imagined Ancient Love Poems，” has been published by Farrar Straus and Giroux.3

Mr. Nadler may work with technology， but his book imagines a world before computers and telephones. The unnamed narrators of these love poems live in an unidentified place in a distant mythic past.4 Jonathan Galassi， Mr. Nadlers editor at Farrar Straus， said he was drawn to the pared-down， direct nature of the work： “Not many poets today are bold enough to be this simple.”5

Mr. Nadler has developed some rather austere practices for separating his poetry from his job as an entrepreneur.6 When he is writing he doesnt check his email， speak or even look in a mirror.

But he also says that his work at Kensho—on what is essentially a search engine for economic events and data—is deeply informed by his experience as a poet， and vice versa.7

We talked to Mr. Nadler about his habits， his day job and why poets can make better search engines. Below are edited excerpts8 from the conversation.

* When do you write your poetry？

I write in the morning.

I make a habit of not looking at email and try to make it so I have a period of time in which whatever is going on in the world hasnt arrived at the threshold of my consciousness yet.9

* I heard that you also avoid looking in mirrors.

I never look in a mirror until I am finished writing for the day. My own reflection in a mirror reminds me that I am an organism10 situated in time， one that once was not here， one that will at some point not be here.

* Can you explain the concept behind this volume11 of poetry？ In my mind， I created this idea of ancient poems that in reality have never been written. My project is the same project that I believe Pablo Neruda was pursuing， which was a direct encounter with nature， unburdened by the history of allusion and the history of symbolism， and the history of footnotes.12

* What is the world these characters live in？

A world without technology—a world without the internet—in a world without complex political and economic structures. In such a time， the most conspicuous thing on the horizon is love.13

The exploration of that world was the path through which to get back to the basic elemental truths about love and human relationships.14

* It seems a bit odd15 for a technologist to be writing about a time before technology， no？

Artificial intelligence and machine intelligence are about decreasing the length of human perception.16 Google autocomplete17 is an attempt to shorten the time and path between thought and a response—to decrease the time and path between seeing something and categorizing it or identifying it and moving on.

To me what poetry in particular is so good at is defamiliarization.18 Increasing the length of perception. Allowing grown adults to return to the childlike state in which routine experiences， or ordinary objects seem totally strange or foreign.

To me that is the role that art in general and poetry specifically must play in the 21st century. As a counterweight to the many things pushing to decrease the length of perception.19

* Why choose poetry as your art form？

My generation has grown up through video games and immersive20 worlds. In a video game your character can see a rock and then just sort of walk around the rock. Thats a very different modality21 than a movie， which is a totally directed experience.

Poetry is the most directly analogous high art form to environments like video games and virtual reality.22 Poetry is entirely about regulating the pace of your own emotional transportation， and it is the one that is going to be the most native to millennials who have grown up with that idea.23

* Does your poetry complement your day job or distract from it？ 24

They are wonderfully synergistic， which is why I never feel myself needing to divide my time.25

Poetry teaches you how to build a better search engine because it teaches you how to reflect on the needed balance between expectation， utility and serendipity.26

If a search engine only provides exactly what you are looking for， then it is only as smart or as dumb27 as you are. We all know from using search engines that a pleasure of life is serendipitous discovery. Its one of the reasons we like using Wikipedia28. As a design principle， thats a way to build a better search engine.

1. Kensho： 肯碩，來自日文，意為佛家的“見性”。肯碩是一家金融分析公司，由丹尼爾·納德勒與程序員彼得·克魯斯卡爾聯合創立。該公司正在研發一種針對專業投資者的大規模數據處理分析平臺，被認為是能撼動金融分析行業、以人工智能取代華爾街頂級金融工程師的產品；darling： n. 寵兒；Goldman Sachs： 高盛集團，一家國際領先的投資銀行和證券公司，總部位于紐約曼哈頓；venture capitalist： 風險投資家。

2. Pulitzer Prize： 普利策獎，美國一年一度頒發給新聞、文學、戲劇和音樂方面優秀作品之獎，由Joseph Pulitzer設立，于1917年首次授獎。

3. lacuna： 空隙，空白，復數形式為lacunas或lacunae；Farrar Straus and Giroux： 法勞斯特勞斯和吉羅出版社（FSG）。

4. narrator： 敘述者；mythic： 神話般的。

5. 喬納森·加拉西，納德勒先生在FSG的編輯，表示他被這些詩作的簡約和直接所吸引：“現在的詩人，沒幾個敢如此樸素地表達自己。”pared-down： 簡化的，縮減的；bold： 大膽的。

6. austere： 嚴厲的，一絲不茍的；entrepreneur： 企業家。

7. 但他也表示，他在肯碩這家經濟事和數據搜索引擎公司的工作也深受寫詩的影響，反之亦然。inform： 影響（態度、風格等）；vice versa： 反之亦然。

8. excerpt： 節選。

9. 我養成了（寫詩時）不查郵件的習慣，目的就是想嘗試一下使自己處于這種狀態，即無論外界發生什么都無法進入我的意識。threshold： 門口，門檻。

10. organism： 生物，有機體。

11. volume： （書的）冊，卷。

12. 我相信我的目標也曾是智利詩人聶魯達所追求的，即解除由來已久的用典、象征主義與腳注的負荷，徹底擁抱自然。Pablo Neruda： 巴勃羅·聶魯達（1904—1973），智利詩人、外交官，代表作有《二十首情詩和一首絕望的歌》、《詩歌總集》等，獲1971年諾貝爾文學獎；unburden： 卸去負擔；allusion：引用典故；symbolism： 象征主義；footnote： 腳注，補充說明。

13. conspicuous： 顯眼的，顯著的；horizon： 地平線。

14. 借由對這個領域的探索，我們才能找到一條途徑，重新尋回有關愛和人際關系的最基本固有的真相。elemental： 基本的，固有的。

15. odd： 古怪的。

16. artificial intelligence： 人工智能；perception： 感知，知覺。

17. Google autocomplete： 谷歌搜索的自動完成功能，可以根據用戶輸入的內容，揣測用戶的搜索意愿，不僅向用戶提出建議，還自動幫用戶補全搜索關鍵字。

18. 對我來說，詩歌尤其擅長的就是陌生化。defamiliarization： 陌生化。

19. 但對我而言，這是21世紀廣義的藝術，特別是詩歌必須承擔的角色，它可以對很多試圖減少感知時長的東西起到一個平衡作用。counterweight： 抗衡力，平衡物。

20. immersive： 沉浸式虛擬現實的。

21. modality： 感覺模式。

22. 詩歌對于營造環境來說，是一種最貼近電子游戲和虛擬現實的高級藝術形式。analogous： 類似的；virtual reality：虛擬現實。

23. regulate： 調節，控制；native： 生來就有的；the millennials： 千禧一代，泛指1983—2000年出生（有時也包括1980—1982年）的一代人，差不多伴隨著電腦和互聯網的形成與發展一同成長。

24. complement： 補充，補足；distract： 轉移，分心。

25. 他們相輔相成天衣無縫，因此我從不覺得自己需要在時間上拉鋸。synergistic：具有協同作用的。

26. utility： 實用，效用；serendipity： 意外的發現，好運氣，出自英國作家霍勒斯·沃波爾（Horace Walpole）所著童話故事《錫蘭國三王子》（The Three Princes of Serendip），書中主人公具有隨處發現珍寶的本領。后文的serendipitous是其形容詞形式。

27. dumb： 笨的，傻的。

28. Wikipedia： 維基百科，一部基于互聯網、內容開放的全球多語言百科全書，也是目前世界上最大的百科全書。