我打小读科幻。《三体》还在杂志上连载，我一本本买回家，翻到纸边起毛。那时图灵已经去世多年，可他的图灵机仍在课本里转，图灵测试像一道谜题挂在墙上：若你看不出对面是人还是机器，机器算不算「会思考」？我似懂非懂，却觉得迷人。
阿西莫夫在另一本书里写下机器人三定律，像给钢铁生灵立宪。后来刘慈欣写出智子，两颗质子锁死人类的科学，冷静得让人发冷。故事里还有 HAL 9000，在《2001 太空漫游》里用平稳的嗓音汇报故障，却让人脊背发凉；阿童木从漫画里跳出来，胸口装着一颗会疼的「心」；Roy 在《银翼杀手》的雨夜里念完那段关于记忆的独白，然后熄灭。这些人造的存在，有的忠诚，有的反叛，有的比人更像人。我追着他们长大，也追着一个模糊的念头：有朝一日，自己也能和这样的「头脑」打交道。
那时我还想当程序员、做算法工程师。在年轻的我看来，编程就是通往科幻最明显的一条路：键盘敲下去，屏幕亮起来，离小说里的那些「头脑」就近了一步。
大学却改了经济学和金融。报表、模型、市场、风控，日子踏实，也充实。关于智能的梦被收进抽屉，很少再拿出来。那时我原以为，人工智能离我们这代人还很远，《黑客帝国》里那种世界，顶多停在银幕上，不会很快照进现实。
没想到最近七八年，人工智能的发展突然加速，超出几乎所有人的预料。心里藏了很久的梦，又被点亮。杂志里的设想落到桌面上，我能打开终端，能试一个模型，能把它写进自己的项目。三十多岁了，我仍然一头扎进去。二十年前那个少年想靠近的东西，如今伸手够得到。图灵的问题还在，三定律仍被讨论，智子仍是小说；可 HAL 式的语音、阿童木式的陪伴，已经悄悄走进日常。我更想站在这一边，亲手摸一摸正在成形的未来，不愿只坐在读者席上鼓掌。
I grew up on science fiction. When The Three-Body Problem was still serializing in magazines, I brought each issue home until the pages frayed at the edges. Turing had been dead for years, yet his machine still turned in textbooks, and his test hung on the wall like a riddle: if you cannot tell whether the voice across the line is human, has the machine learned to think? I understood it only in part, and that partial understanding was enough to hold me.
Asimov wrote the Three Laws of Robotics elsewhere, as if drafting a constitution for steel and silicon. Later Liu Cixin gave us the sophons, two protons throttling an entire civilization’s science, cold and precise. In other stories there is HAL 9000, reporting malfunctions in a level voice in 2001: A Space Odyssey, and still unsettling the listener; Astro Boy leaping from the page with a heart that can ache; Roy in Blade Runner, finishing his speech about memory in the rain before going dark. These made things obey, rebel, or seem more human than people. I followed them through adolescence, and followed a blurrier wish as well: that one day I might work alongside minds like theirs.
I wanted to be a programmer, an algorithm engineer. To the young me, coding was the clearest road into science fiction: strike the keys, light the screen, and you were a step closer to the minds in the novels.
College pulled me toward economics and finance. Spreadsheets, models, markets, risk. The years were steady and full. The dream about intelligence went into a drawer and stayed there. I used to think artificial intelligence would stay far off for our generation, that the world of The Matrix would remain on the screen and would not arrive soon.
Then, in the last seven or eight years, artificial intelligence suddenly accelerated, beyond what almost anyone had expected. The dream I had kept quiet for so long caught fire again. What lived in magazines has landed on the desk. I can open a terminal, try a model, weave it into something of my own. I am in my thirties and still leaning in hard. What the boy wanted to reach is suddenly within arm’s length. Turing’s question remains. The Three Laws are still argued over. The sophons are still fiction. Yet HAL’s calm voice, Astro Boy’s companionship, are already slipping into ordinary life. I would rather stand on this side of the work, hands on what is taking shape, than stay in the audience, clapping.