来源：《新科学家》
原文刊登日期：2020年10月21日
In September 2016, Alexander Nix, CEO of Cambridge Analytica, told an audience in New York about the power of big data in global elections. Know the personality of the people you target, and “you can nuance your messaging to resonate more effectively” with them, he said.
2016年9月，剑桥分析公司首席执行官亚历山大·尼克斯在纽约向观众讲述了大数据在全球选举中的力量。他说，了解你的目标人群的个性，“你就能更有效地与他们产生共鸣”。
That London-based political consultancy was behind the Brexit Leave campaign. And it offered the Trump team a model to predict the personality of individual voters in the 2016 US election.
这家总部位于伦敦的政治咨询公司是英国脱欧运动的幕后推手。它还为特朗普团队提供了一个预测2016年美国大选中选民性格的模型。
Another shiny product of 21st-century data science? No. As early as 1960, a US firm used prediction analytics to help elect a president. In If Then, Harvard historian Jill Lepore tells that riveting story.
这是21世纪数据科学的又一闪亮产品？不是。早在1960年，一家美国公司就利用预测分析来帮助选举总统。在《If-Then》一书中，哈佛历史学家吉尔·莱波尔讲述了这个引人入胜的故事。
In 1959, Simulmatics was set up in New York. It was to lay the foundations of a world in which algorithms attempt to forecast and influence our every move by simulating our very selves.
1959年，Simulatics在纽约成立。它为这样一个世界打下了基础，在这个世界里，算法试图通过模拟我们自己来预测和影响我们的每一个动作。
Simulmatics founder Ed Greenfield brought in behavioural scientists, technologists, pollsters and statisticians. The idea: collect enough data on enough people, feed it into a machine and everything will be predictable. Minds will be simulated, acts anticipated, and even driven, by targeted messages.
Simulatics创始人埃德·格林菲尔德请来了行为科学家、技术专家、民调专家和统计学家。其理念是：收集足够多的人的足够多的数据，将其输入机器，那么一切都将是可预测的。有针对性的信息将模拟思维、预测行为，甚至驱动行为。
The scientists compiled data from election returns and public opinion surveys going back to 1952. Then they built a computer simulation of the 1960 election on which to test scenarios about an endlessly customisable population. Using the if then formula of computer language Fortran, they could model any move a candidate might make and track voter response down to the tiniest segment of the electorate.
科学家们收集了自1952年以来的选举结果和民意调查的数据。然后，他们建立了一个1960年选举的计算机模拟，在此基础上测试关于无限可定制人口的情景。利用计算机语言Fortran的if-then语句，他们可以模拟候选人可能做出的任何举动，并追踪选民的反应，直到选民群体不能再分割。
Dubbed the “People Machine”, this simulation predicted that to win, John F. Kennedy needed the black vote. He took a strong position on civil rights. It also advised him to confront religious prejudice and win minority support by being upfront about his own Catholicism.
这个被称为“人民机器”的模拟预测，约翰·f·肯尼迪要想获胜，需要黑人的选票。他在民权问题上立场坚定。它还建议他直面宗教偏见，坦率地承认自己的天主教信仰，以赢得少数派的支持。
Today, Kennedy’s victory might look like a foregone conclusion, but his telegenic personality and charisma alone didn’t carry the race. His team denied getting help from any “electronic brain”, but Simulmatics’s reports are in the archives at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Lepore writes.
今天，肯尼迪的胜利似乎已成定局，但仅凭他上镜的个性和个人魅力不足以赢得这场竞选。莱波雷写道，肯尼迪的团队否认从“电脑”获得了帮助，但Simulatics的报告在约翰·f·肯尼迪总统图书馆和博物馆的档案中。
After the elections, Simulmatics took on new projects, but was limited by 1960s technology. In 1970, it declared bankruptcy. It lives on in science fiction novel Simulacron-3 and film adaptation World on a Wire, itself a forerunner of 1999 classic The Matrix.
肯尼迪当选之后，Simulatics开始了新的项目，但受到了20世纪60年代技术的限制。1970年，它宣布破产。它在科幻小说《拟像3》和电影改编版《线上世界》中得以延续，《线上世界》本身就是1999年经典电影《黑客帝国》的前身。