????這是一個(gè)陰暗的想法，只有未來(lái)主義者才會(huì)產(chǎn)生這樣的聯(lián)想。因此當(dāng)3D打印公司Makerbot創(chuàng)始人兼首席執(zhí)行官布利?佩蒂斯拋出這個(gè)問(wèn)題時(shí)，我并不感到意外。今年夏初，在布魯克林的北邊藝術(shù)節(jié)（Northside Festival）上，我詢(xún)問(wèn)他關(guān)于3D打印器官的問(wèn)題，他回答說(shuō)，直到自動(dòng)駕駛汽車(chē)上市，3D打印人體器官才會(huì)成為現(xiàn)實(shí)。兩項(xiàng)富于未來(lái)氣息的技術(shù)就這樣意外地聯(lián)系在了一起。

????佩蒂斯說(shuō)：“自動(dòng)駕駛汽車(chē)就要來(lái)了，而目前，人體器官的最佳來(lái)源是車(chē)禍。也就是說(shuō)，如果你需要進(jìn)行器官移植，你必須得等待有人出車(chē)禍。獲得遇難者的器官后你就會(huì)好起來(lái)?！蔽艺f(shuō)，這種看法可夠陰暗的。

????佩蒂斯回答道：“隨時(shí)都有人在車(chē)禍中喪生，但我們似乎很少談?wù)撨@個(gè)大問(wèn)題。多少有些荒唐。不過(guò)，最有意思的事情是，如果我們能夠減少車(chē)禍數(shù)量和喪生人數(shù)，那么我們真的會(huì)遇到另一個(gè)棘手的大問(wèn)題，那就是‘人體器官?gòu)哪膬簛?lái)?’我覺(jué)得在解決自動(dòng)駕駛汽車(chē)的問(wèn)題之前，3D打印人體器官并不會(huì)真的實(shí)現(xiàn)。接下來(lái)的問(wèn)題將是器官替換。”

????他指出，3D打印人體器官并非不可能，但原材料方面有一些難點(diǎn)?！艾F(xiàn)在的方法是取來(lái)肝細(xì)胞，把它們弄成肝臟的形狀，再盼著它們生長(zhǎng)發(fā)育成肝臟。這就是3D打印人體器官的思路?！迸宓偎拐f(shuō)，難點(diǎn)在于正確地“取來(lái)肝細(xì)胞”，隨后才是真的進(jìn)行3D打印。

????自動(dòng)駕駛汽車(chē)并不像大家想的那么遙遠(yuǎn)。這種以前只出現(xiàn)在科幻小說(shuō)里的東西現(xiàn)在已經(jīng)開(kāi)始四處游走，只不過(guò)活動(dòng)范圍很小，僅限于內(nèi)華達(dá)州、佛羅里達(dá)州、加利福尼亞州和密歇根州。以前人們奚落硅谷時(shí)，總會(huì)開(kāi)自動(dòng)駕駛汽車(chē)的玩笑，而現(xiàn)在，它已經(jīng)是谷歌（Google）公司園區(qū)里的一款代步工具。

????自動(dòng)駕駛汽車(chē)的應(yīng)用范圍正在擴(kuò)大。英國(guó)交通部上個(gè)月宣布稱(chēng)，將在明年之前允許自動(dòng)駕駛汽車(chē)在英國(guó)上路。愛(ài)荷華州的某個(gè)區(qū)也在最近的一次研討會(huì)上表示，將允許自動(dòng)駕駛汽車(chē)在本地行駛——舉辦這次會(huì)議自然也是為了吸引谷歌和其他科技公司入駐這一地區(qū)。加州機(jī)動(dòng)車(chē)輛管理局則一直在設(shè)法擴(kuò)大監(jiān)管范圍，以便自動(dòng)駕駛汽車(chē)成為普通交通工具。

????這樣做的潛在好處很難讓人熟視無(wú)睹。在美國(guó)，每年有3萬(wàn)人死于交通事故。考慮到其中90%的車(chē)禍?zhǔn)怯扇藶槭д`造成，而且大約40%的事故緣于酒后駕車(chē)或疲勞駕駛，把操控汽車(chē)的任務(wù)交給計(jì)算機(jī)會(huì)讓我們受益匪淺。

????華盛頓非營(yíng)利智囊機(jī)構(gòu)伊諾交通中心(Eno Center for Transportation)在2013年進(jìn)行的研究表明，如果美國(guó)10%的車(chē)輛可以自動(dòng)駕駛，交通事故就會(huì)減少21.1萬(wàn)起，1100條生命就能得到挽救。如果自動(dòng)駕駛汽車(chē)的比例達(dá)到90%，就可以避免420萬(wàn)起車(chē)禍，2.17萬(wàn)人將因此獲救。

????不過(guò)，技術(shù)進(jìn)步經(jīng)常帶來(lái)意想不到的影響。正是出于這個(gè)原因，這些預(yù)測(cè)數(shù)據(jù)印證了佩蒂斯的觀點(diǎn)，即駕車(chē)變得更安全,將對(duì)器官捐獻(xiàn)產(chǎn)生不利影響。除了自然死亡，交通事故是器官捐獻(xiàn)的最大來(lái)源。美國(guó)衛(wèi)生及公共服務(wù)部（Department of Health & Human Services）的數(shù)據(jù)顯示，1994年以來(lái)，機(jī)動(dòng)車(chē)事故在器官捐獻(xiàn)中所占的比重為16%。

????器官捐獻(xiàn)者的數(shù)量已經(jīng)呈下降趨勢(shì)。自動(dòng)駕駛汽車(chē)得到更廣泛的應(yīng)用后，器官供應(yīng)的壓力會(huì)變得更大。美國(guó)交通事故死亡人數(shù)在1969年達(dá)到55043人的最高點(diǎn)，隨后不斷下降。原因有很多，比如酒駕致死人數(shù)減少，更多的人佩戴安全帶，安全氣囊變得更有效以及駕車(chē)人次減少。

????等待器官移植的病人一直比真正接受移植的病人多，以上種種因素讓這個(gè)差距不斷拉大。美國(guó)衛(wèi)生及公共服務(wù)部的數(shù)據(jù)表明，目前美國(guó)需要進(jìn)行器官移植的人數(shù)超過(guò)12.3萬(wàn)，而且每天都會(huì)有18個(gè)人在等待中逝去。20年來(lái)，等待器官移植的人數(shù)逐年增多；而在過(guò)去10年中，每年進(jìn)行的器官移植手術(shù)一直穩(wěn)定在2.8萬(wàn)例。雖然和其他致命但可預(yù)防的疾病相比，這個(gè)數(shù)字相形見(jiàn)絀——舉例來(lái)說(shuō)，美國(guó)疾病控制與預(yù)防中心（Centers for Disease Control）估計(jì)，每年有44.3萬(wàn)人死于抽煙——但它足以讓所有人對(duì)今后的趨勢(shì)感到警惕。但愿3D打印技術(shù)能幫助我們扭轉(zhuǎn)這種趨勢(shì)。（財(cái)富中文網(wǎng)）

????譯者：Charlie

????It’s a dark thought, and the sort of thing only a futurist would think of. Which is why I’m not surprised that Bre Pettis, founder and CEO of the 3D printing company Makerbot, brought it up. When I asked him about 3D-printed organs earlier this summer at the Northside Festival, a conference in Brooklyn, he told me that 3D-printed body parts won’t become a reality until autonomous vehicles arrive to market. It makes for a surprising connection between two futuristic technologies.

????“The self-driving car is coming, and right now, our best supply of organs comes from car accidents,” he said. “So, if you need an organ you just wait for somebody to have an accident, and then you get their organ and you’re better.” I suggested that was a dark way of looking at it.

????His response: “We have this huge problem that we sort of don’t talk about, that people die all the time from car accidents. It’s kind of insane. But the most interesting thing is, if we can reduce accidents and deaths, then we actually have a whole other problem on our hands of, ‘Where do we get organs?’ I don’t think we’ll actually be printing organs until we solve the self-driving car issue. The next problem will be organ replacement.”

????It’s not impossible to 3D-print an organ, he said, but there are challenges around raw materials. “Right now you take liver goo, and you squeeze liver goo into the shape of a liver and it grows together and hopefully becomes a liver. That’s the idea of 3D printing organs,” he said. The challenge, he said, will be getting the science of the “l(fā)iver goo” right, before the actual printing part even comes into play.

????The self-driving car isn’t as far off as you might think. What once existed only the realm of science fiction is now roving around—albeit in an extremely limited fashion—in Nevada, Florida, California, and Michigan. What was once an easy punch line in parodies of Silicon Valley is now a fixture on Google’s corporate campus.

????Adoption continues. Last month the U.K.’s Department of Transport announced that it would allow self-driving cars onto British streets by next year. A county in Iowa recently announced—at a symposium designed to attract Google and other tech companies to its region, naturally—that it would allow driverless cars on its streets. California’s Department of Motor Vehicles has been pushing to get broader regulations in place to allow self-driving cars on public roads.

????The potential benefits are hard to ignore. Each year 30,000 people die in traffic collisions in the U.S. Considering that 90% of U.S. auto collisions are blamed on human error—some 40% are the result of factors such as alcohol or fatigue—we have a lot to gain by outsourcing the task of driving to computers.

????If 10% of vehicles were self-driving, it could reduce the number of accidents by 211,000 and in turn save 1,100 lives,according to a 2013 study by the Eno Center for Transportation in Washington, D.C. If 90% of vehicles were autonomous, an estimated 4.2 million accidents would be prevented and 21,700 lives would be saved.

????Technological advances often come with unintended consequences, though, which is why these predictions support Pettis’ case that organ donations would be adversely impacted by safer driving. Motor vehicle accidents are the largest contributor to organ donations after natural-cause deaths. Since 1994, 16% of all organ donations came from motor vehicle accidents, according to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.

????The inventory pressure from increasing adoption of self-driving cars will add to an already shrinking pool of organ donors. Traffic deaths have been in decline since 1969, when they peaked at 55,043. The drop occurred for a number of reasons: drunk driving deaths have fallen, seat belt use has increased, air bags are more effective, and we drive less.

????All of this has led to a widening gap between the number of patients on the organ wait list and the number of people who actually receive transplants. More than 123,000 people in the U.S. are currently in need of an organ, and 18 people die each day waiting, according to the Department of Health & Human Services. Though the wait list has grown each year for the past two decades, the number of transplants per year has held steady in the last decade, at around 28,000. While that number is still dwarfed by other fatal but preventable situations—the Centers for Disease Control estimate that443,000 people die each year from smoking, for example—it’s enough to make anyone wary of the direction in which the trend is going, and hopeful that 3D printing technology can help turn it around.