今年是路易斯·馮·安在地球上度過(guò)的第41個(gè)年頭,，這個(gè)世界也因?yàn)樗羞^(guò)三次改變,，然而他仍然因?yàn)槠涞谝淮螌?duì)世界的改變而飽受批評(píng)。

這個(gè)發(fā)明于2000年在雅虎首次面世,，有著各種各樣的名字,。這位危地馬拉出生的計(jì)算機(jī)科學(xué)家將其稱為“完全自動(dòng)化的公共圖靈測(cè)試，旨在將計(jì)算機(jī)與人類區(qū)分開來(lái)”,，或簡(jiǎn)稱“驗(yàn)證碼”（Captcha）,。或許你還記得,，驗(yàn)證碼這個(gè)小方框通常讓人們感到十分惱火,，里面是一些拉伸、扭曲的字母,，人們必須正確識(shí)別并重新輸入之后才能夠獲得某些網(wǎng)站的訪問(wèn)權(quán)限,。路易斯·馮·安稱，正是因?yàn)檫@一發(fā)明，一些陌生人在多個(gè)場(chǎng)合對(duì)他抱怨說(shuō)：“哦,，天哪,，我恨你?！?/p>

盡管驗(yàn)證碼可能引發(fā)了短暫的焦慮,，但它們長(zhǎng)期以來(lái)在防范反社會(huì)人士（直到最近，其光學(xué)閱讀器對(duì)此類變形字體的識(shí)別率才有所好轉(zhuǎn)）方面發(fā)揮了有效作用,，這些人會(huì)使用計(jì)算機(jī)迅速買光Ticketmaster網(wǎng)站上的門票,，注冊(cè)數(shù)百萬(wàn)個(gè)郵箱賬號(hào)以及從事一系列其他制造網(wǎng)絡(luò)垃圾和行騙事件。

不幸的是,，驗(yàn)證碼也耗費(fèi)了無(wú)數(shù)的運(yùn)行時(shí)間（盡管每一次只有10秒的間隔）,，因?yàn)槭褂谜叩觅M(fèi)力地去辨識(shí)這些字體。因此路易斯·馮·安想,，人們?cè)谶@10秒內(nèi)是否可以做些更有意義的事情呢？答案是ReCaptcha,，它對(duì)驗(yàn)證碼測(cè)試進(jìn)行了巧妙的調(diào)整,，這樣，網(wǎng)頁(yè)瀏覽者實(shí)際上在解讀古抄本難認(rèn)詞匯的同時(shí)證明了自己并非是機(jī)器人,。借助ReCaptcha,，路易斯·馮·安采用眾包的方法來(lái)解讀那些遺失的文獻(xiàn)，每一天的解讀量達(dá)到了3500萬(wàn)個(gè)詞,。谷歌于2009年收購(gòu)了ReCaptcha,。路易斯·馮·安如今是卡內(nèi)基梅隆大學(xué)的顧問(wèn)教授，曾經(jīng)獲得麥克阿瑟“天才”獎(jiǎng)獎(jiǎng)金,。

這又把我們帶到他在2011年的第三個(gè)發(fā)明,，路易斯·馮·安和他在卡內(nèi)基梅隆大學(xué)的研究生學(xué)生瑟維林·海克打造了Duolingo公司,，該公司在《財(cái)富》雜志“改變世界的公司”2019年榜單上位列第36名,。這個(gè)免費(fèi)的語(yǔ)言學(xué)習(xí)應(yīng)用程序是一個(gè)靠廣告支持的項(xiàng)目（也有付費(fèi)版本）目前已經(jīng)有2800萬(wàn)活躍用戶，它再次巧妙地讓人們能夠利用閑暇時(shí)光做一些有價(jià)值的事情：獲得講一門外語(yǔ)的能力,。在這一過(guò)程中,，他們也在幫助挽救少數(shù)瀕臨滅絕的語(yǔ)言。在Duolingo教授的36種語(yǔ)言中,，有三種（夏威夷語(yǔ),、納瓦霍語(yǔ)和愛爾蘭語(yǔ)）都面臨著成為歷史的危險(xiǎn)。例如在愛爾蘭,，每天講愛爾蘭語(yǔ)（蓋爾語(yǔ)）的人口不到7.5萬(wàn),；如今，440萬(wàn)嶄露頭角的多國(guó)語(yǔ)言學(xué)習(xí)者正通過(guò)該應(yīng)用程序在Duolingo上學(xué)習(xí)labhair（愛爾蘭語(yǔ)：交談）。當(dāng)新人意識(shí)到其開發(fā)者是路易斯·馮·安時(shí),，他們對(duì)他說(shuō)：“哦,，天哪，我愛你,?！?/p>

幸運(yùn)的是，路易斯·馮·安和他的團(tuán)隊(duì)將有能力繼續(xù)收獲這份厚愛：Duolingo今年的營(yíng)收預(yù)測(cè)為8600萬(wàn)美元,，是2018年3600萬(wàn)美元的兩倍多,，而且他預(yù)計(jì)銷售額在明年將翻番。反過(guò)來(lái),，這一增幅也讓這位多產(chǎn)的發(fā)明家有財(cái)力尋找更好的方式來(lái)幫助學(xué)習(xí)語(yǔ)言,，并為他的下一個(gè)項(xiàng)目提供資助：教授人們?nèi)绾伍喿x。

我們的第五年度“改變世界的公司”榜單（是《財(cái)富》雜志眾多基準(zhǔn)榜單中我最喜歡的一個(gè)榜單）將展示大量致力于尋找可持續(xù)發(fā)展（通常也是盈利的）方式來(lái)解決社會(huì)挑戰(zhàn)的企業(yè),。與以往一樣,，我們并沒(méi)有按照“好”或“壞”的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)來(lái)衡量這些公司，我們也不會(huì)這樣做,，而且我們并不是在說(shuō),，我們所凸顯的項(xiàng)目能夠抵消這些公司可能正在開展的不利于社會(huì)的事情。（財(cái)富中文網(wǎng)）

本文另一版本登載于《財(cái)富》雜志2019年9月刊,，標(biāo)題為《轉(zhuǎn)化成功》,。

譯者：Feb

In his 41 years on earth so far, Luis von Ahn has changed the world three times. People still blame him for the first.

That invention, which had its public debut on Yahoo in 2000, had a mouthful of a name; the Guatemalan-born computer scientist called it a “completely automated public Turing test to tell computers and humans apart,” or “Captcha” for short. Captchas, you’ll recall, are those often--agonizing boxes of stretched and twisted letters that mortals must correctly identify and retype to gain access to certain websites. That invention, says von Ahn, has on multiple occasions provoked strangers to tell him, “Oh, my God, I hate you.”

For all the fleeting angst they may have caused, though, Captchas have long been effective in preventing antisocial types from using computers—whose optical readers, until recently, had trouble reading such misshapen type—to rapidly buy up tickets on Ticketmaster, sign up for millions of email accounts, and do a host of other spammy and scammy things.

Captchas also unfortunately have consumed countless hours of exertion (albeit in 10-second intervals) as users strain to decipher the characters. So von Ahn, now a consulting professor at Carnegie Mellon and winner of a MacArthur “genius” grant, wondered, What better thing could people do with that same 10 seconds of effort? The answer was ReCaptcha—which ingeniously tweaked the Captcha test so that web surfers actually deciphered the hard-to-read text of ancient manuscripts as they proved they weren’t bots. With ReCaptcha, which Google bought in 2009, von Ahn crowdsourced the decoding of lost literature—by 35 million words a day.

Which brings us to invention No. 3. In 2011, von Ahn and one of his former graduate students at Carnegie Mellon, Severin Hacker, created Duolingo, No. 36 on Fortune’s 2019 Change the World list. Their language-learning app, whose free, ad-supported programs (and a paid option) are actively used by 28 million people, has once again mastered the art of converting human downtime into something valuable: the ability to speak a foreign tongue. In the process, they are helping save a few from extinction too. Among the 36 languages that Duolingo teaches, three—Hawaiian, Navajo, and Irish—were once in danger of fading into history. In Ireland, for instance, fewer than 75,000 people speak Irish, or Gaeilge, daily; today, 4.4 million budding linguists are learning to labhair on Duolingo. When new acquaintances learn that von Ahn built it, they tell him, “Oh, my God, I love you.”

Happily, von Ahn and his team can afford to keep being loved: Duo?lingo’s projected revenues for this year are $86 million—more than double 2018’s take of $36 million—and he expects sales to roughly double again next year. The growth, in turn, has allowed the serial inventor to invest in finding even better ways to help people learn languages—and to fund his next project: teaching people how to read.

Our fifth annual Change the World package—my favorite of Fortune’s many benchmark lists—offers a rich supply of companies that are finding sustainable (and often profitable) ways to address societal challenges. As always, we’re not weighing companies on a scale of “good” or “bad”—we couldn’t if we tried. Nor are we suggesting that the projects we’re highlighting absolve companies of things they may be doing that aren’t beneficial for society.

A version of this article appears in the September 2019 issue of Fortune with the headline “Translating Success.”