Glimpses of an AI-enabled future经济学人官方双语阅读

2016 经济学人补充译文20

Conclusion

Answering the machinery question

Glimpses of an AI-enabled future

结论

回答机器问题

拥有人工智能的未来一瞥

THE ORIGINAL MACHINERY question, which had seemed so vital and urgent, eventually resolved itself. Despite the fears expressed by David Ricardo, among others, that “substitution of machinery for human labour…may render the population redundant”, the overal l effect of mechanisation turned out to be job creation on an unprecedented scale. Machines allowed individual workers to produce more, reducing the price of many goods, increasing demand and generating a need for more workers. Entirely new jobs were created to oversee the machines. As companies got bigger, they required managers, accountants and other support staff. And whole new and hitherto unimagined industries sprang up with the arrival of the railways, telegraphy and electrification.

最初的机器问题曾看似那么地重要和紧迫，最终自己解决了。曾有很多人，如大卫·李嘉图（David Ricardo）表达过担忧，“机器替代劳动力……可能会让人变得冗余无用。”然而机械化的总体结果实际上创造了史无前例的大量就业机会。机器让每个工人的产量提高，降低了众多商品的价格，从而提升了需求，需要的工人也更多了。人们为管理机器创造出了全新的岗位。随着企业规模变大，需要更多管理者、会计和其他支持人员。铁路、电报和电气化的到来也催生了众多以前从未想象过的全新行业。

To be sure, all this took time. Industrialisation caused pervasive labour-market upheaval as some jobs vanished, others changed beyond recognition and totally new ones emerged. Conditions in factories were grim, and it took several decades before economic growth was reflected in significant wage gains for workers—a delay known as “Engels’ pause”.

Worries about unemployment gave way to a much wider argument about employment conditions, fuelling the rise of socialist and communist ideas and creating the modern labour movement. By the end of the 19th century the machinery question had faded away, because the answer was so obvious. In 1896 Arthur Hadley, an American economist, articulated the view of the time when he observed that rather than destroying jobs, mechanisation had brought about “a conspicuou s increase of employment in those lines where improvements in machinery have been greatest”.

诚然，这些都非一日之功。工业化导致了广泛的劳动力市场剧变，一些工作岗位消失，另一些岗位完全改头换面，还有一些全新岗位出现。工厂条件堪忧，经济增长的成果在数十年后才体现为工人薪酬的大幅提高——这一延迟被称为“恩格斯停顿”。

对失业问题的担忧转而让位于对就业条件更广泛的争论，这刺激了社会主义和共产主义理念的兴起，也造就了现代工人运动。到19世纪末，机器问题已逐渐淡化，因为答案显而易见。1896年，美国经济学家亚瑟·哈德利（Arthur Hadley）对当时的观点做了明确的阐述，他观察到机械化不仅没有削减就业机会，反而“在机械带来改变最大的行业里”带来了“就业机会的显著增加”。

What does all this tell us today? Historical analogies are never perfect, but they can be informative. Artificial intelligence is now prompting many of the same concerns as mechanisation did two centuries ago. The 19th-century experience of industrialisation suggests that jobs will be redefined, rather than destroyed; that new industries will emerge; that work and leisure will be transformed; that education and welfare systems will have to change; and that there will be geopolitical and regulatory consequences. 这在今天对我们有什么启示呢？历史从来都不完全相似，但仍可资镜鉴。人工智能在今天所引发的很多担忧与两个世纪前人们对机械化的担忧如出一辙。19世纪工业化的进程显示，工作岗位将被重新定义，而不是被毁灭；新行业将会诞生；工作与休闲方式将脱胎换骨；教育和福利体系必将随之改变；地缘政治和监管也都会受到影响。

In many ways, the two big debates about AI—whether it will destroy jobs, and whether it might destroy humanity—are really arguments about the rate of change. If you believe that AI is improving so rapidly that human-level artificial general intelligence (AGI) is just around the corner, you are more likely to worry about unexpected and widespread job losses and the possibility that the technology may suddenly get out of control. It seems more probable, however, that AI will improve steadily, and that its impact over the next decade or two, while significant, will not be on the same scale as the epochal shift from a mostly agricultural to a mostly industrial economy.

AGI is probably still a couple of decades away, perhaps more, so the debate about what it might or might not be able to do, and how society should respond to it, is still entirely theoretical. This special report has therefore focused on the practical effects

of AI in the nearer term. These are likely to be a broadening and quickening ofthe spread of computers into the workplace and everyday life, requiring people to update their skills faster and more frequently than they do at the moment. Provided educational systems are upgraded and made more flexible, which is beginning to happen, that should be entirely feasible.

在很多方面，对人工智能（AI）的两大争论——它是否会削减就业，是否会毁灭人类——事实上是对于改变速度的争论。如果你认为AI发展速度飞快，堪比人类智力的通用人工智能（AGI）即将实现的话，你就更容易担心意想不到并且广泛发生的失业，以及技术也许会突然失控。然而，看起来更可能的情况是AI将会稳步发展，其在未来一二十年产生的影响虽大，却不可与社会从以农业为主转向以工业为主的划时代转变同日而语。

AGI很可能还要一二十年才能实现，也许更久。因此，对它也许能做什么、也许不能做什么以及人类社会应该如何应对的争论还完全停留在理论上。所以本期特别报道主要关注较近期AI的实际影响。这些影响可能是电脑更广泛、更快速地进入工作场所和日常生活，要求人们比现在更快更频繁地提升技能。如果教育体系得以升级并愈加灵活——这个进程已经开始——那么以上的变化是完全可以适应的。

So far the debate has been dominated by the gloomy possibilities of massive job losses and rogue AIs. More positive scenarios, in which AI dramatically changes the world for the better, tend to attract less attention. So here are three examples. First, AI could transform transport and urban life, starting with self-driving vehicles. Being able to summon one at will could remove the need to own a car, greatly reduce the number of vehicles on the roads and all but eliminate road deaths. Urban environments will enjoy a renaissance as pollution declines and space previously devoted to parking is reallocated to parks, housing and bicycle paths.

目前，争论中占优势的观点比较悲观，认为未来可能出现大范围失业和恶魔AI。更乐观的可能——AI可显著改善我们的世界——往往较少引人注意。这里举三个例子：首先，AI可以改变交通和城市生活，这会从无人驾驶汽车开始。如果随时都能招到一部车，人们就无需自己拥有汽车，极大地减少路上行驶车辆的数量，基本消除道路交通事故死亡。污染水平也会降低，以前用于停车场的空间可以重新改造成公园、住房和自行车道，城市环境将焕发新生。

Second, AI could soon enable people to converse with a wide range of things: their home and their car, most obviously, just as people talk to a disembodied computer in “Star Trek”, but also AI avatars of companies and other organisations, inf ormation services, AI advisers and tutors. A host of AI-powered personal assistants, such as Alexa, Cortana, Siri and Viv, are already jostling for position, and could become an important new way to interact with computers and access information, like the web browser and touchscreen before them. Speech alone is not always the best way to interact with a computer, so such conversations will often be accompanied by graphics (perhaps in the form of “augmented reality” overlays on people’s vision). AI also has huge potential to help humans talk to one another, by facilitating real-time translation between people using different languages. Basic versions of this technology exist today, and will get better.

其次，AI很快可以让人们与各式各样的物品对话，最明显的就是他们的家和汽车，就像电影《星际迷航》中人们与一台没有实体的电脑对话一样，而且还能与企业及其他组织的AI化身、信息服务、AI顾问和家教等进行交流。各种AI驱动的个人助理——如Alexa、Cortana、Siri和Viv——已经开始搏位争宠，并有可能和它们之前的浏览器和触屏技术一样，成为与计算机互动和获取信息的重要新途径。仅通过语音与计算机互动并不总是最好的方式，所以这种人机对话往往伴以图形（可能是以叠加在视野上的“增强现实”形式）。同时，通过为使用不同语言的人们提供实时翻译，AI还具有促进交流的巨大潜力。这项技术的基础版本已经存在，未来还将不断完善。

The indefatigable helper

Third, AI could make a big difference by turbocharging scientific and medical research. “The thing that excites me the most is using AI to help speed up scientific breakthroughs,” says DemisHassabis of DeepMind. An AI could act as a rele ntless research assistant, he reckons, in fields from cancer research to climate change, helping solve problems by sifting through data, reading thousands of scientific papers and suggesting hypotheses or pointing out correlations that might be worth investigating. IBM is already working in this area, using its Watson AI technology to analyse large volumes of medical data. Deep learning will be used to analyse the data from the “100,000 Genomes” project now under way in England’s National Health Service; the same techniques can help physicists sift reams of data from particle colliders for new discoveries.

不知疲倦的助手

第三，AI可以助力科学和医疗研究，产生巨大影响。Deepmind的德米斯·哈萨比斯（DemisHassabis）说：“最让我感到振奋的是利用AI帮助我们加速取得科学突破。”他认为，从癌症研究到气候变化的各个领域里，AI都可担任不知疲倦的研究助理，通过筛选数据、阅读成千上万的科研论文、提出假设或指出值得研究的关联关系，帮助科学家解决问题。IBM已在这一领域展开工作，利用其沃森（Watson）AI技术分析大量医疗数据。深度学习将被用于分析英格兰国民保健署（NHS）中正在进行的“十万基因组”项目中的数据。同样的技术还可以帮助物理学家筛选粒子对撞机中的海量数据，以便获得新的发现。

After years of frustration with AI’s slow rate of progress, it is ironic that many now think it is moving too quickly. Yet a sober assessment suggests that AI should be welcomed, not feared. In the 1840s John Stuart Mill wrote that “the proof of the ultima te benefit to labourers of mechanical inventions…will hereafter be seen to be conclusive.” A future economist may say the same of the benefits of AI, not just for labourersbut for everyone.

过去多年里AI进展缓慢，令人倍感挫败，讽刺的是如今许多人却认为它发展太快了。然而清醒的认识应该是欢迎AI，而非惧怕它。在18世纪40年代，约翰·斯图尔特·密尔（John Stuart Mill）写道：“机械发明最终让劳工受益的证据……从今以后将被视为确凿无疑。”对于AI带来的好处，未来的某位经济学家也许会说同样的话，而且不只是对劳工，而是对每一个人。