機器人取代人類仍是科幻 The myth of the robot job ocalypse
The number of jobs lost to more efficient machines is only part of the the past, new industries hired far more people than those they put out of business. But this is not true of many of today’s new industries.”
“更高效機器造成的工作流失數量只是問題的一部分……過去，新行業聘用的員工數量遠遠超過這些行業砸掉的飯碗。但如今很多新行業卻並非如此。”
This sentiment, from Time magazine, dates from the early weeks of John Kennedy’s presidency. Yet it would slot nicely into many a contemporary political speech. Like any self-respecting remorseless killer robot from the future, our techno-anxiety just keeps coming back.
來自《時代週刊》雜誌(Time)的這種觀點可回溯到約翰肯尼迪(John Kennedy)擔任總統最初幾周。然而，把它放進當今許多政治演講中也絲毫不會顯得突兀。與所有來自未來的那些有自尊心、冷酷無情的殺人機器人一樣，我們對科技的擔憂也隔一段時間就又回來。
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator was science fiction — but so, too, is the idea that robots and software algorithms are guzzling jobs faster than they can be created. There is an astonishing mismatch between our fear of automation and the reality so far.
阿諾德施瓦辛格(Arnold Schwarzenegger)主演的《終結者》(Terminator)是科幻電影，而這種看法也是科幻、而非現實：機器人和軟件算法葬送就業的速度快於創造就業的速度。我們對於自動化的擔憂與目前的現實出現了驚人的不符。
How can this be? The highways of Silicon Valley are sprinkled with self-driving cars. Visit the cinema, the supermarket or the bank and the most prominent staff you will see are the security guards, who are presumably there to prevent you stealing valuable machines. Your computer once contented itself with correcting your spelling; now it will translate your prose into Mandarin. Given all this, surely the robots must have stolen a job or two by now?
怎麼會這樣？硅谷的高速公路上行駛着不少無人駕駛汽車。去影院、超市或者銀行的時候，你看到的最顯眼的員工將是保安，他們存在的原因大概是爲了防止你偷竊價值高昂的機器。你的電腦曾經滿足於糾正你的拼寫；如今電腦會把你寫的文章翻譯成普通話。鑑於這一切，這些機器人現在肯定已經竊取了一兩份工作了吧？
Of course, the answer is that automation has been destroying particular jobs in particular industries for a long time, which is why most westerners who weave clothes or cultivate and harvest crops by hand do so for fun. In the past that process made us richer.
當然，答案是長期以來，自動化一直在摧毀某些特定行業的某些特定工作，這就是爲什麼如今多數西方人親手織布或種植和收割農作物是爲了好玩。過去，做這些能爲我們帶來收入。
The worry now is that, with computers making jobs redundant faster than we can generate new ones, the result is widespread unemployment, leaving a privileged class of robot-owning rentiers and highly paid workers with robot-compatible skills.
現在人們擔心，考慮到電腦葬送就業的速度快於我們創造新就業的速度，會出現大規模失業，造就一個由擁有機器人的食利者以及擁有兼容機器人技能的高薪員工組成的特權階級。
This idea is superficially plausible: we are surrounded by cheap, powerful computers; many people have lost their jobs in the past decade; and inequality has risen in the past 30 years.
表面上看來，這種觀點是合理的：我們被廉價且強大的電腦包圍；過去10年，很多人失業；過去30年，不平等程度一直上升。
But the theory can be put to a very simple test: how fast is productivity growing? The usual measure of productivity is output per hour worked — by a human. Robots can produce economic output without any hours of human labour at all, so a sudden onslaught of robot workers should cause a sudden acceleration in productivity.
但我們可以用一個非常簡單的測試來檢驗這一理論：生產率增速有多快？衡量生產率的通常標準是一個人類的每小時產出。機器人可以在絲毫不增加人類勞動時間的情況下創造經濟產出，因此機器人勞動者的大量侵襲應會帶來生產率增長的突然提速。
Instead, productivity has been disappointing. In the US, labour productivity growth averaged an impressive 2.8 per cent per year from 1948 to 1973. The result was mass affluence rather than mass joblessness. Productivity then slumped for a generation and perked up in the late 1990s but has now sagged again. The picture is little better in the UK, where labour productivity is notoriously low compared with the other G7 leading economies, and it has been falling further behind since 2007.
然而，事實上生產率一直令人失望。在美國，1948年至1973年，勞動生產率增速平均爲每年2.8%，這很了不起。結果是大規模富裕，而非大規模失業。接着，生產率下滑了一代人時間，在上世紀90年代末回升，如今又再次陷入低迷。英國的情況也沒有好到哪裏去，衆所周知，英國的勞動生產率低於七國集團(G7)其他成員國，自2007年以來雙方差距還一直在拉大。
Taking a 40-year perspective, the impact of this long productivity malaise on typical workers in rich countries is greater than that of the rise in inequality, or of the financial crisis of 2008. In an age peppered with economic disappointments, the worst has been the stubborn failure of the robots to take our jobs. Then why is so much commentary dedicated to the opposite view? Some of this is a simple error: it has been a tough decade, economically speaking, and it is easy to blame robots for woes that should be laid at the door of others, such as bankers, austerity enthusiasts and eurozone politicians.
以40年的時間段來看，富國普通勞動者生產率長期低迷的影響要超過不平等程度上升或者2008年的金融危機。在經濟領域諸多事情令人失望之際，最令人失望的事情就是機器人一直未能奪走我們的工作。那麼，爲何有如此多言論致力於論述相反的觀點？部分原因在於一個簡單的錯誤：從經濟的角度來看，過去這十年是艱難的十年，我們很容易將本應怪罪於其他人（比如銀行業人士、極力主張緊縮的人士以及歐元區政治界人士）的困境歸咎於機器人。
It is also true that robotics is making impressive strides. Gill Pratt, a robotics expert, recently described a “Cambrian explosion” for robotics in the Journal of Economic Perspectives. While robots have done little to cause mass unemployment in the recent past, that may change in future.
機器人產業正取得不俗進展，這也是事實。機器人專家吉爾渠拉特(Gill Pratt)最近在《經濟展望期刊》(Journal of Economic Perspectives)中寫道機器人科學出現“寒武紀大爆發”。儘管最近機器人幾乎沒有造成大規模失業，但未來這點可能會發生變化。
Automation has also undoubtedly changed the shape of the job market — economist David Autor, writing in the same journal, documents a rise in demand for low-skilled jobs and highly skilled jobs, and a hollowing out of jobs in the middle. There are signs that the hollow is moving further and further up the spectrum of skills. The robots may not be taking our jobs, but they are certainly shuffling them around.
此外，自動化無疑改變了就業市場的狀況，經濟學家戴維攠塙爾(David Autor)在同一份期刊中記錄了低技能和高技能工作需求的上升以及中等技能崗位的流失。有跡象表明，崗位流失現象正愈發向更高技能的崗位蔓延。機器人或許沒有奪走我們的工作，但它們肯定正對我們的工作重新洗牌。
Yet Mr Autor also points to striking statistic: private investment in computers and software in the US has been falling almost continuously for 15 years. That is hard to square with the story of a robotic job-ocalypse. Surely we should expect to see a surge in IT investment as all those machines are installed?
然而，奧托爾還指出驚人的數據：美國電腦和軟件領域的私人投資已幾乎持續地下滑了15年。如果說機器人會帶來就業末日的話，這很難說得通。既然那麼多機器已經就位，我們肯定會預計IT投資會飆升，不是嗎？
Instead, in the wake of the great recession, managers have noted an ample supply of cheap human labour and have done without the machines for now. Perhaps there is some vast underground dormitory somewhere, all steel and sparks and dormant androids. In a corner, a chromium-plated robo-hack is tapping away at a column lamenting the fact that the humans have taken all the robots’ jobs.
然而，在大蕭條之後，管理者注意到廉價人類勞動力供應充足，一直滿足於暫時不使用機器人。或許，在地下某個地方有一個巨大的宿舍，裏面都是閃着金屬光澤、處於休眠狀態的鋼鐵機器人。在一個角落裏，一個鍍鉻的機器人僱工正在敲打鍵盤撰寫一篇專欄，哀嘆人類已奪走所有機器人的工作。
