Andrew McAfee: Are droids taking our jobs?

Translator: Joseph Geni Reviewer: Morton Bast

翻译人员: Yi Shao 校对人员: Gao Popol

As it turns out, when tens of millions of people are unemployed

事实上，当成千上万的人

没有工作或者被大材小用时

or underemployed,

there's a fair amount of interest in what technology might be doing

人们就去关注科技对劳动力的影响。

to the labor force.

我看到这方面的新闻与报导之后发现

And as I look at the conversation,

it strikes me that it's focused on exactly the right topic,

它们关注的主题都没有问题

and at the same time, it's missing the point entirely.

但却彻底错过了重点。

The topic that it's focused on,

它们关注的主题是，

the question is whether or not all these digital technologies are affecting

数码科技会不会影响人们

people's ability to earn a living,

谋生的能力，换句话说，

or, to say it a little bit different way,

are the droids taking our jobs?

就是机器是不是抢走了我们的工作？

And there's some evidence that they are.

有证据显示这样的情况的确存在。

The Great Recession ended when American GDP resumed

大萧条结束时

its kind of slow, steady march upward,

美国的GDP恢复了缓慢稳定的增长，

and some other economic indicators also started to rebound,

一些其它经济指标也开始快速健康地回升，

and they got kind of healthy kind of quickly.

企业利润很高。

Corporate profits are quite high;

事实上，如果算上银行利润，

in fact, if you include bank profits,

they're higher than they've ever been.

企业利润处于有史以来的最高水平。

And business investment in gear -- in equipment

企业在设备、机械、硬件和软件的投资

也处于历史最高水平。

and hardware and software -- is at an all-time high.

So the businesses are getting out their checkbooks.

所以企业虽然在花钱

What they're not really doing is hiring.

却没有雇人。

So this red line

这条红线是就业人数和人口的比例，

is the employment-to-population ratio,

in other words, the percentage of working-age people in America

换句话说就是美国处于工作年龄的人口中

有工作人数的比例。

who have work.

And we see that it cratered during the Great Recession,

我们可以看到大萧条期间这一比例显著下降，

and it hasn't started to bounce back at all.

完全没有开始回升的迹象。

But the story is not just a recession story.

这一现象不仅仅存在于萧条时期。

The decade that we've just been through had

十年之内工作数量的增长微乎其微

relatively anemic job growth all throughout,

和其它的十年比尤其如此

especially when we compare it to other decades,

事实上，在二十一世纪的第一个十年中

and the 2000s are the only time we have on record

2009年的就业人数少于2000年

where there were fewer people working at the end of the decade

这种情况有记录以来第一次发生。

than at the beginning.

是我们不希望看到的趋势。

This is not what you want to see.

When you graph the number of potential employees

如果比较潜在雇员和

versus the number of jobs in the country,

工作机会的数量，你会发现

you see the gap gets bigger and bigger over time,

两者之间的差距随着时间的推移越来越大

and then, during the Great Recession, it opened up in a huge way.

在大萧条期间，这种距离更是显著拉大。

我进行了一些计算。我直接运用过去二十年GDP增长

I did some quick calculations.

I took the last 20 years of GDP growth

and the last 20 years of labor-productivity growth

和劳动生产率增长的数据

and used those in a fairly straightforward way

尝试预测

to try to project how many jobs the economy was going to need

我们需要多少工作机会才能保证

经济的持续增长，最终的结果就是这条曲线。

to keep growing,

and this is the line that I came up with.

Is that good or bad?

这个结果是好是坏？这是政府

This is the government's projection

对适龄工作人口增长的预测。

for the working-age population going forward.

So if these predictions are accurate, that gap is not going to close.

如果这些预测是准确的，两者之间的差距会保持下去。

The problem is, I don't think these projections are accurate.

问题是，我认为这些预测并不准确。

In particular, I think my projection is way too optimistic,

不幸的是，我认为我的预测过于乐观了

because when I did it,

因为我的预测建立在

I was assuming that the future was kind of going to look like the past,

劳动生产率增长速率和过去持平的假设上

with labor productivity growth,

但我不认为事情会这样发展

and that's actually not what I believe.

Because when I look around,

因为当我环顾四周时，我认为我们还没有意识到

I think that we ain't seen nothing yet

when it comes to technology's impact on the labor force.

科技对劳动力的影响。

Just in the past couple years, we've seen digital tools

近些年来，我们见证了数码工具

display skills and abilities that they never, ever had before,

展示出以前从未有过的技能和能力

并且对人类生活影响很大。

and that kind of eat deeply into what we human beings

do for a living.

请允许我举几个例子。

Let me give you a couple examples.

Throughout all of history,

有史以来，如果你需要把一些文字

if you wanted something translated from one language into another,

从一种语言翻译成另外一种语言，

you had to involve a human being.

必须有人类参与。

Now we have multi-language, instantaneous,

现在我们可以通过包括智能手机在内的

automatic translation services available for free

各种电子设备

via many of our devices, all the way down to smartphones.

使用免费的多语言的即时自动翻译服务。

And if any of us have used these,

如果你使用过这这种服务，你就会知道

we know that they're not perfect, but they're decent.

尽管并不完美，他们已经非常不错了。

Throughout all of history, if you wanted something written,

有史以来，如果你想写一篇

a report or an article, you had to involve a person.

报告或者文章，必须有人类参与。

现在不用了。这是一篇不久以前

Not anymore.

This is an article that appeared in Forbes online a while back,

《福布斯》杂志刊登的有关苹果公司收益的文章。

about Apple's earnings.

It was written by an algorithm.

由一个算法撰写。

And it's not decent -- it's perfect.

这回不仅是不错了，简直是完美。

很多人看到这一现象以后说，“好吧，

A lot of people look at this and they say,

"OK, but those are very specific, narrow tasks,

但这些都是具体的、针对性强的任务，

and most knowledge workers are actually generalists.

而大多数知识型人才都是通才，

And what they do is sit on top of a very large body of expertise and knowledge

他们拥有很多

技能和知识并运用它们

and they use that to react on the fly to kind of unpredictable demands,

随时随地地应对不可预测的要求，

and that's very, very hard to automate."

这一点机器很难做到。“

最近最令人印象深刻的

One of the most impressive knowledge workers in recent memory

知识型人才名叫Ken Jennings。

is a guy named Ken Jennings.

He won the quiz show "Jeopardy!" 74 times in a row.

他连续74次在答题节目”抢答（Jeopardy!）“中取得胜利，

Took home three million dollars.

赢得了三百万美金。

右边的这位就是Ken,在和IBM的超级机器人Watson

That's Ken on the right, getting beat three-to-one

by Watson, the Jeopardy-playing supercomputer from IBM.

一同参加”抢答“比赛时，他以三比一败北。

So when we look at what technology can do to general knowledge workers,

看到科技产品胜过这样的通才

我开始思考

I start to think there might not be something so special

通才的概念可能也没有多么特别

about this idea of a generalist,

尤其是现在，如果我们把Siri

particularly when we start doing things like hooking Siri up to Watson,

和Watson的技术相结合

and having technologies that can understand what we're saying

就会得到可以理解人类语言

and repeat speech back to us.

并得到自然语言反馈的技术。

Now, Siri is far from perfect, and we can make fun of her flaws,

现在，Siri还远不完美，所以我们可以嘲笑

她的缺陷，但是我们也应该想到

but we should also keep in mind

that if technologies like Siri and Watson improve along a Moore's law trajectory,

如果Siri和Watson的技术

也按照摩尔定律发展，那么

which they will,

in six years, they're not going to be two times better or four times better,

六年之后，他们不是提高2倍

或者4倍，他们会比现在先进16倍。

they'll be 16 times better than they are right now.

So I start to think a lot of knowledge work is going to be affected by this.

所以我认为很多知识型的工作会受到这一发展趋势的影响。

And digital technologies are not just impacting knowledge work,

数码技术并非只对知识型的工作有影响。

他们在体力工作方面也开始展现实力。

they're starting to flex their muscles in the physical world as well.

I had the chance a little while back to ride in the Google autonomous car,

最近有有机会乘坐了

谷歌自动汽车，它就像它的名字一样酷。（笑声）

which is as cool as it sounds.

(Laughter)

我可以确定的说它有能力自如应对

And I will vouch that it handled the stop-and-go traffic on US 101

美国101公路上走走停停的交通。

very smoothly.

There are about three and a half million people who drive trucks for a living

美国有三百五十万人

开卡车为生。

in the United States;

我认为这项技术可能会影响

I think some of them are going to be affected by this technology.

他们中的一部分人。现在，拟人机器人

And right now, humanoid robots are still incredibly primitive.

还处在非常原始的状态。它们所能完成的任务十分有限。

They can't do very much.

But they're getting better quite quickly

但性能在快速提高。

and DARPA, which is the investment arm of the Defense Department,

美国国防部的投资机构高级研究计划局（DARPA）

is trying to accelerate their trajectory.

正在尝试推进此类研究的发展。

So, in short, yeah, the droids are coming for our jobs.

简而言之，是的，机器人就要来和我们争夺工作机会了。

短期内，我们可以通过鼓励创业和

In the short term, we can stimulate job growth

投资基础设施建设来促进工作机会的增长

by encouraging entrepreneurship

and by investing in infrastructure,

因为现在的机器人

because the robots today still aren't very good at fixing bridges.

并不擅长修建桥梁。

But in the not-too-long-term,

然而，在不远的将来，

I think within the lifetimes of most of the people in this room,

我想今天的大部分观众有生之年都有可能见证

we're going to transition into an economy that is very productive,

我们将进入一个生产力非常高

but that just doesn't need a lot of human workers.

却不需要很多人类员工的时代，

And managing that transition is going to be the greatest challenge

应对这样的转变

则是我们的社会所面临的最大挑战。

that our society faces.

Voltaire summarized why; he said,

伏尔泰（Voltaire）总结了原因。他说：

"Work saves us from three great evils: boredom, vice and need."

"工作撵跑三个魔鬼：无聊，堕落和贫穷。"

But despite this challenge --

尽管如此，我个人

personally, I'm still a huge digital optimist,

仍是一个数码技术乐观主义者，

and I am supremely confident

我坚信我们现在正在开发的数码技术

that the digital technologies that we're developing now

会带我们进入一个大同社会，

are going to take us into a Utopian future,

not a dystopian future.

而不是可怕的灾难。为了解释我为什么这样乐观

And to explain why,

I want to pose a ridiculously broad question.

我想要问一个宽泛到有些荒唐的问题。

I want to ask:

我的问题是：人类历史上

what have been the most important developments in human history?

最重要的发展是什么？

Now, I want to share some of the answers that I've gotten

现在我想与你们分享一些就这个问题

我所得到的答案。这是一个很棒的问题，

in response to this question.

It's a wonderful question to ask and start an endless debate about,

问出来可以引起无休止的辩论，

because some people are going to bring up

有些人会提起

systems of philosophy in both the West and the East

改变很多人对世界看法的

that have changed how a lot of people think about the world.

各种东西方哲学体系。

And then other people will say,

其他人则会说。“不，真正重要的发展

"No, actually, the big stories, the big developments

是世界主要宗教的建立，

are the founding of the world's major religions,

它们改变了各国文明

which have changed civilizations and have changed and influenced

改变和影响力了无数人的

how countless people are living their lives."

生活方式。“还有人会说，

And then some other folk will say,

"Actually, what changes civilizations,

”事实上，改变文明

what modifies them and what changes people's lives are empires,

和人类生活的

是帝国，所以人类历史上最重要的发展

so the great developments in human history

是征服和战争。”

are stories of conquest and of war."

And then some cheery soul usually always pipes up and says,

还有些生性欢快的人物常常会跳起来说

"Hey, don't forget about plagues!"

“嗨，别忘了瘟疫。”（笑声）

(Laughter)

我也得到了一些积极的答案，

There are some optimistic answers to this question,

so some people will bring up the Age of Exploration

有些人提起了地理大发现时代

和对世界的探索。

and the opening up of the world.

Others will talk about intellectual achievements in disciplines like math

有人认为是包括数学在内的一些学科上的

学术进步帮助我们更好的

that have helped us get a better handle on the world,

应对世界，也有人说到艺术和科学

and other folk will talk about periods when there was a deep flourishing

繁荣发展的时代

of the arts and sciences.

所以这场辩论可以一直进行下去。

So this debate will go on and on.

It's an endless debate

这是永远不会结束的争论，也没有

and there's no conclusive, single answer to it.

明确的唯一答案。但是，如果你和我一样是技术宅，

But if you're a geek like me,

你就会问，“那么，数据会给出什么样的答案呢？”

you say, "Well, what do the data say?"

And you start to do things

然后我们就开始以感兴趣的东西为主题

like graph things that we might be interested in --

制作图标，比如世界人口

the total worldwide population, for example,

或者是某钟衡量社会发展的标准，

or some measure of social development

or the state of advancement of a society.

或者社会进步的状态，

And you start to plot the data, because, by this approach,

将这些数据转化为图标之后，

就可以看到人类历史上的重要事件和伟大发展，

the big stories, the big developments in human history,

are the ones that will bend these curves a lot.

都会对这些曲线造成明显的变化。

So when you do this and when you plot the data,

将数据转化成图形之后

you pretty quickly come to some weird conclusions.

你很快就会得到一些奇怪的结论。

事实上，你的结论是这些因素

You conclude, actually,

that none of these things have mattered very much.

其实没有一个真正重要。（笑声）

(Laughter)

它们对曲线的走势毫无影响。

They haven't done a darn thing to the curves.

There has been one story, one development in human history

人类历史上只有一个事件，一个发展

改变了这条曲线，让它发生了近90度的上升

that bent the curve, bent it just about 90 degrees,

这就是科学技术。

and it is a technology story.

The steam engine and the other associated technologies

蒸汽机以及工业革命期间出现的其它相关技术

of the Industrial Revolution

改变了世界

changed the world and influenced human history so much,

对人类历史产生了深远的影响，

that in the words of the historian Ian Morris,

用历史学家Ian Morris的话说

"... they made mockery out of all that had come before."

它们简直是对人类此前所取得的所有成就的嘲弄。

And they did this by infinitely multiplying the power of our muscles,

这些技术带来了人类无法企及的力量

解放了人们的双手。

overcoming the limitations of our muscles.

Now, what we're in the middle of now

现在，我们所经历的

is overcoming the limitations of our individual brains

则是对人类智力的超越

and infinitely multiplying our mental power.

解放人们的大脑。

How can this not be as big a deal

这和超越体力极限一样

as overcoming the limitations of our muscles?

是人类历史上的一件大事。

So at the risk of repeating myself a little bit,

因此请允许我再次强调

when I look at what's going on with digital technology these days,

从当今数码科技发展的趋势来看

we are not anywhere near through with this journey.

我们还远未到达这趟旅程的终点，

And when I look at what is happening to our economies and our societies,

从当今的经济和社会发展趋势来看

我认为我们尚未见证

my single conclusion is that we ain't seen nothing yet.

真正的变革。未来充满了激动人心的可能性。

The best days are really ahead.

Let me give you a couple examples.

请允许我举几个例子。

经济发展靠的不是能源、不是资本

Economies don't run on energy.

They don't run on capital, they don't run on labor.

也不是劳动力。经济发展靠的是理念。

Economies run on ideas.

所以带来创新的工作

So the work of innovation, the work of coming up with new ideas,

是最重要的，

is some of the most powerful, most fundamental work that we can do

是经济发展中最基础的工作。

我们过去是这样从事创新工作的。

in an economy.

And this is kind of how we used to do innovation.

我们找一群长的差不多的人

We'd find a bunch of fairly similar-looking people ...

(Laughter)

（笑声）

他们来自精英组织，我们再让他们进入

We'd take them out of elite institutions,

we'd put them into other elite institutions

其它的精英组织，然后等待创新的到来。

and we'd wait for the innovation.

Now --

现在（笑声）

(Laughter)

as a white guy who spent his whole career at MIT and Harvard,

作为一个整个职业生涯都在麻省理工

I've got no problem with this.

和哈佛工作的白人，我对此没有意见。（笑声）

(Laughter)

But some other people do,

但是其他人不这样想，他们闯进

and they've kind of crashed the party

创新世界的派对，降低了进入的门槛。

and loosened up the dress code of innovation.

(Laughter)

（笑声）

So here are the winners of a Topcoder programming challenge,

这是Top Coder编程比赛的获胜者，

and I assure you that nobody cares

我相信没有人在意

where these kids grew up, where they went to school,

这些孩子在哪里长大，他们在什么地方上学，

or what they look like.

以及他们的长相。我们在乎的只有

All anyone cares about is the quality of the work, the quality of the ideas.

他们作品和想法的质量。

And over and over again, we see this happening

我们一次又一次的在技术驱动的世界中

in the technology-facilitated world.

看到这种情况的发生。

The work of innovation is becoming more open,

创新工作正在变的更加开放，

更具包容性，更加透明，更加注重成绩，

more inclusive, more transparent and more merit-based,

and that's going to continue no matter what MIT and Harvard think of it,

无论麻省理工和哈佛怎么想，这种趋势

都将继续，令我感到非常开心。

and I couldn't be happier about that development.

I hear once in a while, "OK, I'll grant you that,

我时不时听到这样的说法，“好，这些我可以接受，

但是科技依然是富裕阶层的工具，

but technology is still a tool for the rich world,

and what's not happening,

现实的缺失是，这些数码工具没有

these digital tools are not improving the lives

提高处于金字塔底层人们的生活。”

of people at the bottom of the pyramid."

And I want to say to that very clearly: nonsense.

对于这种说法，我的答案非常简单：无稽之谈。

科技大大改善了底层人民的生活。

The bottom of the pyramid is benefiting hugely from technology.

The economist Robert Jensen did this wonderful study a while back

经济学家Robert Jensen有一项出色的研究

不久之前，他仔细观察了

where he watched, in great detail,

what happened to the fishing villages of Kerala, India,

印度喀拉拉邦地区小渔村居民得到手机后

when they got mobile phones for the very first time.

生活发生的变化。

And when you write for the Quarterly Journal of Economics,

《经济学季刊》刊登的文章

you have to use very dry and very circumspect language.

语言一向干涩谨慎

But when I read his paper,

然而读到Jensen的文章时，

I kind of feel Jensen is trying to scream at us

却感觉他向我们疾呼：看，这真的非常了不起。

and say, "Look, this was a big deal.

物价稳定，所以人们可以做好经济计划。

Prices stabilized, so people could plan their economic lives.

Waste was not reduced -- it was eliminated.

浪费不是减少了，而是彻底被消灭了。

在这些村庄里，卖方和买方

And the lives of both the buyers and the sellers

in these villages measurably improved."

的生活水平都提高了。

我不认为Jensen运气过人，

Now, what I don't think is that Jensen got extremely lucky

and happened to land in the one set of villages

碰巧遇到了一些生活水平

因科技而大大改善的村子。

where technology made things better.

What happened instead is he very carefully documented

事实上，他只是非常详细的记录了

新技术被引进新的环境和社区时

what happens over and over again when technology comes for the first time

普遍会发生的情况。

to an environment and a community:

居民的生活和福利会得到显著改善。

the lives of people, the welfares of people, improve dramatically.

因此，对各方证据进行评估

So as I look around at all the evidence

and I think about the room that we have ahead of us,

并考虑未来发展空间之后，我对数码技术

I become a huge digital optimist

持乐观态度，我开始认为物理学家Freeman Dyson

and I start to think that this wonderful statement from the physicist Freeman Dyson

所提出的精彩观点

is actually not hyperbole.

并不夸张，而是对当前形势的精确评估。

This is an accurate assessment of what's going on.

Our technologies are great gifts,

我们的数码技术是上天伟大的礼物，

and we, right now, have the great good fortune

如今数码技术繁荣发展

to be living at a time when digital technology is flourishing,

涉及范围不断拓宽加深

when it is broadening and deepening and becoming more profound

在世界上的影响也越来越深远

能生活在这样一个时代是我们莫大的幸运。

all around the world.

So, yeah, the droids are taking our jobs,

因此，机器人确实在侵蚀我们的工作

but focusing on that fact misses the point entirely.

然而这并不是值得关注的重点。

The point is that then we are freed up to do other things,

真正值得关注的是技术给我们自由从事其他活动的机会

and what we're going to do, I am very confident,

以及我们如何利用这样的机会，我坚信

what we're going to do is reduce poverty

我们将会减少世界上的贫困、单调乏味的工作

and drudgery and misery around the world.

和苦痛。我相信

I'm very confident we're going to learn to live more lightly on the planet,

我们可以降低对地球资源的需求，

我相信我们未来对数码工具会有更深刻运用

and I am extremely confident that what we're going to do

with our new digital tools

造福世界，

is going to be so profound and so beneficial

让此前的人类成就

that it's going to make a mockery out of everything that came before.

都显得微不足道。

I'm going to leave the last word

最后我将引用Ken Jennings

to a guy who had a front-row seat for digital progress,

一位紧密关注数码技术进步的

our old friend Ken Jennings.

老朋友所说的一句话。我认同他的观点。

I'm with him; I'm going to echo his words:

我直接转述他的原话：

"I, for one, welcome our new computer overlords."

“我，欢迎我们的新一代机器人领主。”（笑声）

(Laughter)

Thanks very much.

非常感谢。（掌声）

(Applause)