Let’s not write people off as ‘AI losers’


The idea that the outcome of technological change is inevitable is both dangerous and untrue. 6park.com
这样说好像整个事情都不在我们的掌控之中。人工智能带来了危险，也创造了机会。最后结果如何，全都取决于我们。



Technologists used to be cheery types — often boosterish to the point of annoying. So it has been a little disorientating lately to watch a parade of tech leaders issue public warnings about the dire potential consequences of their own inventions. 6park.com
科技专家过去都是乐天派——常常乐观到令人讨厌的程度。因此，最近看到一群科技领袖公开警告自己的发明可能带来的可怕后果，让人有点不知所措。 6park.com
   
Mustafa Suleyman, one of the co-founders of AI lab DeepMind, told an event in San Francisco this month that AI would threaten white-collar workers and create “a serious number of losers” who would be “very unhappy, very agitated.” Governments, he said, would have to think about how to compensate them. 6park.com
人工智能实验室DeepMind的联合创始人之一穆斯塔法•苏莱曼(Mustafa Suleyman)上月在旧金山的一个活动上表示，人工智能将威胁到白领劳动者的饭碗，并造成“大量的输家”，他们会“非常不开心，非常焦虑”。他说，各国政府将不得不考虑如何补偿他们。 6park.com
   
Sam Altman, chief executive of OpenAI, was encouraging last week in testimony to Congress about the potential for new work to be created, but nonetheless said there would be some “impact on jobs” which would “require partnership between the industry and government, but mostly action by government, to figure out how we want to mitigate that.” 6park.com
OpenAI首席执行官萨姆•奥尔特曼(Sam Altman)不久前在国会的证词提到新技术创造新工作岗位的潜力，这让人鼓舞，但他也说了新技术将对“就业产生一些冲击”，“需要行业和政府一道，但主要是需要政府采取行动，来想出减轻这种冲击的方法。” 6park.com
   
Good for them, you might say. Better to be honest about the potential risks automation poses to some workers than to be blindly optimistic. After all, everyone remembers learning about the Luddites in early 19th century England, who were so angry they resorted to smashing the weaving machines that had displaced them. I would agree with that. But I also think there is something dangerous about the narrative that AI will create winners and losers, and that the losers must be compensated. 6park.com
你可能会说，他们做得对。与其盲目乐观，不如诚实地面对自动化给某些劳动者带来的潜在风险。毕竟，所有人都记得课本里讲过的19世纪初英国的卢德分子，他们因为愤怒砸烂了抢走他们饭碗的织布机。我也认为他们做得对。但我在想，所谓人工智能将创造赢家和输家、而输家必须得到补偿的说法有些危险。 6park.com
   
It gives the impression that the outcome of technological change is inevitable and all we can do is get governments to mop up the aftermath. But how AI changes the world of work is far from pre-determined: it will depend on the balance of power in millions of different workplaces; on legislation and regulatory enforcement; on the outcome of fights over ideas, over laws, over working conditions and over the distribution of productivity gains. 6park.com
这种说法给人的印象是，技术变革的结果是不可避免的，而我们所能做的就是让政府收拾残局。但人工智能将如何改变就业远非已经预先决定了的事情：它将取决于数百万个不同工作场所中权力的对比；取决于立法与监管的执行；取决于对观念、对法律、对工作条件和对生产力收益分配的斗争结果。 6park.com
   
As economists Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson argue in their new book Power and Progress, this has been the case throughout history, from agriculture in the middle ages to the factories of the industrial revolution. 6park.com
正如经济学家达龙•阿西莫格鲁(Daron Acemoglu)和西蒙•约翰逊(Simon Johnson)在他们的新书《权力与进步》(Power and Progress)中所指出的那样，从中世纪的农业到工业革命时的工厂，历史上情况一直如此。 6park.com
   
The Luddites are actually a good example. They weren’t against technology itself so much as the way it was being implemented to undercut their skills and replace them with shoddy products made by unskilled workers or children. They turned to machine-breaking in desperation, but their demands weren’t unreasonable to 21st century ears: their ideas included minimum wages, minimum labour standards and a tax on machine owners to help support unemployed workers. They just didn’t have the power to get anywhere. 6park.com
卢德分子实际上就是一个很好的例子。他们反对的并不是技术本身，而是技术的推行方式。技术推行的方式让他们的技能变得无用，导致他们输给了没有什么技术的普通工人或童工生产的劣质产品。绝望之下，他们毁坏了机器，但他们的诉求在21世纪的人听来并非不合理：他们的想法包括最低工资、最低劳动标准和对机器所有者征税，以帮助支持失业工人。他们只是力量微薄，无法为自己的诉求争取到支持。 6park.com
   
There are echoes of those fears about undercutting and deskilling in the fight under way today in Hollywood, between writers and studios over how AI could be used in the scriptwriting process. Backed by strong unions, the writers might be able to negotiate a fairer way forward. 6park.com
这些工人对自己的技能变得无用、自己的工作被去技能化的担忧，也同样反映在好莱坞今天正在进行的一场斗争中，斗争的双方是编剧和电影公司，斗争的焦点是在剧本创作过程中可能如何使用人工智能。在强大工会的支持下，编剧们或许能够争取到对他们更公平的使用人工智能的方式。 6park.com
   
The other problem with the “compensate the losers” narrative is that it makes it sound as if government is the only solution. This lets companies off the hook, and it also implies individuals have no agency. 6park.com
“补偿输家”这一叙事的另一个问题是，它让人觉得政府是唯一的解决方案。这让公司摆脱了责任，同时暗示人没有能动性。 6park.com
   
A new policy in Sweden is an interesting example of an alternative approach: the country has created what is effectively a furlough-type scheme for life-long learning. Under an agreement between employers, unions and government, workers can take time off to train in something new, while being paid 80 per cent of their salary (up to a limit). 6park.com
瑞典的一项新政策是另一条道路的有趣例子：该国创造了一种事实上的强制休假，休假的目的是进行终身学习。根据雇主、工会和政府之间的一项协议，劳动者可以休假接受新技能培训，其间领取80%的薪酬（有一定限制条件）。 6park.com
   
This isn’t waiting until people are made redundant then offering them a cheap course so you can tick the “retraining” box in the “compensating losers” handbook (which didn’t go so well in the deindustrialised areas of many developed countries in recent decades). 6park.com
这并不是等到人们被裁掉之后，再给他们提供一门廉价的课程，让你可以在“补偿输家”手册上的“再培训”一栏打勾——近几十年来，这种做法在许多发达国家的去工业化地区并不怎么奏效。 6park.com
   
Instead, the idea is to be proactive — to help workers stay ahead of changes in the world of work, and to help employers by raising the skills base of the workforce. It is still early days and there are some dangers, for example that it displaces employer-provided training. 6park.com
相反，瑞典政策的理念是主动出击——帮助劳动者提前应对就业形势的变化，劳动者的整体技能提高也对雇主有好处。这项政策仍处于早期摸索阶段，并且存在一些危险，例如，它取代了雇主提供的培训。 6park.com
   
But Swedish unions hope it will “make our members safer in the labour market and more resistant to destructive forces that are always at work in a small open economy,” says Fredrik Söderqvist, an economist for the LO — the Swedish trade union confederation. “This sort of highlights a basic tenet of the Swedish model — security in the labour market is supposed to bring security in the individual job — not the other way around.” 6park.com
但瑞典工会联盟(LO)经济学家弗雷德里克•瑟德韦斯特(Fredrik Söderqvist)说，瑞典工会希望这项政策将“使我们的会员在劳动力市场上更安全，并更能抵御在小型开放经济中挥之不去的破坏性力量……这在某种程度上秉承了瑞典模式的一个基本原则：劳动力市场的安全应该带来个人工作的安全，而不是反过来”。 6park.com
   
It’s time to stop saying AI will produce winners and losers, as if the whole thing is out of our hands. It creates opportunities and dangers. How they play out is up to us. 6park.com
是时候停止说人工智能会产生赢家和输家了，这搞得好像整个事情都不在我们的掌控之中。人工智能带来了危险，也创造了机会。最后结果如何，全都取决于我们。 6park.com