達沃斯 智能機器將改變世界

Artificial intelligence will spur economic growth and create new wealth. Machines that “think” like humans will help solve huge problems, from curing cancer to climate change. Yet millions of human workers will need to retrain, as robots make their existing jobs redundant.

人工智能將刺激經濟增長和創造新的財富。從治療癌症到氣候變化，像人類一樣“思考”的機器將幫助解決巨大問題。然而，隨着機器人使大量現有工作崗位變得多餘，數以百萬計的工作者將需要重新培訓。

These are the contrasting messages provided by the world’s leading technologists during the World Economic Forum in Davos this week, as political and business leaders ponder how best to respond to the rise of smart machines.

這些是世界領先的技術專家本週在達沃斯傳遞的一些反差鮮明的信息。在這裏舉行的世界經濟論壇(World Economic Forum)上，政治和商界領袖思索如何最好地迴應智能機器的興起。

Sebastian Thrun, the inventor of Google’s self-driving cars and an honorary professor at Delft University of Technology, in the Netherlands, said “almost every established industry is not moving fast enough” to adapt their businesses to this change.

谷歌(Google)自動駕駛汽車發明者、荷蘭代爾夫特理工大學(Delft University of Technology)名譽教授塞巴斯蒂安史朗(Sebastian Thrun)表示，在推動企業適應這種變化方面，“幾乎每一個老牌行業的動作都不夠快”。

He suggested self-driving cars would make millions of taxi drivers redundant and planes running solely on autopilot would remove the need for thousands of human pilots.

他提出，自動駕駛汽車將使數以百萬計的出租車司機失去工作，只靠自動駕駛儀運行的飛機將使成千上萬人類飛行員變得多餘。

One of the central themes of this year’s conference is the “Fourth Industrial Revolution,” referring to how technological breakthroughs are expected to transform industries across the world. Delegates argued that advances in robotics and artificial intelligence would have the transformative effect that steam power, electricity and ubiquitous computing achieved in previous centuries.

今年世界經濟論壇的中心主題之一是“第四次工業革命”，它指的是技術突破預計將在世界各地轉變各行各業的面貌。與會代表們提出，機器人和人工智能技術的進步將產生變革性的影響，就像過去幾個世紀的蒸汽動力、電力以及無處不在的電腦運算能力那樣。

“[Artificially-intelligent machines] can look at a brainscan better than most radiologists, but they can also weld better than any human,” said Illah Nourbakhsh is a professor of robotics at Carnegie Mellon University, the institution partnering with taxi app group Uber to build driverless cars. “It’s affecting white collar and blue collar jobs. Nobody is inherently safe.”

“（人工智能機器）能夠比多數放射科醫生更擅長看懂腦部掃描，它們也能夠比任何人類焊接工更好地焊接，”卡內基梅隆大學(Carnegie Mellon University)機器人學教授伊拉蘒巴卡西(Illah Nourbakhsh)表示。該校正與打車應用優步(Uber)合作研製無人駕駛汽車。“這影響到白領和藍領的工作。沒有人是絕對安全的。”

But Prof Thrun was optimistic that redundant roles would quickly be replaced.

但史朗教授樂觀地認爲，多餘的角色將很快被替換。

“With the advent of new technologies, we’ve always created new jobs,” he said. “I don’t know what these jobs will be, but I’m confident we will find them”

“隨着新技術的出現，我們總是在創造新的就業機會，”他表示。“我不知道這些工作具體會是什麼，但我相信我們會找到它們。”

Not all are convinced. According to a study released by WEF this week, increased automation and artificial intelligence in the workforce will lead to the loss of 7.1m jobs over the next 5 years in 15 leading economies, while helping create just 2m new jobs over the same period.

並非所有人都深信這一點。根據世界經濟論壇本週發佈的一份研究報告，提高自動化程度和在勞動力隊伍中引入人工智能，未來5年期間將使15個主要經濟體失去710萬個就業崗位，而同期技術進步將僅帶來200萬個新工作崗位。

Across industries, leading executives worried about the effect of job displacement.

在各行各業，領先高管們紛紛表示擔心工作替代的影響。

Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, chairman at Nestlé, warned some countries would become unstable if businesses could not replace jobs taken by machines.

雀巢(Nestlé)董事長包必達(Peter Brabeck-Letmathe)警告，如果企業不能幫助被機器取代的工人找到新工作，一些國家將變得不穩定。

“Other industrial revolutions cost a lot of people their heads,” he said. “I’m not sure we have the time for the wonderful markets to fix all these problems.”

“過去幾次工業革命使很多人失去了生計，”他說。“我不肯定我們有時間讓神奇的市場力量來解決所有這些問題。”

Satya Nadella, chief executive of Microsoft, said: “This challenge of displacement is a real one, [but] I feel the right emphasis is on skills, rather than worrying too much about the jobs [which] will be lost. We will have to spend the money to educate our people, not just children but also people mid-career so they can find new jobs.”

微軟(Microsoft)首席執行官薩提亞納德拉(Satya Nadella，見上圖)表示：“人被機器取代的這種挑戰是真實的，但我認爲正確的重點是技能，而不是過於擔心那些將會失去的工作。我們將不得不花錢來教育人們，不只是孩子，也包括職業生涯中途的人們，使他們能夠找到新的工作。”

For workers to adapt, Prof Thrun argued that the way people approach their professional lives would require change.

史朗教授主張，要讓工作者適應，人們對待自己職業生涯的態度將需要改變。

The robotics pioneer is also the founder of Udacity, a Silicon Valley start-up that enrols high-earning professionals into six-month online courses, retraining them in order to switch jobs. Due to growing automation, he predicted it would become the norm for workers to change jobs every few years.

這位機器人領域的先驅還創立了Udacity，這是一家硅谷初創企業，招收高收入專業人士參加六個月的網上課程，對他們進行再培訓，使他們能夠換工作。他預測，隨着自動化越來越普及，工作者每隔幾年更換工作將成爲常態。

“In the United States, in 2012, figures from Department of Labour Statistics show the average tenure [in a job] was 4.6 years and it’s shrinking,” he said.

“美國勞工部勞動統計局(Department of Labour Statistics) 2012年數據顯示，美國一份工作的平均任期爲4.6年，而且還在縮短，”他表示。

Erik Brynjolfsson, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor and co-author of The Second Machine Age said: “We’re moving to a world where there will be vastly more wealth and vastly less work. That shouldn’t be a bad a thing, and shame on us if we turn it into a bad thing.”

麻省理工學院(MIT)教授、《第二個機器時代》(The Second Machine Age)合著者埃裏克布林約爾鬆(Erik Brynjolfsson)表示：“我們正進入一個財富大幅增加、而工作大幅減少的世界。這不應該是一件壞事；如果我們把它變成一件壞事，那將是我們的恥辱。”