機器人佔領世界 The robot takeover not so fast

Are we nearing a dramatic moment in economic history? Before humans developed agriculture, the world population — and thus the world economy — doubled in size roughly every 250,000 years. After acquiring the power of agriculture, the world economy doubled in size roughly every 900 years. After the industrial revolution, growth accelerated again, and since the second world war the world economy has been doubling in size roughly every 15 years. These numbers have been collated by Robin Hanson, an economist at George Mason University in Virginia; they are based on educated guesses by various economic historians.

我們正接近經濟史上的戲劇性一幕麼？在人類發展農業以前，全球人口（以及世界經濟規模）大約每25萬年增長一倍。而在人類獲得農業生產的力量之後，全球經濟規模大約每900年增長一倍。工業革命之後，全球經濟增長再次加速。而自二戰以來全球經濟大約每15年增長一倍。上述數據是由弗吉尼亞州喬治梅森大學(George Mason University)的經濟學家羅賓漢森(Robin Hanson)整理的，基於多位經濟史學家給出的有歷史依據的估計。

If another step change of a similar scale were to happen, the world economy would double in size between now and Christmas. That is hard to imagine but, before the industrial revolution happened, it too would have been hard to imagine. And a small band of believers, not short on imagination, look forward to an economic “singularity”. Hanson is one of them, and the computer scientist Ray Kurzweil, author of The Singularity Is Near, is perhaps the most famous.

如果再發生類似程度的階躍式變革，全球經濟或許會在現在到聖誕節這段時間裏增長一倍。這一點雖然很難想象，但在工業革命發生前，一切也很難想象。這一場景的少數不乏想象力的信徒，期冀出現一種經濟上的“奇點”。漢森就是他們中的一個，而計算機科學家、《奇點臨近》(The Singularity Is Near)一書的作者雷錠日韋爾(Ray Kurzweil)也許是他們中最有名的一位。

The singularity would be a point at which, rather than humans developing new technologies, the new technologies developed themselves. They would do so at a rate far beyond our comprehension. After the singularity, our civilisation would be in the hands of cyborgs, or brains uploaded into the cloud, or genetically enhanced superbeings, or something else able to make itself smarter at a tremendous rate. The future economy might consist of rapid interactions between artificial intelligences. The idea that it might double in size every few weeks no longer seems quite so unimaginable.

奇點是這樣一個時間點，即不再是由人類開發新技術，而是新技術本身會開發新技術。它們會以一種遠超我們想象的速度開發新技術。在奇點之後，我們的文明會被置於半機械人、或上傳到雲端的大腦、或基因強化的超級生物、或別的什麼能極快提升自身智力的東西控制之下。未來的經濟可能由人工智能之間的快速互動組成。全球經濟每過幾周就可能增長一倍的想法，不再看上去那麼不可想象了。

But it is one thing to imagine such a future. It is another thing to have confidence that it is approaching. Many economists point out that productivity growth has been sluggish for a long time, which hardly seems to be a precursor to a transformative economic take-off. Growth in advanced economies, far from accelerating, seems to require extraordinary stimulus to prevent it from stopping altogether. Other economists are more bullish, reminding us of a basic fact about the rapid exponential growth in computing power: if it continues, then by definition growth in the future will dwarf growth in the past.

不過，想象這樣的未來是一回事，相信這樣的未來正在到來則是另一回事。許多經濟學家指出，生產率增長乏力已有很長一段時間了，這似乎很難被看作變革性經濟起飛的前奏。發達經濟體的經濟增長遠遠不是加速前進，反而似乎需要額外的刺激才能防止它完全停頓下來。其他經濟學家則更樂觀一些，提醒我們這樣一個基本事實，即計算機的計算能力正在飛速地呈指數增長：如果這種增長持續下去，那麼從定義上說，未來的經濟增速將令過去的增長相形見絀。

Recently, the economist William Nordhaus published a research paper that aims to adjudicate on this debate. Nordhaus proposes a series of tests that we could use to spot an imminent singularity, looking for evidence that either the productive forces of the economy, or the goods that we enjoy consuming, are being transformed by computing.

最近，經濟學家威廉蘒德豪斯(William Nordhaus)發表了一篇旨對這一爭論做出裁決的研究論文。諾德豪斯提出了一系列我們可以用來發現即將來臨的奇點的測試方案，藉此尋找證據證明，計算能力或者改變了經濟的生產力，或者改變了我們在享用的商品。

Nordhaus’s first test is on the demand side. Is it likely that singularity-prone products such as games, films and computers will eventually absorb most of our spending?

諾德豪斯的第一個測試是針對需求端。遊戲、電影和電腦等容易出現奇點的產品是否有可能最終吸走我們的大多數開支？

So far, the answer seems to be no. The proportion of spending on such products is falling because their price is collapsing. If this trend continues, limitless digital goods will be the intricate icing on a stodgy economic cake. Our economy will move at the pace of the slowest sectors, and we will be chained to productivity improvements in mundane products such as food, shelter and transportation. After all, we cannot eat smartphone apps.

到目前爲止，對這個問題的答案似乎是否定的。由於價格暴跌，對這類產品的開支所佔的比例正在下滑。如果這種趨勢持續下去，無限的數字化商品將成爲經濟大蛋糕上精美的糖霜。我們的經濟增長速度將會與增長最緩慢的部門一致，我們將受到食品、住房和交通等普通產品生產率改善幅度的束縛。畢竟，智能手機應用又不能當飯吃。

Perhaps, instead, computing will revolutionise how we produce these mundane products. An obvious second test, then, is to ask whether US productivity is accelerating. It isn’t.

或許，計算能力真正引起革命的領域是我們如何生產這些普通產品。那麼，第二項測試顯然就是，美國的生產率是否正在加速提高。答案是否定的。

Other tests look at the importance of investment goods in the economy. If the singularity is approaching, one might expect them to become very cheap and to dominate economic output. Are the average prices of investment goods — which include computers and software but also buildings and machinery — falling relative to wages at an accelerating rate? The answer, again, is no. What about the stock of capital relative to US economic output — is it rapidly rising? No.

其他測試則考察經濟中投資品的重要性。如果奇點正在來臨，人們或許可以預計的是，投資品會變得非常廉價並決定着經濟產出。投資品（既包括計算機和軟件，也包括建築物和機械）的平均價格相對於工資正在加速下跌麼？答案又是否定的。那麼，相對美國經濟產出而言，資本存量的變化如何，是在快速上升麼？答案也是否定的。

So far there is not much sign of a singularity in the data. But a couple of tests do point in that direction. For example, the share of US national income accruing to capital rather than labour is increasing, albeit at a modest pace. That is what one might expect as the robots march into human affairs. And within the capital stock, the share of information assets such as software and intellectual property is increasing, although it is still only 6 or 7 per cent of the total. Nordhaus argues that these two tests suggest a singularity is many decades away; his other tests all point in the wrong direction entirely.

到目前爲止，這些數據中找不到多少奇點來臨的跡象。不過，確實有幾項測試顯示了這個趨勢。比如，美國國民收入流向資本而不是勞動力的比例在增加，儘管速度不是很快。這是機器人向人類事務進軍時預計會見到的現象。而在資本存量中，軟件和知識產權等信息資產的比例正在增加——儘管這一比例仍只有6%或7%。諾德豪斯認爲，這兩個測試意味着奇點還有好幾十年纔會到來。而他的其他測試全都指向徹底相反的方向。

At this point the pro-singularity crowd might complain that conventional economic statistics do a poor job of measuring some of the new products and services. A mobile phone, for example, comes bundled with dozens of free products — a flashlight, satnav, an alarm clock and much more.

說到這裏，相信奇點來臨的人羣也許會抱怨說，常規經濟統計在衡量部分新產品和服務方面做得並不好。比如，手機會捆綁數十種免費產品：手電筒、衛星導航、鬧鐘等等。

All this Nordhaus acknowledges — he is, it so happens, one of the world’s leading authorities on measuring the value of goods that conventional statistics miss. He ponders various back-of-the-envelope measures — for example, the amount of time that people spend consuming digital goods such as email. But none of these efforts suggests anything transformative yet.

對於這一切諾德豪斯也都承認。不過，對於衡量常規統計失效的商品價值，諾德豪斯碰巧也是全球頂尖的權威之一。他構想了各種不同的粗略估算方法——比如人們用於消費電子郵件等數字化商品的時間。然而所有這一切都還沒有顯示出任何變革性的跡象。

Perhaps this is complacency. In the movies, the robot takeover tends to be rather sudden. Perhaps cyborgs have kidnapped the real Nordhaus and are using his name to spread disinformation. It is more likely, though, that the singularity is not near.

或許這是人類的一種自滿。按照電影裏說的，機器人佔領世界往往會相當突然地發生。也許半機械人已綁架了真正的諾德豪斯，現在正以他的名義擴散誤導信息。不過，更有可能的是，奇點離我們還遠着呢。