想要機器人情人？ 2025年就能實現

Human relationships have had their day.
人與人之間談戀愛很快就要過時啦。

They have enjoyed all the excellence of wine-in-a-box. Too often, what starts with a flame ends as soot.
人類之間的戀愛總是很美好，剛開始會像煙花一樣絢爛，可往往到最後愛情灰飛煙滅，令人傷感。

So a new report from the Pew Research Center offers hope for humans in search of true and abiding love.
皮尤研究中心的一項研究爲人類找到更真摯、更持久的愛情帶來了希望。

For in "AI, Robotics And The Future Of Jobs" (PDF), one of the experts surveyed predicts that, in 2025, many of us will have robot lovers. No, not those who are human and merely go through the motions because they have a ring on their finger and a joint bank , these will be actual robots that will know our every need and minister to it accordingly.
在這項名爲“人工智能，機器人與未來職業”的研究中，有專家預測，到2025年，我們很多人都會擁有一個機器人伴侶。這不同於人類伴侶，不是那種因爲手上帶了結婚戒指、和你共享銀行賬戶的所謂的伴侶，而是指可以瞭解你的所有需求，輔助你的生活的實實在在的機器人伴侶。

The report, released last week, canvassed the views of experts. As we know with experts, they are always right. Especially in their own minds. So this is as sure a picture as we can have of our loving and lovable future.
上週公佈的這份研究報告裏徵詢了多方專家學者的觀點，他們各有各的說辭，所以我們也只能儘量描繪出一個充滿正能量的未來世界藍圖。

Robots will, it seems, threaten current jobs more than ever. These won't merely be jobs that require automation. These will be jobs of the white-collar variety, those that involve a touch of politics, as well as a heap of patience. Almost half the experts believe that the advance of robot deployment will mean the advance of human unemployment. They fear greater income inequality, and even heightened social disorder.
在未來，機器人有可能對人類的職業造成前所未有的威脅。受到威脅的職業不僅包括那些要求自動化的職業，也包括白領、需要懂政治、需要有耐心的職業。近一半的專家認爲，機器人的大範圍使用可能會導致失業人羣增加，貧富差距拉大，甚至是社會混亂程度加劇。

Some differ. Salesforce's JP Rangaswami, for example, insists that: "The effects will be different in different economies (which themselves may look different from today's political boundaries). Driven by revolutions in education and in technology, the very nature of work will have changed radically--but only in economies that have chosen to invest in education, technology,and related infrastructure."
其他一些專家則持不同的觀點。例如來自CRM（客戶關係管理）軟件服務提供商Salesforce的然格斯沃米就認爲，“在不同的經濟狀況下，機器人的影響也會不同，而未來的經濟狀況劃分也有可能與現在不一樣。在教育和科技革命的推動下，除了投資教育、科技及相關公共事業的經濟領域之外，各行業的工作性質都將發生翻天覆地的變化。”

Jonathan Grudin, Microsoft's principal researcher, believes technology has always been a net jobs creator. He said: "Although there have always been unemployed people, when we reached a few billion people there were billions of jobs. There is no shortage of things that need to be done and that will not change。"
微軟首席研究員喬納森認爲，技術一直是創造網絡就業崗位的一隻手，“雖然我們的社會一直存在失業人羣，但是有數十億人口就會有上十億的工作崗位。我們從來都不缺事做，這一點是不會改變的。”

But let's be optimistic. There will be vast numbers of people with little to do. They will need far more love -- or, at least, lovin' -- than ever before.
樂觀點來看的話，機器人一旦普及，人類需要親自做的事情就變少了，也因此可能比之前需要更多的愛，或者，至少是需要更多的愛好。

That's where, one expert surveyed for the report suggests, robots may be a salvation. Stowe Boyd, lead researcher for GigaOM Research, predicts: "Robotic sex partners will become commonplace, although the source of scorn and division, the way that critics today bemoan selfies as an indicator of all that's wrong with the world."
這個時候，機器人可能就會成爲一個救星。GigaOM研究中心的首席研究員斯多認爲：“在未來，把機器人作爲性伴侶將會是一件司空見慣的事情，雖然今天這種事還會被人嘲笑或仍存在着分歧。”

Will there be scorn and division? Or will there be blessed relief at the simplicity of it all? The robot will never stand you up, always listen to everything you say without even a whisper of disagreement, and will happily turn over and go to sleep if you happen not to be in the mood.
將來還會被嘲笑、還會有分歧嗎？將來機器人伴侶會成爲一種被人祝福、讓人解脫的方式嗎？不管怎樣，機器人伴侶會永遠站在你那邊，傾聽你的每一句話而不會有任何異議。在性生活上，如果你沒心情，機器人也不會勉強你，而是開心地轉過身去睡覺。

Moreover, if you have managed to cash out of the IPO of a thoroughly useless startup, you'll still have the money for a couples date.
另外，如果你炒股失敗，也不用擔心沒錢約會。

Each of you can bring your own robot. Think of how much cheaper this will be. The robots don't need to nibble on so much as a kale salad and a piece of boiled celery root.
每個人都能有屬於你自己的機器人伴侶，這還會縮減你的開支。機器人完全不挑食，無論是水煮芹菜根還是蔬菜沙拉，TA都不會跟你計較。

Of course some might mock at first. But these will be people who are still struggling with the notion that the halfwit they married turned out to be a quarterwit.
當然一些人可能還是會覺得這事不靠譜。他們害怕與他們結婚的這些機器人會越來越傻。

Moreover, just last year, 9 percent of people expressed their cheeriness at the idea of robot sex. That's surely more than want to wear Google Glass.
去年在一個有關是否願意讓機器人做伴侶的調查中，9%的人表示很期待，這比想要帶谷歌智能眼鏡的人數比例還高。

Ultimately, we have no idea what our roboticized world will look like. What joy, though, if our sudden roboticization of the world coincides precisely with our natural efforts to destroy it.
對於未來機器化的世界會是什麼樣子，是會造福人類，還是會破壞我們曾做的所有努力，我們都無法預知。

How poignant it would be if it were the robots who managed to actually save us from our worst habits.
但是，如果人類真的到了需要利用機器人來擺脫壞習慣的地步，那也真是值得反思的了。