Sunday
各位书友，今天我们一起阅读《Zero to One》第十二章MAN AND MACHINE的140-144页。
In 2012, one of their supercomputers made headlines when, after scanning 10 million thumbnails of YouTube videos, it learned to identify a cat with 75% accuracy. That seems impressive—until you remember that an average four-year-old can do it flawlessly. When a cheap laptop beats the smartest mathematicians at some tasks but even a supercomputer with 16,000 CPUs can’t beat a child at others, you can tell that humans and computers are not just more or less powerful than each other—they’re categorically different.
2012年，谷歌的一台超级计算机扫描了1000万张YouTube视频缩略图后，能够识别出猫，其准确率达到75%，上了报纸的头条新闻。这看似不可思议——但4岁小孩儿就可以轻而易举地做到。最便宜的笔记本电脑可以击败最聪明的数学家，但即使拥有16000个中央处理器的超级计算机也不能和小孩儿在其他方面相抗衡，二者之间不只是一个比另一个强大的问题，而是具有本质上的差异。
思考问题：
Will a machine replace you?
未来机器会取代人类吗？
欢迎大家给后台留言，文字语音都可以，中文英文均不限。
你的每一条留言对于我们都很重要！*3
英语共读编辑团队在后台等您来！在后台等您来！等您来！
01 MAN AND MACHINE
AS MATURE INDUSTRIES stagnate, information technology has advanced so rapidly that it has now become synonymous with “technology” itself. Today, more than 1.5 billion people enjoy instant access to the world’s knowledge using pocket-sized devices. Every one of today’s smart phones has thousands of times more processing power than the computers that guided astronauts to the moon. And if Moore’s law continues apace, tomorrow’s computers will be even more powerful.
随着成熟产业日渐萧条，信息技术因迅猛发展而成为科技的代名词。超过15亿人利用便携式装置及时获取信息。如今，人们的智能手机已比指引宇航员登月时的计算机的处理速度快上千倍。如果摩尔定律继续适用，今后的计算机会更加强大。
Everyone expects computers to do more in the future—so much more that some wonder: 30 years from now, will there be anything left for people to do? “Software is eating the world,” venture capitalist Marc Andreessen has announced with a tone of inevitability. VC Andy Kessler sounds almost gleeful when he explains that the best way to create productivity is “to get rid of people.” Forbes captured a more anxious attitude when it asked readers: Will a machine replace you?
每个人都期待未来的计算机能干更多的事情，多到有些人怀疑：30年后，人类自己还有什么可做的事情吗？风险资本家马克.安德森斩钉截铁地宣称：“软件正在吞噬整个世界。”而其同行安迪.凯斯勒在解释提高生产力的最佳途径是“摆脱人类”时，却显得很高兴。《福布斯》则显得忧心忡忡，向读者提出了如下问题：未来机器会取代人类吗？
Futurists can seem like they hope the answer is yes. Luddites are so worried about being replaced that they would rather we stop building new technology altogether. Neither side questions the premise that better computers will necessarily replace human workers. But that premise is wrong: computers are complements for humans, not substitutes. The most valuable businesses of coming decades will be built by entrepreneurs who seek to empower people rather than try to make them obsolete.
未来主义者似乎期待肯定的回答。勒德分子则害怕被机器取代，宁可全面停止开发新技术。双方都未质疑好的计算机必然取代人工这一前提。然而，这个前提是错误的：计算机是辅助人类的工具，而非替代物。未来几十年，最具价值的产业还是由创业家建立，他们发展计算机是增强人类的能力，而不是淘汰人类。
02 SUBSTITUTION VS. COMPLEMENTARITY
Fifteen years ago, American workers were worried about competition from cheaper Mexican substitutes. And that made sense, because humans really can substitute for each other. Today people think they can hear Ross Perot’s “giant sucking sound” once more, but they trace it back to server farms somewhere in Texas instead of cut-rate factories in Tijuana. Americans fear technology in the near future because they see it as a replay of the globalization of the near past. But the situations are very different: people compete for jobs and for resources; computers compete for neither.
15年前，美国人担心来自墨西哥的廉价劳动力的竞争，这讲得通，因为任何人都可能被其他人替代。今天人们再次听说罗斯.佩罗所说的“巨大吮吸声”，这次循声追溯到的不是提华纳的廉价工厂，而是德克萨斯州的服务器集群。美国人害怕将在不远的未来出现的技术，因为他们认为这是过去几年全球化的重演。但现在情形已大不相同：人们会为工作和资源角逐，而计算机不会。
03 Globalization Means Substitution
When Perot warned about foreign competition, both George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton preached the gospel of free trade: since every person has a relative strength at some particular job, in theory the economy maximizes wealth when people specialize according to their advantages and then trade with each other. In practice, it’s not unambiguously clear how well free trade has worked, for many workers at least. Gains from trade are greatest when there’s a big discrepancy in comparative advantage, but the global supply of workers willing to do repetitive tasks for an extremely small wage is extremely large. People don’t just compete to supply labor; they also demand the same resources.
佩罗就国外竞争提出警告时，小布什和比尔.克林顿在鼓吹自由贸易：每个人在工作上都有其专长，所以从理论上讲，只要人们按照其自身优势发展其专长，并以此相互交易，经济就会使财富最大化。可是实际上，至少对许多工人来说自由贸易的成效并不是那么明显。相对优势差异巨大时，贸易利益最大，但是全球愿意从事底薪重复工作的人比比皆是。人们不仅竞争工作岗位，也竞争相同的资源。
04 Technology Means Complementarity
Now think about the prospect of competition from computers instead of competition from human workers. On the supply side, computers are far more different from people than any two people are different from each other: men and machines are good at fundamentally different things. People have intentionality—we form plans and make decisions in complicated situations. We’re less good at making sense of enormous amounts of data. Computers are exactly the opposite: they excel at efficient data processing, but they struggle to make basic judgments that would be simple for any human.
现在想想来自计算机而非人类的竞争前景。提供方面，计算机和人类之间的区别远大于人与人之间的区别：人类和机器所擅长的工作存在着本质上的差异。人类有意识，擅长在复杂情境下制订计划、做出决策，但不擅长大量数据的处理。计算机则恰恰相反，擅长高校的数据处理，却做不出人类很轻松就能做出的基本判断。
The stark differences between man and machine mean that gains from working with computers are much higher than gains from trade with other people. We don’t trade with computers any more than we trade with livestock or lamps. And that’s the point: computers are tools, not rivals.
人类和机器之间的显著差别意味着，和计算机合作得到的成果远高于与人交易得到的成果。正如我们不和家畜、灯具做交易一样，我们也不和计算机做交易。重点是：计算机是工具，不是竞争对手。
The differences are even deeper on the demand side. Computers require is a nominal amount of electricity, which they’re not even smart enough to want. When we design new computer technology to help solve problems, we get all the efficiency gains of a hyperspecialized trading partner without having to compete with it for resources. Properly understood, technology is the one way for us to escape competition in a globalizing world. As computers become more and more powerful, they won’t be substitutes for humans: they’ll be complements.
人机在需求方面的差别更大。计算机需要的只是微不足道的电量，它们甚至不够聪明来提出要求。我们开发新的计算机来讲解决问题，这意味着我们拥有了一个超级专业的伙伴为我们提供高效的服务，却不和我们争夺资源。准确地说，科技是在这个全球化的世界中逃避竞争的唯一方式。虽然计算机越来越强大，但它们不能取代人类：它们只起补充作用。
拓展
摩尔定律是由英特尔（Intel）创始人之一戈登·摩尔（Gordon Moore）提出来的。其内容为：当价格不变时，集成电路上可容纳的晶体管数目，约每隔18个月便会增加一倍，性能也将提升一倍。换言之，每一美元所能买到的电脑性能，将每隔18个月翻两倍以上。这一定律揭示了信息技术进步的速度。摩尔定律在发现后的40多年里产生了巨大影响，但随着3D芯片等技术的耗尽，美物理学家加来道雄称该定律将在10年内崩溃。
戈登·摩尔（Gordon Moore）
本月共读《Zero to One》英文版
点击公众号菜单栏“共读社群”立即加入有书英语共读
☞ 领读达人：刘亚南，英语共读负责人，85后
☞ 主播：熊叔，别人说我英语讲得像母语，是个美国人，我笑~谁说不出国门就学不会地道美语?，别人说我拥有TESOL国际教师资格证~，我笑~自己只是个教书的逗比小光头罢了。
☞ 设计：刘莹
☞ 编校：陈珺洁
联系客服
