机器为您服务 You are being served

Until a couple of weeks ago, China Daily had a coffee stand in our lobby. I’m not much of a coffee drinker, but I did sometimes enjoy taking a coffee break in the middle of the afternoon. Often, some colleagues would be waiting in line and we’d have a chance to catch up. The stand was staffed by a personable young lady, Xie Xinshuang, who impressed me because she was always studying when no customer was present.

几周之前，中国日报大厅内还有一个卖咖啡的吧台。我虽然不经常喝咖啡，但偶尔在下午来一杯咖啡休息一会儿，还是很惬意的。买咖啡的时候通常需要排队等候，所以同事们就会有机会闲聊几句。这家咖啡店是由一个名叫谢信双（音）的年轻姑娘开的，她总在没有客人的时候学习，所以给我留下了深刻的印象。

Now, the coffee stand has been replaced by a machine. I guess we could call it a coffee robot.

而现在，这家咖啡店被机器取代了。我想我们可以称之为咖啡机器人。

By some measures, this is an improvement from a consumer’s point of view. I can get my coffee a little bit faster, it costs a little bit less, and it actually tastes a little bit better. Of course, there is nobody to talk with.

从某种角度来说，这对顾客而言是一种进步的做法。我可以更快地买到咖啡，成本也更低，口感也的确比之前更好。不过，也没有排队闲聊的人了。

This is an example of a trend that is likely to dominate the world in the coming decades. Fortunately, China Daily was able to find another job for Miss Xie, but many jobs will be lost to the coming revolution in artificial intelligence driven by big data and machine learning combined with 5G telecoms and robotics.

未来几十年，世界很可能成为由机器主导的趋势，咖啡机器人就是其中一个例子。幸运的是，谢女士还可以在中国日报找到其他的工作，而在结合了5G通信和机器人的大数据以及机器学习的人工智能革命到来之时，许多工作岗位将不复存在了。

In a widely reported recent study, researchers at the Oxford Martin School in the UK predicted that 47 percent of jobs in the US are in danger of being eliminated by automation. McKinsey Global Institute estimates that 30 percent of jobs worldwide will be eliminated by 2030.

最近的一项研究被广泛报道，研究人员来自英国牛津大学马丁学院，他预测美国由47%的工作岗位正面临被自动化取代的危机中。麦肯锡全球研究所估测到2030年前，全球有30%的工作岗位将被淘汰。

Of course, we’ve heard predictions like this before. Kurt Vonnegut’s portentous 1952 novelPlayer Piano described the unproductive lives of workers displaced by automated factories. Vonnegut was especially incisive in that he predicted three factors we are seeing today— (1) People are unhappy without jobs, even if their physical needs are provided for; (2) Economies become more monopolistic as automation increases; and (3) People with high measured IQs and who went to the right schools have good opportunities, but everybody else is shut out.

当然，我们早已经听到过类似的言论。库尔特·冯内古特（Kurt Vonnegut）曾在其1952年的小说《自动钢琴》中描述了由于自动化，工人被取代工作，过着没有生产活动的生活。库尔特·冯内古特尤为直指人心，他预测到了我们今天可以看到了三种因素——（1）人们即便有工作的需求，但并不愿意工作；（2）随着自动化程度的提高，经济变得更加垄断；（3）只有高智商的人，受过良好教育的人才会有好的机会，其他人则会被淘汰。

Twenty years ago, during the first wave of the internet, I was very enthusiastic about the changes I thought would happen in society. I thought that the internet would allow entrepreneurs all over the country, all over the world, to compete, so we would see a much more dynamic and competitive economy. In the realm of ideas and policies, I was looking forward to hearing from many voices, instead of the few large television networks and newspapers that had long dominated the US.

二十年前，互联网的浪潮第一次席卷而来时，我非常期待社会因互联网将有怎样的改变。我认为互联网将全国，甚至全球的企业彼此竞争，因此我们将会看到更具动态更有竞争力的经济。在思想和政策领域，我期待着听到许多声音，而不是仅仅限于长期以来主导美国的少数大型电视网络和报纸。

But I’ve been proven wrong on both counts. The US economy is now dominated by a few monopolies. Google and Facebook make their large returns on invested capital because they have a combined nearly monopolistic position over online advertising. The owners share some of their profits with their workers in the same way that the big three auto makers—General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler—did in the 1960s when they had an oligopoly in the then-closed US car market.

但是事实证明，这两点都错了。美国经济现在正被一些垄断公司统治。谷歌和脸书从其投资中获得了巨大回报，原因就是他们将在线广告与垄断地位联合起来。所有者与其员工分享收益的方式与三大汽车制造商巨头——通用，福特，克莱斯勒汽车在20世纪60年在封闭的美国汽车市场处于垄断地位一样。

Now, the number of entrepreneurial new startups in the US is at an all time low. Even in technology fields, the small number of large firms—Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft—either buy up promising new startups or put them out of business. Plus, these firms actively suppress the flow of new ideas.

现在，美国新兴企业的数量处于有史以来最低点。即便在技术领域，少部分大公司比如谷歌，脸书，亚马逊，苹果，以及微软公司要么买进有潜力的初创公司，要么就使其倒闭。除此之外，这些公司还会阻碍新思想的传播。

What I fear most is the “California-zation” of the world economy. To outsiders, California looks like a dynamic, innovative economy. But it is now an economy of fabulous wealth for a few, a declining middle class, and large numbers living in poverty. Data from the Census Bureau for 2010 to 2017 show that the state had the second highest rate of domestic out-migration in the nation—mostly middle-class people fleeing high taxes and very high housing costs. Only New York State had a larger portion of people deciding to leave.

最令我担忧的是世界经济的“加州化”。在外人看来，加州看起来是一个充满活力的创新经济。而现在它是一个包含一部分正在减少的极其富有的中产阶级以及大量贫困人口的经济体。来自人口调查局自2010年起到2017年的数据显示，该州的国内外迁率位于第二，大多数的中产阶级人口为了逃离高额的税收以及高昂的房租。仅仅纽约州就有越来越多的人口决定离开。

In 2018, ,only 26 percent of California households earning the statewide median income could afford to buy a median-priced house, compared with 53 percent nationwide. And, with 12 percent of the US population, California has more than 25 percent of the nation’s homeless population.

2018年，加利福尼亚州只有26%可以达到全国中等收入水平的房主才可以买得起中等价位的房子，而这一比例在全国范围内为53%。占美国人口12%的加州，贫困人口却占到了全国的25%。

According to a recent research brief by the Center for Demographics and Policy at Chapman University, two-thirds of the state’s job growth has been in minimum wage or near-minimum wage jobs. The high wages for tech workers in the San Francisco bay area have not offset the loss of 423,000 manufacturing jobs in the rest of the state over the last 15 years.

根据最近一项来自查普曼大学（Chapman University）人口与政策中心的研究调查表明，加州三分之二的就业增长来自低收入岗位或接近低收入岗位。旧金山湾区高薪技术工人的工资，并不能抵消加州十五年来42.3万的制造业岗位丢失的损失。

And, California has the second worst GINI coefficient—a measure of inequality—in the nation, behind only New York. Its inequality level is now worse than that of Mexico. 48.5 percent of the state’s children live in or near poverty.

并且，加州的基尼系数位居第二（基尼系数指的是贫富差距的测量手段），这一结果仅次于纽约。加州目前的贫富差距水平甚至都超越了墨西哥。48.5%的儿童处于或濒临贫困的边缘。

As recently as the 1980s, California was the golden state, with the best education levels and the lowest poverty in the nation. Adjusted for cost levels, it now has the highest rate of poverty in the US. And, due to low math and reading scores and high drop-out rates, its schools rank the ninth worst in the nation.

就在20世纪80年代，加州曾是一个黄金州，拥有最好的教育水平以及全国最少的贫困人口。根据调整后的生活成本计算，加州成为全美贫困率最高的州。并且，由于较低的数学与阅读分数，以及高辍学率，其学校在全国排名第九。

Every nation in the world needs to find a way to avoid this situation. The coming technology has the potential to benefit mankind, but all its benefits must not be allowed to go to a few monopolistic companies and a small number of people.

世界上的每个国家都需要寻找方法以避免这一情况的发生。即将到来的技术时代将造福于全人类，但是，绝不能让少数垄断公司和少数人占有所有的利益。