2020年经济学人 悲观情绪VS科技发展(1)（在线收听）

Leaders

来源于《社论》版块

Pessimism v progress

悲观VS技术进步

Contemporary worries about the impact of technology are part of a historical pattern

当代对技术影响的担忧是历史模式的一部分

Faster, cheaper, better—technology is one field many people rely upon to offer a vision of a brighter future. But as the 2020s dawn, optimism is in short supply. The new technologies that dominated the past decade seem to be making things worse. Social media were supposed to bring people together. In the Arab spring of 2011 they were hailed as a liberating force. Today they are better known for invading privacy, spreading propaganda and undermining democracy. E-commerce, ride-hailing and the gig economy may be convenient, but they are charged with underpaying workers, exacerbating inequality and clogging the streets with vehicles. Parents worry that smartphones have turned their children into screen-addicted zombies.

更快、更便宜、更好的技术是许多人所依赖的一个领域，以提供对更光明未来的展望。但在21世纪20年代即将来临之际，乐观情绪却少之又少。在过去十年中占主导地位的新技术似乎让事情变得更糟。社交媒体本应让人们走到一起。在2011年的阿拉伯之春，他们被誉为一股解放力量。如今，他们更出名的是侵犯隐私、传播宣传和破坏民主。电子商务、网约车和零工经济可能很方便，同时也受到批评：工人工资过低、加剧了不平等、车辆堵塞街道。家长们担心智能手机已经把他们的孩子变成了沉迷于屏幕的低头族。

The technologies expected to dominate the new decade also seem to cast a dark shadow. Artificial intelligence (AI) may well entrench bias and prejudice, threaten your job and shore up authoritarian rulers. 5G is at the heart of the Sino-American trade war. Autonomous cars still do not work, but manage to kill people all the same. Polls show that internet firms are now less trusted than the banking industry. At the very moment banks are striving to rebrand themselves as tech firms, internet giants have become the new banks, morphing from talent magnets to pariahs. Even their employees are in revolt.

预计将主导下一个十年的技术似乎也蒙上阴影。人工智能(AI)很可能会加深偏见和歧视，威胁到你的工作，支持独裁统治者。5G是中美贸易战的核心。自动驾驶汽车仍然不能正常使用，但仍然可以杀人。民意调查显示，互联网公司现在比银行业更不受信任。就在各大银行努力将自己打造成科技公司的同时，互联网巨头却成为了新型银行，从吸引人才的“磁铁”变成了“社会弃儿”。甚至其员工也在反抗。

The New York Times sums up the encroaching gloom. “A mood of pessimism”, it writes, has displaced “the idea of inevitable progress born in the scientific and industrial revolutions.” Except those words are from an article published in 1979. Back then the paper fretted that the anxiety was “fed by growing doubts about society’s ability to rein in the seemingly runaway forces of technology”.

《纽约时报》总结了这种蔓延的悲观情绪。报告中写道，“悲观情绪”已经取代了“科学革命和工业革命必然带来进步的观点”。除了这些词来自1979年发表的一篇文章。当时，《纽约时报》担心，这种焦虑“源于人们越来越怀疑社会是否有能力控制看似失控的科技力量”。