2018年经济学人 自由交流:数字无产者(2)（在线收听）

They also hoover up valuable data from users through the use of tools like reCAPTCHA, which ask visitors to solve problems that are easy for humans but hard for AIs, such as deciphering text from books that machines are unable to parse.

它们还通过reCAPTCHA之类的工具的使用从用户那里搜集有价值的数据。这类工具要求访问者解决对人类来说很容易但对AI却很难的问题，例如辨认来自机器无法辨析的书籍中的文本。

That does not just screen out malicious bots, but also helps digitise books.

这不仅将恶意机器人屏蔽在外，还有助于书籍的数字化。

People “pay” for useful free services by providing firms with the data they crave.

人们通过给公司提供它们梦寐以求的数据为各种免费服务“付费”。

These data become part of the firms' capital, and, as such, a fearsome source of competitive advantage.

这些数据成为公司资本的一部分，而且就其本身而言，也是一种可怕的竞争优势之源头。

Would-be startups that might challenge internet giants cannot train their AIs without access to the data only those giants possess.

可能挑战互联网巨头的准初创公司不可能在不访问只有这些巨头们拥有的数据的情况下训练它们的AI。

Their best hope is often to be acquired by those very same titans, adding to the problem of uncompetitive markets.

它们的最佳希望经常是被这些巨头收购，加重了非竞争市场问题。

That, for now, AI's contributions to productivity growth are small, the authors say, is partly because of the free-data model, which limits the quality of data gathered.

作者称，AI对生产力增长的贡献目前微乎其微，部分是因为这种免费数据的模式，它限制了收集到的数据的质量。

Firms trying to develop useful applications for AI must hope that the data they have are sufficient, or come up with ways to coax users into providing them with better information at no cost.

试图为AI开发有用应用的公司必须指望自己拥有的数据足够多。不然，就得想法不花一分钱地去诱导用户给他们提供更好的信息。

For example, they must pester random people—like those blur-deciphering visitors to websites—into labelling data, and hope that in their annoyance and haste they do not make mistakes.

例如，他们必须麻烦随机人群——如那些涂抹辨识码的网站访问者——为数据贴上标签，而且还要希望他们在不耐烦和匆忙之中不出错。

Even so, as AI improves, the amount of work made vulnerable to displacement by technology grows, and ever more of the value generated in the economy accrues to profitable firms rather than workers.

即便如此，随着AI的发展，被技术搞得对失去位置弱不禁风的工作的数量日渐增加，在经济体中被生产出来的价值越来越多地向盈利公司而不是工人累积。

As the authors point out, the share of GDP paid out to workers in wages and salaries—once thought to be relatively stable—has already been declining over the past few decades.

正如作者所指出的那样，以工资和薪水形式付给工人的GDP比例——曾经被认为是相对稳定的——在过去的几十年中，早已在不断下降之中。