人工智能实际上对经济造成了什么影响

纽约时报的App里有很多你可能没注意到的内容。

The New York Times app has all this stuff that you may not have seen.

比如标签栏

The way

放在顶部，各个板块一目了然。

the tabs are at the top with all of the different sections.

我能立刻找到符合我当下心情的内容。

I can immediately navigate to something that matches what I'm feeling.

我经常买游戏。

I order games always.

玩小游戏。

Doing the mini.

玩填字游戏。

Doing the Wordle.

我很喜欢它让我接触到这么多内容。

I loved how much content it exposed me to.

一些我根本不会想到去新闻App里找的东西。

Things that I never would have thought to turn to a news app for.

这个App必不可少。

This app is essential.

《纽约时报》App。

The New York Times app.

所有新闻，全都集中在一个地方。

All of the times, all in one place.

现在就去 nytimes.com/app 下载吧。

Download it now at nytimes.com/app.

你帮我填个空。

I want you to fill in the blank for me.

明白吗？

Okay?

我对人工智能感觉一片空白。

So I feel blank about AI.

我对人工智能的感觉挺复杂的。

Oh, I feel mixed feelings about AI.

我对人工智能感到焦虑。

I feel anxious about AI.

这确实是一种爱恨交加的关系。

It's a love hate relationship for sure.

完全左右为难。

Completely conflicted.

人工智能确实很棒，它让我成了更好的写作者，但同时也夺走了我的工作。

AI is amazing, and it's making me a better writer, but it's also taking my job away.

来自《纽约时报》，我是代班主持人佐兰·卡诺·杨斯。

From The New York Times, I'm Zolan Kano Youngs filling in as host.

这里是《每日新闻》。

This is The Daily.

随着人工智能越来越先进，人们越来越担心它会如何改变经济和他们的工作。

As AI becomes more advanced, people are getting increasingly nervous about how it could change the economy and their jobs.

我看到因为这个，很多人丢了工作。

I'm seeing a lot of job loss because of it.

这对我这个行业是个威胁。

It's a threat to my profession.

我真得好好想想自己该干什么了，可能得换行当。

I really have to rethink what I do for a living and probably do something else.

天哪，这东西不仅会抢走我的工作，它已经抢走了。

Oh my god, this thing is gonna take my job, and not only is going to, but actually did.

但是

But

对于

for

尽管大家这么焦虑，AI对经济到底造成了什么影响，目前还很不清楚。

all the anxiety, what AI is actually doing to the economy remains pretty murky.

它好像正在取代我本人。

Seems like it's taking over being me.

今天，首席经济记者本·卡斯曼利谈谈为什么人工智能的影响如此难以捉摸，以及我们可以从过去的科技变革中学到什么。

Today, chief economics correspondent Ben Casselman on why AI's impact has been so hard to pin down and what we can learn from the tech disruptions of the past.

今天是7月27日，星期一。

It's Monday, July 27.

最近怎么样？

How we doing?

还不错。

Doing well.

谢谢你抽时间来参加。

Appreciate you doing this.

是的。

Yeah.

很高兴能和你聊聊这个话题。

Excited to sit down for this.

很荣幸能被你邀请来做客。

Excited to be hosted by you.

我正尽量多当几天的主持人。

I'm trying to accumulate as many daily hosts as I can.

就像收集精灵宝可梦一样。

Like Pokemon.

没错。

That's right.

就是这样。

Exactly.

对。

Right.

是的。

Yeah.

好的。

Alright.

那我直接切入正题了。

I'm just gonna jump in.

咱们开始吧。

Let's do it.

本，我感觉到你对人工智能将如何影响经济这件事特别焦虑。

Ben, I am picking up on a lot of anxiety when it comes to how artificial intelligence will impact our economy.

调查显示，大约七成的美国人认为人工智能会导致工作岗位减少。

We know from polling that about 70% of Americans think AI will lead to fewer jobs.

作为每天都要和经济学家打交道的人，你有多少时间是在思考人工智能对经济的影响这个问题？

So as someone who talks to economists every day, how much of your time is being taken up by this question of how AI will impact the economy?

我认为这可能是最重要的问题。

I think it is arguably the important question.

我们平时总在谈关税、油价，还有各种冲击经济的突发状况，这些当然都很重要。

You know, we talk all the time about tariffs and oil prices and, you know, all of these shocks that are hitting the economy, and those are all, of course, incredibly important issues.

但我觉得，五年或十年后，如果你我坐在这里回望这段时期，我们最可能聊的，就是人工智能以及它最初对经济产生的影响。

But I I think it's very possible that if you and I are sitting here in five years or ten years looking back on this period, that the thing we'll be talking about is AI and kind of the early signs of how it was affecting the economy.

我们现在还说不准，到时候会怎么讨论这件事。

I don't think we know what that conversation will look like.

我们还不知道最终会看到多大的变化，但确实感觉现在正是这一切开始的时刻。

I don't think we know what big change we will have seen, but it certainly feels like this is the moment where it's all starting.

没错。

Right.

这挺有意思的，因为有时候我觉得，大家总在说AI会给劳动者带来福音。

This is interesting because, you know, sometimes I feel like we hear AI is gonna be a godsend to workers.

说它能让我们的生产力翻倍，或者干脆把所有白领工作都消灭掉。

It's gonna make us all a 100% more productive, or it'll wipe out all white collar jobs entirely.

你怎么看这些预测？

What do you make of those predictions?

我觉得这

So I think there

其实有几种不同的看法。

are a couple of answers to that question.

首先，现在还太早了。

One is that it's early.

我们还在摸索怎么用好这项技术。

We're still figuring out how to use this technology.

它还在逐步推广中。

It's still being rolled out.

而且，说实话，我们现在连当下到底发生了什么都不敢打包票。

But beyond that, we don't even really know with confidence what's happening now.

预测未来本来就难，但就连眼下的情况都很难把握，因为我们的经济数据当初就没为捕捉这种极速变化而设计，现在也根本没法做到近乎实时的反映。

Predicting the future is hard, but even knowing the immediate moment is difficult because our economic data really wasn't designed and isn't up to capturing a change that's happening this rapidly in anything close to real time.

你能稍微解释一下吗？

Can you explain that a little

再详细跟我说说？

bit more to me?

我们为什么不知道呢？

Why don't we know?

嗯，我的意思是，让我来谈谈

Well, I mean, so let me take

举个简单的例子。

a simple example of this.

对吧？

Right?

我们每个月都会看到就业报告，讨论当月经济新增或减少了多少岗位。

We get the monthly jobs report, and we talk about how many jobs were added or lost in the economy in a given month.

下次报告出来时，如果你想找科技行业的就业情况，根本找不到任何相关信息。

If you go and look in that report the next time it comes out, and you want to look at what happened with tech jobs, you will not find that anywhere in the report.

明白了。

K.

因为我们没有把科技作为一个独立的行业单独统计。

Because we don't break out tech as its own industry.

这些行业分类都是几十年前定下来的。

These industry categories were established literally decades ago.

科技相关的数据分散在好几个不同的类别里。

Tech is kind of sprinkled between a few different categories.

一部分在信息行业，这个类别还包括报纸，也包括我们。

Some of it's in the information sector, which also includes newspapers, includes us.

还有一部分属于专业服务领域。

Some of it is in professional services.

有一部分则归在制造业里。

Some of it's in manufacturing.

所以你没法直接问：这对科技行业有什么影响？

So you couldn't go and say, what impact is this having on tech?

而且

You also

我们还没说到人工智能呢。

We're not even talking about AI.

我们现在说的是，政府的数据连科技行业都不单独统计。

We're talking about how government data doesn't even track the tech industry.

我的意思是，如果你深挖下去，仔细看，其实能慢慢拼出来，但报告里根本没有一条明确的分类标出来。

I mean, if you get into the weeds enough and you look closely enough, you can start to tease it out, but there's not like a line in that report that says it.

我们听到很多关于这对刚毕业大学生意味着什么的担忧。

We've heard a ton about concern about what this means for recent college graduates.

但我们其实没法按月可靠地追踪刚毕业大学生的去向，我们的数据系统也跟不上现在我们想了解问题的速度。

Well, we don't reliably track what happens with recent college graduates on a month to month basis, And our data infrastructure isn't up to doing that at the speed that we want to know right now.

这确实是个不小的疏漏。

That does seem like a big oversight.

所以如果政府数据不是我们获取AI相关清晰信息的途径，那你们接下来又转向了哪里？

So if government data isn't the resource, isn't the way that we're gonna get this clarity on AI, where did your search bring you next?

我的意思是，你听我说。

Well, I mean, so look.

首先，我不太想用‘疏漏’这个词。

First of all, I I wanna be careful saying oversight.

是的。

Yeah.

经济变化很快，我们不可能每次经济一有变动就马上推出新的衡量指标。

The economy changes quickly, and we can't just sort of spin up a new measure every time something changes in the economy.

对吧？

Right?

所以我们才会慢慢跟踪这些变化。

So there's a reason we kind of track this gradually over time.

明白了。

Okay.

但我们现在看到很多努力，试图利用私营部门的数据，来更接近实时地衡量这种情况。

But we are seeing a lot of efforts to use data from the private sector to help measure this in something closer to real time.

比如ADP，它为许多大公司处理薪资数据。

We have ADP, which handles payroll for many big companies.

他们发布了相关数据，经济学家们正在分析这些信息。

They're putting out data, and economists are analyzing that.

LinkedIn、Indeed，以及其他收集和生产大量劳动力市场数据的公司，也都发布了报告，经济学家们正在深入研究这些内容。

LinkedIn, Indeed, other companies that collect and produce a lot of data about what's going on in the labor market, they're putting out reports, and economists are diving into all that.

问题是，它们传递的信息都不太一致。

The problem is they're all telling different stories.

最近，一些严谨的经济学家发布了非常可信的研究报告，显示在受人工智能影响的岗位上，初级职位正在减少。

There have been very credible reports out recently from serious economists who have done careful work that show we're seeing losses of jobs for entry level workers in AI exposed occupations.

你一看这个，就会觉得：瞧，证据就在这儿。

And you look at that and you say, here it is.

这就是煤矿里的金丝雀，预警信号。

Here's the canary in the coal mine.

这正是人工智能开始淘汰工作岗位的迹象。

Here's the sign of AI starting to wipe out jobs.

但另一边，也有人用扎实的数据和严谨的方法发布报告，指出那些最快采用人工智能的公司，招聘速度反而比其他公司更快。

And then somebody else comes along and puts out a report using good data, careful methods that says, the companies that are adopting AI the most quickly are adding jobs more quickly than other companies.

所以，虽然不同私营企业都在尝试追踪人工智能的影响，但得出的结论有时候却完全相反？

So you may have different private sector companies trying to track AI, but they're coming up with takeaways that seem to be a polar opposite at times?

没错，考虑到技术发展速度这么快，领域变化这么迅猛，这其实也不算太意外。

That's right, which I think maybe isn't that surprising considering how quickly this is moving and and how quickly this field is developing.

但我确实觉得，已经有一些公司主动站出来表示：人工智能正在改变我们的业务。

But I do feel like there are some companies who are already raising their hands and saying AI is changing my business.

亚马逊刚刚宣布在全球裁员16000人。

Amazon has just announced it's cutting 16,000 jobs worldwide.

这是最新一波大规模裁员，过去一年里，西雅图的亚马逊已经裁掉了数千人。

It's the latest round of mass layoffs as the Seattle Amazon cut thousands of jobs in the past year.

他们把原因归咎于人工智能。

They cited AI.

支付公司Block也是个例子。

Block, the payments company, is another.

在宣布计划裁掉近一半员工后，首席执行官杰克·多西提到人工智能，说智能工具已经彻底改变了公司运营的方式。

After the company announced plans to lay off almost half its workforce, CEO Jack Dorsey pointed to AI, saying intelligence tools have, quote, changed what it means to build and run a company.

帮我理清一下，我确实觉得这些大公司正在频频发出信号，看起来像是在敲警钟。

Help me make sense of this because I I do think we are seeing these big, almost announcements that seem like warning signs from these companies.

说得对。

That's exactly right.

没错。

Right?

我们现在听到很多关于裁员的大新闻，有些直接跟人工智能挂钩。

We're hearing these big announcements of layoffs, in some cases, directly tied to AI.

我跟经济学家聊的时候，发现他们对这些说法普遍持怀疑态度。

When I talk to economists, I hear a lot of skepticism about those claims.

现在公司只要大肆宣传自己在搞人工智能，就会得到投资者的青睐。

You know, companies right now are being rewarded by their investors for making big claims about AI.

对吧？

Right?

任何一家公司只要说，我们在大力投入人工智能。

Any company that says, you know, we're making big AI investments.

我们取得了显著进展。

We're making big gains.

股价就会上涨，风投资金也会蜂拥而至。

Their stock price goes up, The VC money floods in.

所以如果你现在是CEO，心里可能在想：几年前我是不是招人太多了？是不是该裁掉一些了。

And so if you're a CEO right now and you're thinking, maybe I overhired a little bit a couple years ago, maybe I need to make some cuts.

好吧。

Okay.

现在你根本有动力把责任推给AI，而不是说：我搞砸了。

Boy, you are incentivized right now to say, not like, oh, I screwed up.

我雇人太多了。

I hired too many people.

而是说：AI让我效率提升了。

It's, oh, AI has made me more productive.

这挺有意思的。

Oh, this is interesting.

所以你的意思是，AI很可能成了这些公司推卸责任的借口。

So you're saying it's likely that AI could be a convenient scapegoat for these companies.

是的。

Yeah.

或者这么说吧。

Or or look.

换个没那么 cynical 的角度看，有些情况下，AI 只是众多因素中的一个。

To be a little less cynical about it, in some cases, AI may be one factor among many.

你的生意稍微慢了下来。

Your business has slowed down a little bit.

你正想重新思考怎么做事，而 AI 也正好带来了一些新机会。

You're trying to, you know, rethink how you do things, and then AI is also creating some opportunities.

但大家更愿意谈 AI 这部分，而不是其他部分。

But it's better to talk about the AI part of that than the other part of that.

这跟说‘嘿’是不一样的。

That's different from sort of saying, hey.

我就是打算明天直接裁掉一大波人，因为 AI 现在就能干了。

I'm just gonna, you know, lay off a whole bunch of workers tomorrow because AI can do it today.

明白了。

Okay.

说到衡量 AI 的影响，政府的数据已经过时了。

So when it comes to measuring AI, government data is outdated.

私营部门的数据很混乱。

Private sector data is muddy.

我们没法完全相信这些公司。

We can't fully trust the companies.

那我们到底知道些什么？

So what do we know?

我觉得我们至少知道两件事。

So I think we know two things.

第一，我们知道这件事进展得特别快。

First, we know this is moving incredibly quickly.

我们知道这项技术正在飞速发展。

We know the technology is developing really rapidly.

我们知道企业也在迅速采用它。

We know that companies are adopting it really rapidly.

我不只是跟硅谷的鼓吹者聊，也跟各行各业的企业高管、经济学家交流过，大家越来越有信心，认为这将会对我们的经济、劳动力和生活产生实实在在的影响。

And when I talk to not just sort of the boosters in Silicon Valley, but talk to corporate leaders across industries, when I talk to economists, right, there's sort of increasing confidence that this is going to have a real impact on our economy, our labor force, our lives.

明白了。

Okay.

就在几天前，我们收到一份由大约两百名经济学家联名签署的声明，他们警告说，这可能会带来一场前所未有的经济变革，其规模甚至超过工业革命，但发生的时间却短得多。

And we just actually, a few days ago, got a statement that was signed by around 200 economists in which they warned that this could be an unprecedented transformation of our economy larger than the industrial revolution, but unfolding over a vastly shorter period of time.

这可非同小可。

That's a pretty big deal.

但我们知道的第二件事是，到目前为止，这种影响还很微妙。

But the second thing we know is that whatever that effect is, it's subtle so far.

如果人工智能已经大规模取代工作岗位，我们的数据里早就该有迹象了。

If AI were already wiping out huge swaths of jobs, we would see that in our data.

对吧？

Right?

我们的数据虽然不完美，但要是真有大规模失业，我们不可能察觉不到。

Our data is not perfect, but we we would know that.

所以，不管它到底会产生什么影响，目前来看都还很轻微。

And so whatever effect it's having, it's subtle right now.

这听起来可能让人意外。

And that may sound surprising.

对吧？

Right?

一方面，它将会是个巨大的变化。

I'm saying on the one hand, it's going to be this huge thing.

但另一方面，目前我们还看不到任何明显的迹象。

The other hand, we don't really see anything of it yet.

是的。

Yeah.

你怎么解释这种矛盾？

How do you square those?

如果你仔细看看历史，其实并不奇怪。

When you actually look at the history of this, it's not that surprising.

因为从技术在经济中推广的方式来看，通常会遵循经济学家所说的J型曲线模式。

Because if we look at the way technology gets rolled out in an economy, it often follows a pattern that economists talk about as a J curve.

字面上讲，就是指字母J的形状。

Literally, it's just referring to the shape of the letter J.

对吧？

Right?

先往下走，然后突然往上冲。

It drops down, and then it shoots up.

我明白你的意思。

Following you.

这里的意思是，当一项新技术刚推出时，公司得先摸索怎么用它。

The idea here is when a new technology rolls out, companies initially have to try to figure out how to use it.

对吧？

Right?

疫情刚开始的时候，大家都不太会用视频会议软件。

We're all trying to figure out how to use video conferencing technology in the early days of the pandemic.

上世纪90年代刚有互联网的时候，大家也一样，根本不知道怎么用。

We're all trying to figure out how to use the internet when we go back to the 1990s, and nobody's really sure how to use it.

大家都在摸索着用它。

Everybody's fooling around with it.

他们觉得这会是个大事，但还不知道该怎么用。

They think it's going to be a big deal, but they don't know how yet.

过一阵子，公司才慢慢摸清门道。

And then at some point, companies start to figure it out.

员工也渐渐上手了，突然间，生产效率就开始提升了。

Workers start to figure it out, and all of a sudden, productivity starts to go up.

但我们现在可能还处在J曲线的下降段，眼下说不定反而降低了效率，尽管长远来看，它最终会大幅提升生产力，甚至影响我们的工作。

But we may right now still be in this scoop part of the J, where actually, if anything, it may be making us less productive in the moment, even though it will have this big positive effect on our productivity and and then maybe ultimately on our jobs down the road.

听你这么说，我倒觉得挺贴切的，你看——

This kind of tracks as I'm even hearing you talk because look.

我负责报道白宫，现在才刚开始用这些工具。

I cover the White House, and I'm just starting to explore with some of these tools.

但我用得还不怎么样。

And I'm not very good at it.

有时候我会试着找以前的演讲稿，或者用AI整理通讯录，但用着用着就烦了。

I feel like at times, I'll try to, like, look up an old speech or use AI to form a contact list, and eventually, I get sick of it.

最后我还是老老实实打电话。

And I actually just go back to making calls.

但你这么说，我觉得我们才刚起步。

But it sounds like what you're saying is we're just at the beginning of this process.

也许过段时间，像我这样对技术不太懂的人，也能慢慢学会怎么用这些工具。

And maybe over time, people like me, even novices with technology, will learn how to actually use these tools.

到那时候，希望我的工作效率也能跟着提升。

And then, hopefully, in my case, productivity will follow.

你得自己慢慢摸索，我其实也正卡在这儿。

You start to figure it out as an individual, and I'm in the same place on this, by the way.

对。

Yeah.

公司也开始慢慢摸清门道了

And companies start to figure out

让我能稍微感同身受一下。

for relating to me a little bit.

谢谢。

Thank you.

但企业也开始摸索如何重新安排工作。

But companies also figure out ways to reorganize work.

他们开始说，好吧。

They start to say, okay.

我们不需要那么多这一块了。

You know, we don't need as much of this.

我们需要更多那一块。

We need more of this.

一些全新的公司会基于这项技术从零开始建立起来。

New companies pop up that are built around this technology from ground zero.

突然间，等我们真正适应了这项技术，经济上的影响就开始显现了。

And all of a sudden, we start to have these real economic impacts that hit once we've sort of absorbed this technology.

而正是在这一点上，我们能看到生产力的大幅提升，同时关于失业和其他冲击的担忧也开始真正显现。

And that's where we could see big productivity gains, but also where these concerns about job losses and other disruptions start really taking hold.

所以我想，关键问题是，接下来这一天会是什么样子？

So I guess the big question is, like, what does the rest of this day look like?

我觉得要回答这个问题，最好的办法不是去预测未来，而是回头看看过去。

So I think the best way to answer that question is rather than trying to predict the future is to look back at the past.

我花了很多时间研究一个特定的时期，就是上世纪九十年代。

And I've been spending a lot of my time looking back at one particular period, which is the nineteen nineties.

我们马上回来。

We'll be right back.

你好。

Hi.

我是阿什莉。

This is Ashley.

我和男朋友住在旧金山。

I live in San Francisco with my boyfriend.

我们很想正式共享我的《纽约时报》订阅，各自用独立账号登录。

We would love to officially share my New York Times subscription with separate logins.

我们都特别喜欢做饭，喜欢待在厨房里，但我是个三十分钟内搞定一顿高效晚餐的人。

We both love cooking, love being in the kitchen, but I'm a thirty minute and under efficient dinner girly.

我就想要个烤盘菜。

I want a sheet pan meal.

他可讲究多了。

He is very elaborate.

他喜欢讲求烹饪背后的故事。

He wants to get into the storytelling.

我希望能保存自己简单的菜谱，标记已经做过的，他要是有自己的个人资料就再好不过了。

I wanna be able to save my easy meals and check off the ones that I've completed, and I think him having his own profile would be great.

Ashley，我们听到了你的需求。

Ashley, we heard you.

这正是我们推出《纽约时报》家庭订阅的原因。

It's why we created the New York Times family subscription.

你有自己的登录账号，他那个讲究的人也有，还能再加两个人。

You get your own login, and mister elaborate gets his, plus room for two others.

更多详情请访问 nytimes.com/family。

Find out more at nytimes.com/family.

好的，本。

Okay, Ben.

我也是九十年代长大的，留的是高顶剃发。

As a nineties kid myself, I have a high top fade.

我特别喜欢九十年代。

I love the nineties.

真希望那个时代别结束。

I don't want it to end.

但你为什么觉得，要理解像人工智能这样的东西，还得回头看看那个年代呢？

But tell me why we should look back at this time to understand something like AI.

我应该比你大几岁吧。

So I'm a few years older than you, I think.

我记得那时候

I remember I'm

我不会让你显老的，本。

not gonna age you, Ben.

对。

Yes.

我对九十年代记忆犹新。

So I I remember the nineties well.

那是个经济同时被两大关键力量冲击的十年。

And this was a decade where we had two really big consequential forces hitting the economy at the same time.

它像一条横跨全球的超级高速公路。

It spans the globe like a superhighway.

它就是互联网。

It is called Internet.

这感觉有点像日常的人际交往，但规模更大，也更精准。

It feels a bit like everyday human fellowship, but it's bigger and more precise.

这些力量中的第一个就是互联网。

The first of those is the Internet.

那时候还是拨号上网的时代。

This was the era of dial up

欢迎。

Welcome.

那时候用的是AOL。

Of AOL

你有新邮件了。

You've got mail.

那是刚上网的早期阶段。

Of kind of the early days of getting online.

它触动了人们渴望连接、与世界交流的愿望——关于艺术、音乐、性、吉他制作、保守派政治，还有悲伤。

It's tapped a yearning to connect, to talk with the world about art, music, sex, guitar construction, conservative politics, grief.

现在回过头来看，谈到人工智能时，我们不禁会想起当年的互联网，对吧？

And it's interesting to talk about that now in the context of AI because we think back on the Internet, Right?

我们觉得它催生了一个全新的产业。

And we think of it as creating this whole new industry.

手机和互联网技术的结合，让全球股市陷入一片狂热的期待之中。

The marriage of mobile phone and Internet technology, which is working the world's stock markets into a fever of anticipation.

为如今我们熟知的科技时代铺平了道路，最终带来了移动互联网、iPhone 和各种应用程序。

Setting the stage for tech as we know it, setting the stage eventually for the mobile web and iPhones and apps and all of this.

对吧？

Right?

到2000年，无论企业大小，都会上线互联网。

Every business, no matter how large and no matter how small, will be on the Internet in the year 2000.

它创造了大量新岗位，但也让很多旧岗位消失了。

It created all these jobs, but it also wiped out lots of jobs.

再见了，打字员。

Goodbye.

我们以前都有打字员。

We used to have typists.

没错。

Right.

以前我们有打字组，后来有了文字处理软件。

We used to have typing pools and and then later word processors.

对吧？

Right?

在‘文字处理’变成一个软件之前，它是一份工作。

Before word processor was a program, it was a job.

我们失去了一整类的工作，或者这些工作大幅减少了。

We had whole categories of jobs that have been wiped out or dramatically reduced.

现在用互联网之前，我们不需要那么多旅行社了，谁都能自己上Orbitz、Expedia这些网站订机票。

We don't have nearly as many travel agents as we did before the Internet, before we could all go and book our flights on Orbitz or Expedia or whatever it is.

对吧？

Right?

以前我们得经常跑银行，现在手机上就能搞定。

We had to go to the bank a lot more before we could do it on our phones.

我们淘汰了很多岗位，但没人觉得这是大规模的失业潮。

We eliminated a lot of jobs, but we don't remember it as this mass job losses.

为什么会这样？

Why is that?

因为这是慢慢发生的，而且分散在整个经济体系里。

Because it happened gradually, and it was diffused across the economy.

这不是某天一进门就把整个打字团队全炒了的故事。

This is not a story where one day they walk in and they fire the whole typing pool.

也不是哪天突然就不需要旅行代理了。

It's not, you know, one day we we stopped having travel agents.

而是公司一步步摸索出怎么用这些新技术，慢慢调整了这些工作内容。

It was that as companies figured out how to use this technology in different ways, they started to change these jobs.

那些快退休的人，正好有时间慢慢收尾自己的职业生涯。

People who later in their careers had time to sort of wrap up their careers and retire.

而年轻一点的员工，则有时间去学新技能，或者转行，对吧？

People who were earlier in their careers had time to learn new skills or to change direction, right, to say, hey.

也许这份工作并不适合我。

Maybe this isn't the career that I wanna go into.

也许我该换个方向。

Maybe I should go in a different direction.

你有时间调整方向。

You had time to pivot.

你有时间调整方向。

You had time to pivot.

你有时间看出趋势，然后想：嗯。

You had time to see the writing on the wall and to say, hey.

也许我该去上大学，因为经济正在朝那个方向走。

Maybe I should go to college because that's the direction that the economy is moving in.

并不是全镇所有公司突然一起关门，然后你就不知道该去哪儿了。

It wasn't like every company in this town all shuts down at once, and now where am I gonna go?

这些变化是分散的、缓慢的，让人们有机会做出应对。

It was spread out and gradual enough that people had an opportunity to react.

所以我们没有出现大规模的失业。

And so we don't have these mass job losses.

而是出现了岗位的转移，人们有足够的时间去适应，转向那些更有前景的新领域。

We have job shifts that people are able to react to over time and to pivot into new areas that have more opportunity.

现在回头看，我们记得那是段增长与机遇并存的时期，尽管当时每个人都身处巨大的动荡与不确定性之中。

We look back now, and we remember this as this period of growth and opportunity, even though it was a period of tremendous disruption and uncertainty in the moment.

明白了。

Okay.

这太有意思了。

This is fascinating.

你意思好像是说，我们之所以把互联网革命看作不是一场大量失业、整个行业彻底消失的时期，

It seems like what you're saying is the reason we look back on the Internet revolution as not a time where jobs were lost and entire fields were made extinct.

真正的原因其实是时间。

The real reason for that, the real factor seems to be time.

对。

Right.

这给了他们时间去适应。

It gave them time to adapt.

这给了他们时间去适应。

It gave them time to adapt.

那么现在的问题似乎是，人工智能的转型会有多快？

So now the question would seem to be, just how fast is the AI transition going to play out?

而且会不会快到人们根本来不及转型？

And will it be so fast that people can't pivot?

我觉得这确实是个关键问题。

I think that's exactly a question.

这得靠未来几年我们才能弄清楚，但目前还没有答案。

And it it is what we'll learn over the next few years, but we don't know the answer to that yet.

本，从这两个时期对比来看，我觉得互联网对当时的劳动者来说是一种工具。

Ben, it does seem to me, particularly as we sort of compare these two periods, like, the Internet was a tool to workers.

而如今，它对我们来说也是一种工具。

It's a tool to us now.

对吧？

Right?

但当我跟华盛顿的人聊天，或者跟全国各地的朋友聊起这个，他们并不觉得AI是个工具。

But when I talk to people in Washington, when I talk to just friends around the country, they're not worried about this as a tool.

他们担心的是自己会被AI取代。

They're worried that they could be replaced by AI.

那我们该怎么对比这两个时期，来理解这种差异呢？

So how do we make sense of that as we compare these periods?

这确实是大家的担忧。

That is the fear.

但我还不确定这真的会成为现实。

I don't think we know yet that that's the reality.

明白了。

Okay.

好的。

Okay.

目前来说，人工智能 mostly 还是个工具。

AI, at this point, for the most part, is a tool.

这是工人用各种方式在使用的工具。

It's a tool that workers are using in different ways.

大家觉得它有用，或者没那么有用。

They're finding it more or less useful.

但总的来说，你是在开始探索怎么在工作里用人工智能吧？

But for the most part, right, you're talking about starting to explore using AI in your work.

对吧？

Right?

但现在还没有哪个白宫记者是人工智能做的。

But there's not an AI White House reporter right now.

所以我们还不知道，人工智能到底会不会彻底取代我的工作，或者别人的整个岗位。

And so we don't yet know whether AI is really going to take my entire job or somebody's entire job.

我觉得人工智能不可能取代你的工作，也不可能取代我的工作。

I don't think AI could ever take your job or my job.

我就直说了啊。

Just gonna put that out there.

你继续，别因为我打断了。

But don't let me interrupt you.

随着企业和员工逐步摸索，我们就能更清楚，AI到底是真会取代一些岗位，还是只是让大家效率更高。

As we go through this part of the j, as companies and workers start to figure this out, we'll get a better sense of whether does it actually replace some of these jobs, or does it just make all of us more productive?

我觉得这现在才是最关键的问题。

And I think that is sort of the core question right now.

嗯，明白。

Okay.

到目前为止，你解释得特别清楚。

I will say thus far, you are doing a great job of explaining this.

不过你这解释可没让我对这话题的焦虑和压力减轻多少。

Not a great job in lowering my blood pressure and anxiety levels on this topic.

那刚才算是正能量环节了。

That was the good news conversation.

我们还没说到最糟糕的情况

We haven't even gotten to the bad

坏消息的例子。

news example.

有什么坏消息的例子？

What's the bad news example?

这是九十年代出现的第二大力量，或者说始于九十年代，并在二月开始加速，也就是所谓的‘中国冲击’。

So this is the second big force in the nineties or or starts in the nineties and picks up steam in the February, which is the so called China shock.

把中国加入世贸组织，就是把中国12亿人口和1万亿美元的经济体进一步融入全球市场网络，从而壮大世贸组织。

By adding China to the WTO, we strengthen the organization by further integrating China's 1,200,000,000 people and $1,000,000,000,000 economy into the world market network.

这就是我们开始与中国开展贸易往来的时期。

This is this period where we open up trade with China.

对

Of

没错。

course.