经济学人 | 如果科技解决了所有问题，人类还有什么事可做？

What will humans do if technology solves everything?

如果科技解决了所有问题，人类还有什么事可做？

Welcome to a high-tech utopia

欢迎来到高科技乌托邦

In “permutation city”, a novel by Greg Egan, the character Peer, having achieved immortality within a virtual reality over which he has total control, finds himself terribly bored. So he engineers himself to have new passions. One moment he is pushing the boundaries of higher mathematics; the next he is writing operas.

在格雷格·伊根的小说《数字永生计划》中，主人公皮尔在一个完全由他掌控的虚拟现实中获得了永生，却发现自己的日子无聊透顶。于是，他给自己精心安排了新的爱好。这一刻他在拓展高等数学的极限，下一刻他又在创作歌剧。

 “He’d even been interested in the Elysians [the afterlife], once. No longer. He preferred to think about table legs.” Peer’s fickleness relates to a deeper point. When technology has solved humanity’s deepest problems, what is left to do?

“他甚至一度对人死后的极乐世界产生了兴趣。这兴趣并没持续多久。他还是更喜欢思考和桌腿有关的问题。”皮尔的变化无常触及了一个更深层次的问题：当科技解决了人类最深重的那些问题后，我们还有什么事情可做？

That is one question considered in a new publication by Nick Bostrom, a philosopher at the University of Oxford, whose last book argued that humanity faced a one-in-six chance of being wiped out in the next 100 years, perhaps owing to the development of dangerous forms of artificial intelligence (AI). 

这是牛津大学哲学家尼克·博斯特罗姆在一本新书中探讨的一个问题。他在自己的上一本书中曾提出，人类有六分之一的几率会在未来100年内灭绝，原因可能是人工智能（AI）朝着危险的形态发展。

In Mr Bostrom’s latest book, “Deep Utopia”, he considers a rather different outcome. What happens if AI goes extraordinarily well? Under one scenario Mr Bostrom contemplates, the technology progresses to the point at which it can do all economically valuable work at near-zero cost. 

在他的新书《深度乌托邦》中，他却思索一个截然不同的结果一一如果AI的发展格外理想呢？作者设想的一种情形是，AI发展到几乎能以零成本完成任何有经济价值的工作。

Under a yet more radical scenario, even tasks that you might think would be reserved for humans, such as parenting, can be done better by AI. This may sound more dystopian than utopian, but Mr Bostrom argues otherwise.

而在一种更极端的情形下，就连那些你可能认为只有人类才能做的事情，比如养育子女，AI也能做得更好。这听起来或许更像是敌托邦而不是乌托邦，不过博斯特罗姆不这么认为。

Start with the first scenario, which Mr Bostrom labels a “post-scarcity” utopia. In such a world, the need for work would be reduced. Almost a century ago John Maynard Keynes wrote an essay entitled “Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren”, which predicted that 100 years into the future his wealthy descendants would need to work for only 15 hours a week. 

先说第一种情形，博斯特罗姆将其称为“后稀缺”乌托邦。在这样的社会里，人们不再需要做那么多的工作。近一个世纪以前，凯恩斯就在《我们后代的经济前景》一文中预言，未来100年后，后世的人们会足够富裕，每周只需工作15个小时。

This has not quite come to pass, but working time has fallen greatly. In the rich world average weekly working hours have dropped from more than 60 in the late 19th century to fewer than 40 today. The typical American spends a third of their waking hours on leisure activities and sports. 

虽然今天这一预言并未完全实现，但人们的工作时间已经大大缩短。在富裕国家，人们每周的平均工作时间已从19世纪末的60多个小时下降到今天的不到40个小时。一个普通美国人每天除睡眠之外的时间有三分之一都花在各种休闲活动和体育运动上。

In the future, they may wish to spend their time on things beyond humanity’s current conception. As Mr Bostrom writes, when aided by powerful tech, “the space of possible-for-us experiences extends far beyond those that are accessible to us with our present unoptimised brains.”

将来，他们可能希望把时间花在人类目前还无法想象的一些事情上。正如博斯特罗姆所写，在强大科技的帮助下，“我们可能获得的体验将远远超出我们目前尚未充分开发的大脑的想象”。

Yet Mr Bostrom’s label of a “post-scarcity” utopia might be slightly misleading: the economic explosion caused by superintelligence would still be limited by physical resources, most notably land. Although space exploration may hugely increase the building space available, it will not make it infinite. 

不过，博斯特罗姆的“后稀缺”乌托邦的说法可能稍微有点误导性：尽管超级智能会带来爆发性的经济增长，但它仍将受限于物质资源，尤其是土地。虽然太空探索可能会极大地增加可利用的建筑空间，但不会无限增加。

There are also intermediate worlds where humans develop powerful new forms of intelligence, but do not become space-faring. In such worlds, wealth may be fantastic, but lots of it could be absorbed by housing—much as is the case in rich countries today.

另外还会有一些中间阶段一一人类开发出了强大的新型智能，不过并未发展到太空时代。这样的社会或许积累了巨大的财富，但其中大部分财富可能都耗费在住房上一一正如今天富裕国家的情况。

“Positional goods”, which boost the status of their owners, are also still likely to exist and are, by their nature, scarce. Even if AIs surpass humans in art, intellect, music and sport, humans will probably continue to derive value from surpassing their fellow humans, for example by having tickets to the hottest events. 

能够提升拥有者社会地位的“地位商品”同样很可能继续存在，而且这些商品从其本质属性上说就是稀缺的。即使AI在艺术、智力、音乐和体育方面超越了人类，人类也可能继续从“高他人一等中获得价值，比如获得最热门赛事的门票等。

In 1977 Fred Hirsch, an economist, argued in “The Social Limits to Growth” that, as wealth increases, a greater fraction of human desire consists of positional goods. Time spent competing goes up, the price of such goods increases and so their share of GDP rises. This pattern may continue in an AI utopia.

1977年，经济学家弗雷德·赫希在《增长的社会限制》一书中指出，随着财富的增加，人们会更多地想要获取地位商品。人们花在竞争它们上的时间会增加，这类商品的价格会上涨，在GDP中所占份额也随之水涨船高。这种模式在AI乌托邦中可能会持续下去。

Mr Bostrom notes some types of competition are a failure of co-ordination: if everyone agrees to stop competing, they would have time for other, better things, which could further boost growth. Yet some types of competition, such as sport, have intrinsic value, and are worth preserving. (Humans may also have nothing better to do.) 

博斯特罗姆指出，一些类型的竞争是协调失败的产物：如果所有人达成一致，停止竞争，他们就有时间去做其他更美好的事情，这可能会进一步促进经济的增长。不过，某些本身就有价值的竞争，比如体育运动，却值得保留。（人类可能也找不出更好的事做了。）

Interest in chess has grown since IBM’s Deep Blue first defeated Garry Kasparov, then world champion, in 1997. An entire industry has emerged around e-sports, where computers can comfortably defeat humans. Their revenues are expected to grow at a 20% annual rate over the next decade, reaching nearly $11bn by 2032. 

自1997年IBM开发的“深蓝”计算机首次击败当时的世界冠军加里·卡斯帕罗夫以来，人们对国际象棋的兴趣与日俱增。围绕电子竞技已经形成了一个完整的产业，而在电子竞技中，计算机可以轻松击败人类。预计未来十年，该行业的收入将以每年20%的速度增长，到2032年将达到近110亿美元。

Several groups in society today give us a sense of how future humans might spend their time. Aristocrats and bohemians enjoy the arts. Monastics live within themselves. Athletes spend their lives on sport. The retired dabble in all these pursuits.

从当今社会的若干群体中，我们可以感知未来的人类可能会如何打发自己的时间。贵族和波西米亚派享受艺术。僧侣活在自己的精神世界。运动员终身从事体育运动。退休人士则和所有这些兴趣爱好都沾点边。