观点：人工智能会招致资本主义的终结 [美国媒体]

AI will spell the end of capitalism

观点：人工智能会招致资本主义的终结



Feng Xiang, a professor of law at Tsinghua University, is one of China’s most prominent legal scholars. He spoke at the Berggruen Institute’s China Center workshop on artificial intelligence in March in Beijing.

冯象为清华大学法学教授，是中国最杰出的法学学者之一。他在4月于北京的伯格鲁伦研究所中国中心关于人工智能的发言中如是说。

（译注：伯格鲁伦研究所为华盛顿邮报的合作伙伴之一；冯象，上海人，现任清华大学法学院梅汝璈法学讲席教授，欺父冯契是华东师范大学哲学系着名教授）

BEIJING — The most momentous challenge facing socio-economic systems today is the arrival of artificial intelligence. If AI remains under the control of market forces, it will inexorably result in a super-rich oligopoly of data billionaires who reap the wealth created by robots that displace human labor, leaving massive unemployment in their wake.

北京报道 — 如今，社会经济体制面临的最重大挑战便是人工智能的到来。如果人工智能依然由市场力量所控制，它将不可阻挡地造成由数据亿万富翁变身而来的超级富有的寡头，他们收割着取代了人力的机器人所创造的财富，紧接着的将是大量失业。

But China’s socialist market economy could provide a solution to this. If AI rationally allocates resources through big data analysis, and if robust feedback loops can supplant the imperfections of “the invisible hand” while fairly sharing the vast wealth it creates, a planned economy that actually works could at last be achievable.

但中国的社会主义市场经济能对此提供解放方案。如果人工智能经由大数据分析理性地分配资源，且在公平分配它所创造的财富时，健康的回馈循环能替代“看不见的手”本身的缺陷，那么一种真正能够运转的计划经济最终将能够达成。

The more AI advances into a general-purpose technology that permeates every corner of life, the less sense it makes to allow it to remain in private hands that serve the interests of the few instead of the many. More than anything else, the inevitability of mass unemployment and the demand for universal welfare will drive the idea of socializing or nationalizing AI.

人工智能越朝着能渗透进生活每个角落的通用技术方向进展，允许它被掌控在私人手中服务于少数人的利益而不是大多数就越显得不合理。压倒一切的是，不可避免的大量失业以及对于社会总福利的要求，将推动人工智能社会化或国有化的想法。

Marx’s dictum, “From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs,” needs an update for the 21st century: “From the inability of an AI economy to provide jobs and a living wage for all, to each according to their needs.”

马克思的名言“各尽所能，按需分配”需要针对21世纪的情况做一次更新：“人工智能经济无力向所有人提供工作机会和最低生活工资，按需分配”。

Even at this early stage, the idea that digital capitalism will somehow make social welfare a priority has already proven to be a fairytale. The billionaires of Google and Apple, who have been depositing company profits in offshore havens to avoid taxation, are hardly paragons of social responsibility. The ongoing scandal around Facebook’s business model, which puts profitability above responsible citizenship, is yet another example of how in digital capitalism, private companies only look after their own interests at the expense of the rest of society.

就算还处在早期阶段，这种资本主义会以某种方式优先考虑社会福利的想法已被证明是童话故事。Google和苹果公司的亿万富翁们为了避税把公司获利存在离岸避风港，很难说是履行社会责任的模范。围绕着Facebook商业模型不断发酵中的、将盈利能力置于公民责任之上的丑闻，是在数字资本主义中，又一个私人公司以社会中其他人为代价去追求自身利益的例子。

One can readily see where this is all headed once technological unemployment accelerates. “Our responsibility is to our shareholders,” the robot owners will say. “We are not an employment agency or a charity.”

一旦技术性失业开始提速，人们很容易就能看清楚来龙去脉。机器人拥有者会说，“我们是对我们的股东负责”。“我们可不是一个职业介绍所或是慈善团体。 ”

These companies have been able to get away with their social irresponsibility because the legal system and its loopholes in the West are geared to protect private property above all else. Of course, in China, we have big privately owned Internet companies like Alibaba and Tencent. But unlike in the West, they are monitored by the state and do not regard themselves as above or beyond social control.

这些公司一直能侥幸逃脱它们的社会失责，因为西方的法律制度及其漏洞适应了保护私人财产的需要远胜其他一切。当然了在中国，我们有诸如阿里巴巴和腾讯的大型私营互联网公司。但不同于西方的是，它们受国家监视，且并不认为自己能超越社会管制。

It is the very pervasiveness of AI that will spell the end of market dominance. The market may reasonably if unequally function if industry creates employment opportunities for most people. But when industry only produces joblessness, as robots take over more and more, there is no good alternative but for the state to step in. As AI invades economic and social life, all private law-related issues will soon become public ones. More and more, regulation of private companies will become a necessity to maintain some semblance of stability in societies roiled by constant innovation.

正是人工智能的无处不在会招致市场优势的终结。如果运行不均，如果产业为大多数人创造出就业机会，市场也许会很合理。但要是产业制造出的只有无活可干，因为机器人接手了越来越多的岗位，就没有很好的替代选择了只有让国家介入。因为人工智能入侵了经济和社会生活，所有私营企业和法律有关的争议，会很快变成公共议题。为了维持不断被创新搅浑的社会外在稳定，对私人公司越来越多的监管会变成一种必然。

I consider this historical process a step closer to a planned market economy. Laissez-faire capitalism as we have known it can lead nowhere but to a dictatorship of AI oligarchs who gather rents because the intellectual property they own rules over the means of production. On a global scale, it is easy to envision this unleashed digital capitalism leading to a battle between robots for market share that will surely end as disastrously as the imperialist wars did in an earlier era.

我把这种历史进程看成是对计划经济迈近了一步。我们所知道的自由放任的资本主义只会走向人工智能寡头的独裁，因为他们拥有的知识产权支配了生产资料而能够去敛聚租金。在全球范围内，很容易想象这种如出笼猛兽般的数字资本主义会导致机器人之间为争夺市场份额而爆发战争，并肯定会灾难性地使自身终结，如同早先历史时期中的帝国主义战争那样。

For the sake of social well-being and security, individuals and private companies should not be allowed to possess any exclusive cutting-edge technology or core AI platforms. Like nuclear and biochemical weapons, as long as they exist, nothing other than a strong and stable state can ensure society’s safety. If we don’t nationalize AI, we could sink into a dystopia reminiscent of the early misery of industrialization, with its satanic mills and street urchins scrounging for a crust of bread.

为社会福祉和安全计，个人和私人公司不应被允许独占任何前沿技术或核心人工智能平台。如同核武器和生化武器，只要它们存在，除了强大且稳定的国家以外，没有别的东西能够确保社会安全。如果不国有化人工智能，我们可能会陷入早期工业化时代的悲惨往事，那些个邪恶的工厂以及在街上乞讨面包皮的小淘气鬼。

The dream of communism is the elimination of wage labor. If AI is bound to serve society instead of private capitalists, it promises to do so by freeing an overwhelming majority from such drudgery while creating wealth to sustain all.

共产主义的梦想是消灭雇佣劳动。如果人工智能注定要去服务社会而不是个体资本家，那么它会承诺去这么做，通过把压倒性多数的人从这些苦差事中解放出来，同时创造财富来支撑所有人。

If the state controls the market, instead of digital capitalism controlling the state, true communist aspirations will be achievable. And because AI increasingly enables the management of complex systems by processing massive amounts of information through intensive feedback loops, it presents, for the first time, a real alternative to the market signals that have long justified laissez-faire ideology — and all the ills that go with it.

如果由国家控制市场，而不是让数字资本主义控制国家，真正的共产主义抱负将可以达到。而且因为人工智能通过密集的反馈循环处理海量信息，使得管理复杂系统逐渐变得可能。它第一次提供了一种真正的替代市场信号的选择，而后者长期以来为自由放任的意识形态乃至其自带的所有弊病辩护。

Going forward, China’s socialist market economy, which aims to harness the fruits of production for the whole population and not just a sliver of elites operating in their own self-centered interests, can lead the way toward this new stage of human development.

从现在开始，中国的社会主义市场经济，其目标在于为所有人而不是一小撮为自身利益而动的精英驾驭生产果实，能够为人类发展的新阶段引路。

If properly regulated in this way, we should celebrate, not fear, the advent of AI. If it is brought under social control, it will finally free workers from peddling their time and sweat only to enrich those at the top. The communism of the future ought to adopt a new slogan: “Robots of the world, unite!”

如果用这种方式恰当地管制，我们就应该庆祝而非恐慌人工智能的到来。如果它在社会的管制之下，它就最终会把劳动者耗费时间和汗水却只肥了位居顶层的人中解放出来。未来的共产主义应该采纳一条新的口号：“全世界的机器人联合起来！”


1、there are several assumptions built into your opinion piece that severely weaken your argument. Among them, you appear to assume that the government of the People's Republic will act impartially with respect to rationalizing and doling out the benefits and burdens of AI fairly. One can hardly expect this utopian view of China's government to conform to reality, based on its past performance. The benefits of the economy in China are hardly distributed by the rule: "To each according to his needs." Government and business elites reap the most benefits, as in any other country, unfortunately for the common person.

你观点中存在的若干假设会严重削弱你的论证。其中，似乎你假设人民共和国的政府在合理化和公平分配人工智能的效益和负担方面，会无私地行止。鉴于其在过去的表现，很难去期待中国政府会遵从现实的这种乌托邦观点。在中国，经济效益几乎不由规则分派：“按需分配”。和其他任何国家一样，政府和商业精英收割了大部分的利润，对于普通人来说这很不幸。  

Second, your assumptions about he unfettered capitalism of businesses in the United States are far from an accurate depiction of reality. We have quite a few agencies devoted to business regulation, and Congress and the federal government are always adding to the regulations and re-writing them. Business in the USA is not left to its own, without any regard to the overall costs and benefits to society.

其次，你假设商业上的资本主义在美国是无拘无束的，这点离准确描述现实也很遥远。我们拥有相当多致力于商业监管的机构，而且国会和联邦政府一直都在加强监管并修订律条。在美国，不考虑对社会的整体成本和效益的情况下，商业可是不被放任的。

Third, you seem to consider the benefits of AI, without considering that advances in AI will also bring costs - externalities that must be paid for by society, as it reaps the benefits of technology. Nothing in reality will make the so-called "communist" government of China the inevitable end state of an economy that pursues technological advancement and excellence. Only by enhancing democratic institutions and norms can the citizen hope to control and maintain the benefits of technology for the good of all - not just the elites. In this regard, one should hope that the Chinese Communist Party, in its current form, is not the inevitable end of advancement in AI.

第三，看起来你考虑了人工智能的利润，却没有可考虑人工智能的发展也会带来成本，在其收割技术带来的利润时，其外部成本一定会由全社会买单。在现实中，没有什么能使所谓的中国“共产主义”政府变成一个追求技术进步和技术卓越经济体的终极状态。只有通过加强民主制度和民主规范，公民才有希望控制并保持技术对所有人的好处，而不止是精英。从这个意义上讲，人们应该希望中国共产党，以其目前的形式，不是人工智能发展无法避免的终极态。

2、Until Communism, market or otherwise recognizes greed as a primary motivator, AI or not, it will never truly work.

在实现共产主义之前，市场或其他的什么模式都承认贪婪是一个主要动力，有没有人工智能，它都永远不会起作用。

3、The most interesting thing is that this argument assumes that the politicians in charge of managing the State will NOT be self-dealing, will police themselves and will live like the rest of the population.
If you really believe this, I have an AI to sell you...

最有意思的是，该主张假设,负责管理国家的政客不会假公济私，能自我监督，还会和其他人过一样的生活。
如果真的信这套，我有个人工智能可以卖给你...

4、Maybe this joker should look at his own society with all the elites in the party breathing their own clean air while other suffocate. Spare me this BS.

也许这个小丑应该检视下他自己的社会，在那里所有的党内精英呼吸着他们自己的干净空气，同时其他人陷入窒息。这种狗屁文章还是饶了我吧。

5、while you have articulated a legitimate concern, your proposed solution of a virtual dictatorship is not the answer. there is no reason socialism cannot be implemented within a democracy. clearly neither an economy nor a society can function where large numbers of people have virtually no income. and the minimum wage in the u.s. is heading toward that status as inflation erodes its value. something will have to give, and soon.

在你有力地表达了一种合理关切时，你提出的实质上为专制的解决方案并不是答案。社会主义没有理由不能在民主框架中实施。很明显，当大批人民没有实质收入时，一个经济体或一个社会都无法运转。而美国的最低工资正朝着那个方向而去，因为通货膨胀侵蚀了其价值。势必要放弃一些什么东西，而且会很快。

6、Some fail to realize that the U.S. is a very socialist country. The question is, who are the main beneficiaries of this socialism?

有些人没有能力意识到，美国是一个非常社会主义的国家。问题是：谁是这种社会主义的主要受益者？

7、This is just rehashed John Maynard Keynes "Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren", 1930, with obeisance to his Chinese masters.

这只是对凯恩斯30年代的《我们后代的经济前景》的旧话重提，向他的中国导师们敬礼吧。

8、Another issue is that once AI creates widespread unemployment there will be few customers for goods and services. CEOs ought to be thinking about this.

另一个问题是：一旦人工智能造成了广泛的失业，就不会有寻求商品和服务的顾客了。CEO们应该好好想想这一点。

9、No. No. No. The very thing the writer wants to ban, the individual striking out away from authority bases, (read history of open source software), is what will also not let power be held by a few.

不不不，这个作者真正想要禁绝的，是个体从权利基础中的脱离（读读开源软件的历史就知道了），这也是不让权力被一小部分人掌握的方式。

10、Does anyone really believe that this worker-AI utopia will be created in China, or anywhere? As long as greed and power go hand in hand, as it does now virtually everywhere on this planet, including China, life will indeed become nasty, brutish and short for the vast majority of human beings in the not too distant future, particularly as the ravages of climate change drive mass migration and the destruction of the world’s food chains. I hope I’m not around to see it.

真有人会相信这种工人-人工智能的乌托邦会在中国产生，或是在任何地方产生？只要贪婪和权力携手并进，因为这在如今的地球上真的到处都是包括中国，在不太久远的将来对于绝大多数人类来说，生活就真的会变得恶心、粗野和短暂，尤其是气候变化的破坏逼出了大量的移民和世界食物链的毁灭。我希望我不会活着看见这一天。

11、Marx predicted this long ago. Marx said the economic problem of the future is not scarcity but distribution.

马克思在很久以前就预见到了。马克思说，未来的经济问题并不在于匮乏而在于分配。

Marx's dialectic saw Capitalism as a historical stage in which the accumulation of capital -- machinery -- would make labor redundant, permitting under communism, in which productivity of the individual was irrelevant, the resulting surplus could be distributed to support everyone, freeing individuals from exploitative labor to pursue human activity that is fulfilling to them.

马克思的辩证法视资本主义为一种历史阶段，资本和机械的积累会使劳动力过剩，在共产主义之下这是准许的，这其中个体的生产力是无关的，作为结果的过剩能够拿去分配以支持每一个人，把个体从被剥削的劳动力中解放出来，就能去追求可以完成自我实现的人类活动。

12、but lets face it folks:

但是让我们面对现实吧伙计们：

looking at history we know what is coming.

翻一翻历史我们就会知道将要到来的是什么。

a super elite with all the resources and 97% of the people with nothing

一群超级精英坐拥所有资源而97%的人民一无所有

warehoused like wild animals and brutally suppressed

像野生动物一样被安置进仓库式收容所，并被残酷镇压

pharaoh and the jewish slaves

法老和犹太人的奴隶

in fact, pharaoh will probably force people to build temples by hand just to torment them !

实际上，法老可能会强迫人民徒手建造庙宇，只是为了折磨他们！

13、Interesting perspective. Soul-less corporatism with its only goal to enhance shareholder value is a dead end. Even in the USA with "free speech" dollars are now considered "speech" and are "protected" leading to bizarre notions of freedom.

有趣的视角。把提高股东价值作为唯一目标的没有灵魂的社团主义，是一条死路。就算在美国，“言论自由”美元现在也被认为是“言论”并受到“保护”，这导致了怪异的自由概念。

14、Ha ha ha, capitalism?! AI will spell the end of HUMANITY. Think of Facebook. Now think of Facebook being run by uncaring machines. No, like, actual uncaring machines. No, like, made of metal and plastic.

哈哈哈，资本主义？！人工智能会找招致人性的终结。想想Facebook。现在试想下是漠不关心的机器在管理Facebook。可别真的是漠不关心的机器。可别是由金属和塑料制成的东西。

15、This seems like a specious argument that socialist countries are better able to handle the emergence of AI. It does not in any way address the dangers of AI in loss of control. Also capitalist countries can simply raise taxes on the ultra wealthy to address the income inequality to which the author alludes. Who is to say there will not be a thriving market in leisure activities or crafted goods. People will still be working and earning a living, they will just be working on different things.

这看起来是一种华而不实的主张，说什么社会主义国家能更好地应对人工智能的涌现。这里面没有用任何方式提出过人工智能失控的危险。而且，资本主义国家只须对极富有的人群加税，以处理该作者暗示的收入不平等问题。谁说在休闲活动或手工商品领域不会出现繁荣的市场。人民仍然会有工作并以此谋生，他们只不过会从事于不同的领域。