经济学人：真正危险的是AI只属于少数人

作者：经济学人      来源：一天一篇外刊

The launch of ChatGPT in 2022 ignited the artificial-intelligence boom—and elicited a chorus of warnings from AI bosses of an impending jobs apocalypse. Never mind that they have reason to talk up the disruptiveness of their products, or that rich-world employment is near all-time highs—the dark message has landed. Seven in ten Americans think AI will make it harder for people to find work; nearly a third fear for their own jobs. A dearth of openings for college graduates—especially computer programmers—amplifies the dread.

2022年，ChatGPT横空出世，掀起了一场人工智能热潮，一众 AI 行业巨头也接连警示：一场就业浩劫即将来临。尽管这些企业乐于渲染自家产品的颠覆性影响，且发达国家就业率仍处于历史高位，但这一悲观论调已然深入人心。七成美国人认为AI会加剧求职难度，近三分之一的人担心自身工作不保。应届生岗位缩水，程序员岗位尤甚，更是加剧了人们的恐慌。

The past offers some solace for the anxious. Labour markets constantly change. Today’s offices would be unrecognisable to a worker from 50 years ago. Never in modern history has technological progress hurt the overall demand for human labour. Economic historians now play down the magnitude of “Engels’ pause”, the period during the Industrial Revolution in which working-class wages grew more slowly than the wider economy.

历史的余温给焦虑的人们一丝慰藉。劳动力市场本就处在不断变动之中。倘若一名五十年前的打工人置身如今的职场，想必会全然陌生。纵观现代史，技术进步从未削弱人类劳动力的总需求。如今经济史学家也不再夸大 “恩格斯停滞期” 的影响。恩格斯停滞期即在工业革命时期，工薪阶层薪资增速长期落后于整体经济增速。

Yet history is not always a good guide to the future, as the Industrial Revolution itself showed. The top AI models are awesome. They can tackle much more complex coding tasks than people were predicting a year ago. The number of AI agents has exploded. Spending on AI by businesses is up dramatically. Annualised recurring revenue of Anthropic, a hot model-maker, is set to reach $50bn by the end of June. There is no evidence yet in the labour-market data of AI destroying many jobs. But given how fast it is improving, it would be rash to dismiss fears that it will. Society may be on the verge of a profound reallocation of resources, and political upheaval.

历史并非总能指引未来，工业革命便是最好的例证。当下顶尖 AI 模型性能惊人，可处理的复杂编程任务，远超一年前各界的预期。AI智能体数量呈爆发式增长，企业对人工智能的投入也大幅飙升。热门模型厂商 Anthropic 的年化稳定性收入，预计在今6月底将达到 500 亿美元。劳动力市场数据目前尚未显示AI已造成大规模失业。但鉴于迭代速度极快，就此忽视就业冲击的风险未免草率。社会或将迎来一场深刻的资源重构，甚至引发动荡。

Economists’ prediction that work will stay plentiful is less reassuring than it looks, especially over a long horizon. Though the market will find uses for human labour even as models and robots become more capable, the quality of those jobs and the wages they pay are not guaranteed. Data centres will account for 8.5% of America’s peak power demand in 2027, up from 4.1% in 2025, predicts Goldman Sachs, a bank. As AI firms bid up the price of land and energy, the dollars people earn will go less far. Eventually humans could, like horses in the age of the car, become uneconomical. Income may go mostly or entirely to owners of capital, who then go on to spend it on things that are made by AI and robots using natural resources that they monopolise.

经济学家预测未来就业岗位依旧充足，但这一结论实际并没没有看上去那么令人乐观，从长期视角来看尤其如此。即便人工智能模型与仿生机器人的能力持续提升，资本市场仍会为人类劳动力找到用武之地，可这些岗位的质量与薪资水平却无法得到保障。高盛银行预测，2027年数据中心用电将占美国峰值电力需求的 8.5%，较 2025 年的 4.1% 大幅上升。随着 AI 企业推高地价与能源价格，民众收入的实际购买力将持续下降。最终，人类或许会如同汽车时代的马匹一般，逐渐失去经济价值。大部分乃至全部收入，或将流向资本持有者；而他们的消费支出，又将用于购买由人工智能和机器人制造的产品，生产所需的自然资源也被其垄断掌控。

作者：经济学人      来源：一天一篇外刊