How we'll earn money in a future without jobs
如果没有工作，我们怎样才能赚钱？
I'm going to begin with a scary question: Are we headed toward a future without jobs? The remarkable progress that we're seeing in technologies like self-driving cars has led to an explosion of interest in this question, but because it's something that's been asked so many times in the past, maybe what we should really be asking is whether this time is really different. 
首先，我想提出一个可怕的问题：我们是否正在迈向一个没有工作的未来？如今目睹了自动驾驶汽车等技术的显著进步，我们对此问题的关注日益激增，但这一问题在过去人们已多次提及，也许我们真正应当关心的是这次情况是否会有所不同。
The fear that automation might displace workers and potentially lead to lots of unemployment goes back at a minimum 200 years to the Luddite revolts in England. And since then, this concern has come up again and again. 
人类一直担忧，自动化会取代工人进而导致大量失业，从二百多年前的英国卢德运动开始，这种担忧便一再出现。
I'm going to guess that most of you have probably never heard of the Triple Revolution report, but this was a very prominent report. It was put together by a brilliant group of people -- it actually included two Nobel laureates -- and this report was presented to the President of the United States, 
我猜在座各位多数没听说过“三次革命报告”，这是一份杰出的报告，出自一优秀人才之手，其中包括两名诺奖得主。该报告最终呈送美国总统审阅。
and it argued that the US was on the brink of economic and social upheaval because industrial automation was going to put millions of people out of work. Now, that report was delivered to President Lyndon Johnson in March of 1964. 
报告指出，美国正处于经济和社会动荡的边缘，因为工业自动化将导致数百万工人下岗失业。时任总统林登·约翰逊收到报告时是1964年3月。
So that's now over 50 years, and, of course, that hasn't really happened. And that's been the story again and again. 
如今五十多年过去了，美国并没有发生动荡。这样的故事从此不断上演：
This alarm has been raised repeatedly, but it's always been a false alarm. And because it's been a false alarm, it's led to a very conventional way of thinking about this. And that says essentially that yes, technology may devastate entire industries. 
警钟一再响起，但最终总是虚惊一场。随着虚惊不断发生，人们对其产生了思维惯性：动荡本质上无可避免，新技术势必席卷整个工业界。
It may wipe out whole occupations and types of work. But at the same time, of course, progress is going to lead to entirely new things. So there will be new industries that will arise in the future, and those industries, of course, will have to hire people. 
并取代所有的工作岗位。但与此同时，科技进步也将带来全新的变化。在未来，新型工业将会兴起，势必产生新的用人需求。
There'll be new kinds of work that will appear, and those might be things that today we can't really even imagine. And that has been the story so far, and it's been a positive story. 
未来将会出现全新的工作，有的甚至今天我们根本无法想像。这便是迄今为止的故事，一直是令人乐观的。
It turns out that the new jobs that have been created have generally been a lot better than the old ones. They have, for example, been more engaging. They've been in safer, more comfortable work environments, and, of course, they've paid more. So it has been a positive story. 
事实证明，新出现的工作通常远胜过旧的工作。新工作更有吸引力，工作环境更为安全舒适，挣得自然也更多。所以这个故事是乐观的。
That's the way things have played out so far. But there is one particular class of worker for whom the story has been quite different. For these workers, technology has co
mpletely decimated their work, and it really hasn't created any new opportunities at all. And these workers, of course, are horses. 
而事情迄今的发展亦是如此。但有一类特殊的劳动体，其境遇却全然不同。对这个体来说，科技彻底取代了他们的工作，却并未为其带来任何新的就业机会。当然，我所指的“劳动体”，正是马。
So I can ask a very provocative question: Is it possible that at some point in the future, a significant fraction of the human workforce is going to be made redundant in the way that horses were? Now, you might have a very visceral, reflexive reaction to that. 
由此我便能提出一个尖锐的问题：在未来，是否有可能会出现相当数量的劳动力冗余正如马的遭遇一般？出于本能，人们可能会下意识地反驳道：
You might say, "That's absurd. How can you possibly compare human beings to horses?" Horses, of course, are very limited, and when cars and trucks and tractors came along, horses really had nowhere else to turn. People, on the other hand, are intelligent; we can learn, we can adapt. 
“荒唐！牲畜岂能和人相比？”马的能力固然有限，当汽车、卡车和拖拉机出现后，马便没了用武之地。但人却是具有智慧的，能够学习，并且会适应环境。
And in theory, that ought to mean that we can always find something new to do, and that we can always remain relevant to the future economy. 
因此理论上讲，人应当总能到新的工作，始终保持与未来经济的联系。
But here's the really critical thing to understand. The machines that will threaten workers in the future are really nothing like those cars and trucks and tractors that displaced horses. The future is going to be full of thinking, learning, adapting machines.