The possibility that robots may one day take all the jobs and put the human race out of work is an idea that has taken a strong hold on the public imagination of late. Not since the 1960s has the prospect of machines replacing people inspired such awe and angst.
也许有一天，机器人会抢走所有的工作，让所有人类失业，这是近来公众的想象中挥之不去的一个念头。自20世纪60年代以来，机器代替人类的前景还从未引发眼下这种程度的畏惧和焦虑。
Left out of this picture, however, is a bigger narrative about how the onrush of robot technology could change humanity’s future. Automation — for which, read sophisticated software routines informed by advanced algorithms — is already creeping into many walks of life far beyond the workplace, steering our decisions and promising to take the effort out of everyday tasks.
然而，被排除在这种想象之外的，是关于机器人科技的汹涌来袭可能如何改变人类未来的更大议题。自动化，也就是用先进的算法设计的复杂软件程序组，已经悄然进入各行各业，出没的地方远不止工作场所。自动化不仅引导着我们的决策，更许诺让日常工作变得简单轻松。

What is to stop automation from ultimately assuming all of mankind’s mental and physical efforts? And when the machines do all the heavy lifting — whether in the form of robots commanding the physical world or artificial intelligence systems that relieve us of the need to think — who is the master and who the slave?
有什么能阻止自动化最终承担人类所有的脑力和体力劳动？不管是在实体世界发号施令的机器人，还是让我们无需进行思考的人工智能系统，当机器挑起了一切重担，谁是主人，谁是奴仆？
Despite the antagonism he sometimes stirs in the tech world (an influential article of his published by the Harvard Business Review in 2003 was called, provocatively, “IT Doesn’t Matter”) author Nicholas Carr is not a technophobe. But in The Glass Cage he brings a much-needed humanistic perspective to the wider issues of automation. In an age of technological marvels, it is easy to forget the human.
尽管作者尼古拉斯•卡尔(Nicholas Carr)有时会在科技界招来敌意（2003年他在《哈佛商业评论》(Harvard Business Review)上发表的一篇影响力巨大的文章标题富有煽动性，叫做《IT无关紧要》(“IT Doesn’t Matter”)），他本人并不是一个恐惧技术的人。但在《身处自动化的玻璃牢笼》(The Glass Cage)一书中，他为理解更广泛的自动化问题提供了一个我们迫切需要的人文主义视角。在技术大放异彩的年代，人类很容易遭到遗忘。
Carr’s argument here is that, by automating tasks to save effort, we are making life easier for ourselves at the cost of replacing our experience of the world with something inferior. “Frictionless” is the new mantra of tech companies out to simplify life as much as possible. But the way Carr sees it, much of what makes us most fulfilled comes from taking on the friction of the world through focused concentration and effort. What would happen, in short, if we were “defined by what we want”?
卡尔的论点是，通过将工作任务自动化以节省精力，我们让生活变得更轻松，代价则是用一种次级的体验取代了我们对世界的真实体验。“无摩擦”是试图最大程度简化生活的技术公司的新口号。但在卡尔看来，让我们感到充实的东西大多来自于全神贯注、努力应对世界中的“摩擦”的过程。简而言之，如果我们“用我们想要的东西定义自身”，那会怎样？
Mankind’s mastery of the environment owes much to the use of tools that extend our limited physical and intellectual powers, as Carr readily admits. What’s different now, though, is both the pace of change — it’s hard to adjust when so much can alter in the course of a human lifetime — and the nature of the technology itself.
卡尔坦然承认，人类对自然环境的掌控大多归功于对工具的使用，工具扩展了我们有限的体力和智力。然而，现在与以前的差异不仅在于变化的速度（在人一辈子的时间里就能发生如此巨大的改变，让人很难适应），还有技术本身的性质。
At the risk of simplifying, Carr’s assertion is that there are two types of technology, which might loosely be described as the humanist and the anti-humanist. The former sets its makers free. Tools such as hammers or cars fall into this category: they extend the user’s capabilities.
卡尔提出，存在两种技术，分别可大致称为人本型技术和反人本型技术（这样划分或许有过分简化之嫌）。前者旨在解放人类。锤子、汽车之类的工具就属于这个范畴：它们扩展了使用者的能力。
Anti-humanist technology, on the other hand, sidelines its creator. Its sole purpose is to replace human effort, not enhance it. If humans are ever brought into the equation to interact with this technology — for instance, when pilots have to override automatic flight systems in an emergency — the results are often dismal: deskilled by the machines and forced into machine-like modes of behaviour to operate in the machine’s world, the people seldom excel. The inevitable result is a call for more automation to take fallible humans out of the picture entirely. Removing the need for sustained physical and intellectual effort causes a degeneration in people’s capabilities, argues Carr. His description of research into these areas is exhaustive, to the point where some chapters of this book read like a glossary of academic work in the field. But it helps him build a persuasive argument.
相反，反人本技术则会使人类边缘化。其唯一的目的是替代掉人的努力，而不是提高人努力的效率。如果让人类参与进来，与这种技术相互作用（比如，飞行员在紧急情况下被迫停止自动驾驶系统的时候），结果往往令人沮丧：机器使人变得低能，为了适应机器世界里的工作，人被迫在行为方式上向机器靠拢，因此在这种情况下很少得心应手。不可避免的结果是，进一步提高自动化程度、让容易犯错的人类彻底出局，成为人们的呼声。卡尔认为，消除对持续体力和脑力劳动的需要，导致人类能力退化。他对这些领域的研究描述得非常详尽，以至于书中的有些章节读起来就像是该领域学术成果的汇编。但详细的成果汇编也有助于提高作者论述的说服力。
In some instances, the effects of using technology to disintermediate the world sound minor. It’s hard to feel much sympathy for Carr’s complaint that automatic transmission systems in cars, for instance, have robbed him of the pleasure of driving. But others are more persuasive. As machines take on an increasing number of everyday tasks, they will inevitably have to make decisions with moral consequences, weighing courses of action that have different impacts on the people affected. And that is before even thinking about battlefield robots that are programmed to kill.
在某些情况下，技术对于阻隔我们对世界的直接感知所起到的作用似乎微不足道。比如，对于卡尔抱怨汽车自动变速系统夺走了驾驶的乐趣，我们很难感到特别认同。但在其他一些情况下，他的说法更有说服力。随着机器承担的日常工作越来越多，它们将不可避免地被迫做出有道德后果的抉择，权衡对相应人群影响不一的行动。我们甚至还没有开始考虑任务设定为杀戮的战场机器人。
If there’s a criticism to be made of Carr’s attempt to save mankind from its own technology, it’s that he underplays the very substantial benefits. Driverless cars would go a long way towards eradicating the millions of deaths and injuries that are almost entirely caused by human error. Also, through advances in productivity, automation is a significant contributor to economic betterment.
对于卡尔试图从人类自己开发的技术手中挽救人类的举动，如果要进行批评的话，那就是他淡化了技术带来的巨大好处。交通事故几乎完全是由人类的错误导致的，无人驾驶汽车在这方面大有助益，能使数百万人免于伤亡。自动化还能提高生产效率，从而极大地促进经济状况的改善。
Nor does he make allowances for the new types of work thrown up by making older forms of human endeavour redundant, or the possibility that mankind might find more rewarding outlets for its energy and creativity if the need to work was largely removed.
他也没有考虑到，自动化虽然使一些旧式的人类劳动变得多余，但也同时创新了新型的工作；此外，在基本不需要工作之后，人类或许有可能找到更有价值的发挥精力和创造力的方式。
Surprisingly, however, Carr manages to find a positive note to end on. He considers, but largely rejects, the possibility that a more human-centric form of design will emerge to put people back at the centre of their own technological creations.
然而，令人惊讶的是，卡尔设法以一种乐观的方式进行了收尾。他考虑了一种可能性，那就是会出现一种更以人为中心的设计形式，使人重新回到技术创新的中心，但他大体上驳倒了这个可能性。
The economic forces leading towards replacing people completely with software are simply too strong.
用软件彻底取代人工的经济推动力实在过于强大。
Likewise, he holds out little hope that people will voluntarily turn their backs on the latest technology in favour of less sophisticated tools that demand more of them, but which are ultimately far more rewarding to use. The lure of labour-saving is too great.
同样的，对于人类自愿抛弃最新的技术，转而使用更需要人力、复杂程度较低、而且最终将更有益于使用者的工具，他也不抱多少希望。省力的诱惑太大了。
The hope arises, instead, from a belief that the social strains from the present wave of technological advance will force a reaction. Just four pages from the end, after contemplating the dire consequences of putting all the world’s workers out of work, he ventures: “To ensure society’s wellbeing in the future, we may need to place limits on automation.” Ideas of progress may have to change, he adds: today’s blinkered celebration of all forms of progress would need to be replaced by a more sophisticated approach that takes into account the social and personal consequences.
相反，我们只能寄望于这样一种信念，即当前的技术进步浪潮引发的社会压力会迫使人们做出反应。在考虑了让全世界劳动者失业的种种可怕后果之后，作者在离全书结尾仅剩4页时大胆提出：“要确保未来社会的健康，我们或许需要对自动化加以限制。”进步的概念或许也需要改变，他补充道：我们应该用一种更成熟的态度看待技术进步，将社会和个人影响纳入考虑，而不是像现今这样对任何形式的技术进步都盲目加以赞扬。
How to achieve a more balanced view of progress when all of today’s incentives are geared towards an ever-faster cycle of invention and deployment of new technologies? There is no room for an answer in this wide-ranging book. As ever, though, Carr’s skill is in setting the debate running, not finding answers.
眼下，所有的激励措施都在推动新技术的发明和应用周期加快，如何在这种情况下实现更全面地看待技术进步？这本书谈到了太多问题，限于篇幅，无法为这一个问题找到答案。不过，卡尔的长项一直都是挑起辩论，而不是找到答案。
The Glass Cage: Where Automation Is Taking Us, by Nicholas Carr, Bodley Head RRP£20/WWNorton RRP$26.95, 288 pages
《身处自动化的玻璃牢笼》(The Glass Cage: Where Automation Is Taking Us)，尼古拉斯•卡尔(Nicholas Carr)著，288页，建议零售价20英镑（Bodley Head出版社）或26.95美元（WWNorton出版社）