Scientists have warned that rapid strides in the development of artificial intelligence and robotics threatens the prospect of mass unemployment, affecting everyone from drivers to sex workers.

科学家们警告称，人工智能和机器人技术的快步发展可能酿成大规模失业，影响从司机到性工作者的各行各业劳动者。

Intelligent machines will soon replace human workers in all sectors of the economy, senior computer scientists told the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Washington at the weekend.

周末在华盛顿举行的美国科学促进会(AAAS)会议上，资深计算机科学家表示，智能机器很快将在各个经济部门取代人类劳动者。

“We are approaching the time when machines will be able to outperform humans at almost any task,” said Moshe Vardi, computer science professor at Rice University in Texas. “Society needs to confront this question before it is upon us: if machines are capable of doing almost any work humans can do, what will humans do?

“我们正在接近这样一个时刻，机器将能够在几乎所有任务上超越人类，”德克萨斯州莱斯大学(Rice University)计算机科学教授摩西瓦迪(Moshe Vardi)表示，“在这个时刻来临之前，社会需要直面一个问题：如果人类能够做的工作，机器几乎都能够做，那么人类该做些什么？

“A typical answer is that we will be free to pursue leisure activities,” Prof Vardi said. “[But] I do not find the prospect of leisure-only life appealing. I believe that work is essential to human wellbeing.”

“一个典型的回答是，我们将自由地从事休闲活动，”瓦迪教授表示，“但是我不觉得只有休闲的人生前景有吸引力。我相信工作对于人类的福祉是不可或缺的。”

“AI is moving rapidly from academic research into the real world,” said Bart Selman, professor of computer science at Cornell University. “Computers are starting to ‘hear’ and ‘see’ as humans do... can start to move and operate among us autonomously.” He said companies such as Google, Facebook, IBM and Microsoft were scaling up investments in AI systems to billions of dollars a year.

“人工智能正从学术研究快速进入现实世界，”康奈尔大学(Cornell University)计算机科学教授巴特帠尔曼(Bart Selman)表示，“计算机正开始像人类一样‘听’和‘看’……系统可以自主地移动和操作，跻身于人类行列。”他表示，谷歌(Google)、Facebook、IBM以及微软(Microsoft)等公司纷纷加大对人工智能系统的投资，使其达到每年数十亿美元。

Professors Vardi and Selman said governments — and society as a whole — were not facing up to the acceleration of AI and robotics research. Prof Selman helped draft an open letter issued last year by the Future of Life Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, urging policymakers to explore the risks associated with increasingly intelligent machines.

瓦迪教授和塞尔曼教授都表示，政府以及整个社会没有正视人工智能和机器人研究的加速。塞尔曼教授去年曾帮助起草由马萨诸塞州剑桥的生命未来研究所(Future of Life Institute)发出的一封公开信，敦促政策制定者探察智能含量越来越高的机器所带来的风险。

Among the 10,000 or so signatories to the letter is Elon Musk, the tech entrepreneur whose company Tesla Motors has a large AI research programme aimed at developing self-driving cars.

这封公开信有大约1万人签名，包括高科技企业家埃隆氠斯克(Elon Musk)，他旗下的特斯拉汽车公司(Tesla Motors)有一个大规模人工智能研究项目，旨在开发自动驾驶汽车。

Mr Musk will fund research at Cornell University “on keeping AI beneficial to humans”, said Prof Selman. The project will predict whether and, if so when, “super-intelligence” — all-round superiority of machine to human intelligence — might be achieved.

塞尔曼教授说，马斯克将资助康奈尔大学以“确保人工智能造福于人类”为课题的研究。该项目将预测“超级智能”（机器相对于人类智慧的全方位优势）能否实现？如果答案是肯定的，它将在何时实现？

According to Prof Selman, one of the fastest advancing areas of AI is machine vision, and particularly facial recognition. “Facebook can recognise faces better than any of us,” he said. Machine vision is key to the self-driving vehicles that scientists predict will take over our roads in the next 25 years. Prof Vardi said automated driving would cut accidents by 90 per cent or more, compared with vehicles driven by error-prone people.

据塞尔曼教授介绍，人工智能进展最快的领域之一是机器视觉，尤其是人脸识别。“Facebook识别人脸的能力比任何人类都更好，”他说。机器视觉是自动驾驶汽车的关键；科学家们预测，此类车辆将在未来25年陆续上路。瓦迪教授称，相比容易出错的人类司机，自动驾驶将减少90%或更多的事故。

“With so many lives saved and injuries prevented, it would be hard morally for anyone to argue against it,” he said. Yet around 10 per cent of all US jobs involve driving a vehicle, he added, “and most of those will disappear”.

“如果能够拯救那么多人命，防止那么多受伤，反对者在道德上将会很难说得过去，”他说。然而，他补充说，美国10%左右的工作岗位涉及驾驶车辆，“这些工作岗位中的大多数将会消失”。

Prof Vardi said it would be hard to think of any jobs that would not be vulnerable to robotics and AI — even sex workers. “Are you going to bet against sex robots?” he asked. “I’m not.”

瓦迪教授称，面对日臻完善的机器人技术和人工智能，很难想象有任何工作不会面临消失风险，就连性工作者也不例外。“你会打赌性机器人不可能盛行吗？”他问道，“反正我不会。”