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Are we nearing a dramatic moment in economic history? Before humans developed agriculture, the world population — and thus the world economy — doubled in size roughly every 250,000 years. After acquiring the power of agriculture, the world economy doubled in size roughly every 900 years. After the industrial revolution, growth accelerated again, and since the second world war the world economy has been doubling in size roughly every 15 years. These numbers have been collated by Robin Hanson, an economist at George Mason University in Virginia; they are based on educated guesses by various economic historians.
我们正接近经济史上的戏剧性一幕么？在人类发展农业以前，全球人口（以及世界经济规模）大约每25万年增长一倍。而在人类获得农业生产的力量之后，全球经济规模大约每900年增长一倍。工业革命之后，全球经济增长再次加速。而自二战以来全球经济大约每15年增长一倍。上述数据是由弗吉尼亚州乔治梅森大学(George Mason University)的经济学家罗宾汉森(Robin Hanson)整理的，基于多位经济史学家给出的有历史依据的估计。
If another step change of a similar scale were to happen, the world economy would double in size between now and Christmas. That is hard to imagine but, before the industrial revolution happened, it too would have been hard to imagine. And a small band of believers, not short on imagination, look forward to an economic “singularity”. Hanson is one of them, and the computer scientist Ray Kurzweil, author of The Singularity Is Near, is perhaps the most famous.
如果再发生类似程度的阶跃式变革，全球经济或许会在现在到圣诞节这段时间里增长一倍。这一点虽然很难想象，但在工业革命发生前，一切也很难想象。这一场景的少数不乏想象力的信徒，期冀出现一种经济上的“奇点”。汉森就是他们中的一个，而计算机科学家、《奇点临近》(The Singularity Is Near)一书的作者雷錠日韦尔(Ray Kurzweil)也许是他们中最有名的一位。
The singularity would be a point at which, rather than humans developing new technologies, the new technologies developed themselves. They would do so at a rate far beyond our comprehension. After the singularity, our civilisation would be in the hands of cyborgs, or brains uploaded into the cloud, or genetically enhanced superbeings, or something else able to make itself smarter at a tremendous rate. The future economy might consist of rapid interactions between artificial intelligences. The idea that it might double in size every few weeks no longer seems quite so unimaginable.
奇点是这样一个时间点，即不再是由人类开发新技术，而是新技术本身会开发新技术。它们会以一种远超我们想象的速度开发新技术。在奇点之后，我们的文明会被置于半机械人、或上传到云端的大脑、或基因强化的超级生物、或别的什么能极快提升自身智力的东西控制之下。未来的经济可能由人工智能之间的快速互动组成。全球经济每过几周就可能增长一倍的想法，不再看上去那么不可想象了。
But it is one thing to imagine such a future. It is another thing to have confidence that it is approaching. Many economists point out that productivity growth has been sluggish for a long time, which hardly seems to be a precursor to a transformative economic take-off. Growth in advanced economies, far from accelerating, seems to require extraordinary stimulus to prevent it from stopping altogether. Other economists are more bullish, reminding us of a basic fact about the rapid exponential growth in computing power: if it continues, then by definition growth in the future will dwarf growth in the past.
不过，想象这样的未来是一回事，相信这样的未来正在到来则是另一回事。许多经济学家指出，生产率增长乏力已有很长一段时间了，这似乎很难被看作变革性经济起飞的前奏。发达经济体的经济增长远远不是加速前进，反而似乎需要额外的刺激才能防止它完全停顿下来。其他经济学家则更乐观一些，提醒我们这样一个基本事实，即计算机的计算能力正在飞速地呈指数增长：如果这种增长持续下去，那么从定义上说，未来的经济增速将令过去的增长相形见绌。
Recently, the economist William Nordhaus published a research paper that aims to adjudicate on this debate. Nordhaus proposes a series of tests that we could use to spot an imminent singularity, looking for evidence that either the productive forces of the economy, or the goods that we enjoy consuming, are being transformed by computing.
最近，经济学家威廉蘒德豪斯(William Nordhaus)发表了一篇旨对这一争论做出裁决的研究论文。诺德豪斯提出了一系列我们可以用来发现即将来临的奇点的测试方案，借此寻找证据证明，计算能力或者改变了经济的生产力，或者改变了我们在享用的商品。
Nordhaus’s first test is on the demand side. Is it likely that singularity-prone products such as games, films and computers will eventually absorb most of our spending?
诺德豪斯的第一个测试是针对需求端。游戏、电影和电脑等容易出现奇点的产品是否有可能最终吸走我们的大多数开支？
So far, the answer seems to be no. The proportion of spending on such products is falling because their price is collapsing. If this trend continues, limitless digital goods will be the intricate icing on a stodgy economic cake. Our economy will move at the pace of the slowest sectors, and we will be chained to productivity improvements in mundane products such as food, shelter and transportation. After all, we cannot eat smartphone apps.
到目前为止，对这个问题的答案似乎是否定的。由于价格暴跌，对这类产品的开支所占的比例正在下滑。如果这种趋势持续下去，无限的数字化商品将成为经济大蛋糕上精美的糖霜。我们的经济增长速度将会与增长最缓慢的部门一致，我们将受到食品、住房和交通等普通产品生产率改善幅度的束缚。毕竟，智能手机应用又不能当饭吃。
Perhaps, instead, computing will revolutionise how we produce these mundane products. An obvious second test, then, is to ask whether US productivity is accelerating. It isn’t.
或许，计算能力真正引起革命的领域是我们如何生产这些普通产品。那么，第二项测试显然就是，美国的生产率是否正在加速提高。答案是否定的。
Other tests look at the importance of investment goods in the economy. If the singularity is approaching, one might expect them to become very cheap and to dominate economic output. Are the average prices of investment goods — which include computers and software but also buildings and machinery — falling relative to wages at an accelerating rate? The answer, again, is no. What about the stock of capital relative to US economic output — is it rapidly rising? No.
其他测试则考察经济中投资品的重要性。如果奇点正在来临，人们或许可以预计的是，投资品会变得非常廉价并决定着经济产出。投资品（既包括计算机和软件，也包括建筑物和机械）的平均价格相对于工资正在加速下跌么？答案又是否定的。那么，相对美国经济产出而言，资本存量的变化如何，是在快速上升么？答案也是否定的。
So far there is not much sign of a singularity in the data. But a couple of tests do point in that direction. For example, the share of US national income accruing to capital rather than labour is increasing, albeit at a modest pace. That is what one might expect as the robots march into human affairs. And within the capital stock, the share of information assets such as software and intellectual property is increasing, although it is still only 6 or 7 per cent of the total. Nordhaus argues that these two tests suggest a singularity is many decades away; his other tests all point in the wrong direction entirely.
到目前为止，这些数据中找不到多少奇点来临的迹象。不过，确实有几项测试显示了这个趋势。比如，美国国民收入流向资本而不是劳动力的比例在增加，尽管速度不是很快。这是机器人向人类事务进军时预计会见到的现象。而在资本存量中，软件和知识产权等信息资产的比例正在增加——尽管这一比例仍只有6%或7%。诺德豪斯认为，这两个测试意味着奇点还有好几十年才会到来。而他的其他测试全都指向彻底相反的方向。
At this point the pro-singularity crowd might complain that conventional economic statistics do a poor job of measuring some of the new products and services. A mobile phone, for example, comes bundled with dozens of free products — a flashlight, satnav, an alarm clock and much more.
说到这里，相信奇点来临的人群也许会抱怨说，常规经济统计在衡量部分新产品和服务方面做得并不好。比如，手机会捆绑数十种免费产品：手电筒、卫星导航、闹钟等等。
All this Nordhaus acknowledges — he is, it so happens, one of the world’s leading authorities on measuring the value of goods that conventional statistics miss. He ponders various back-of-the-envelope measures — for example, the amount of time that people spend consuming digital goods such as email. But none of these efforts suggests anything transformative yet.
对于这一切诺德豪斯也都承认。不过，对于衡量常规统计失效的商品价值，诺德豪斯碰巧也是全球顶尖的权威之一。他构想了各种不同的粗略估算方法——比如人们用于消费电子邮件等数字化商品的时间。然而所有这一切都还没有显示出任何变革性的迹象。
Perhaps this is complacency. In the movies, the robot takeover tends to be rather sudden. Perhaps cyborgs have kidnapped the real Nordhaus and are using his name to spread disinformation. It is more likely, though, that the singularity is not near.
或许这是人类的一种自满。按照电影里说的，机器人占领世界往往会相当突然地发生。也许半机械人已绑架了真正的诺德豪斯，现在正以他的名义扩散误导信息。不过，更有可能的是，奇点离我们还远着呢。
