It has become customary to talk of “technology” as if it were a special sector¹ of the economy consisting of the manufacture of sophisticated electronic goods, the creation of software, and the provision of services reliant on information and communications technology.

如今人们习惯性地把“技术”说成一个特别的经济部门，包含精密电子产品制造、软件开发、以及提供依赖信息和通信技术的服务。

This is a ludicrously narrow definition. Every technique human beings have invented, from the stone axe² onwards, is “technology”. The ability of humans to invent technologies is their defining characteristic. Furthermore, new general purpose technologies, such as the computer and the internet, have effects that fall far outside the technology sector, narrowly defined.

这是一种狭窄得离谱的定义。从石斧开始，人类发明的每一种方法都是“技术”。发明技术的能力是人类的本质特征。此外，计算机和互联网等新型通用技术的影响范围远大于狭义的技术领域。

We need to assess contemporary innovations in their broader context. Here are seven points about these changes.

我们需要在更大背景下评估当代创新。以下是有关这些变化的7点。

First, the penetration³ of recent innovations in communications technology has been astonishingly rapid. At the end of 2015, there were more than 7bn mobile phone subscriptions⁴, a penetration rate of 97 per cent, up from around 10 per cent in 2000. Penetration of internet access grew from 7 per cent to 43 per cent over the same period. (See chart.)

首先，近期的通信技术创新渗透速度快得惊人。2015年末，移动手机订户超过了70亿，渗透率达到97%，远高于2000年的大约10%。同期互联网接入的渗透率从7%升至43%。（见图表）

Economically, this has led to the rise of ecommerce, the transformation⁵ of industries whose products can be converted into “bits" (music, film and news media, for example) and the rise of the “sharing economy”. Socially, it has altered human interactions. Politically, it has affected⁶ relationships between the rulers and the ruled.

在经济层面，这导致电子商务崛起、产品能够“比特化”（比如音乐、电影、新闻媒体）的行业发生转变、“共享经济”兴起。在社会层面，这改变了人际交往。在政治层面，这影响了统治者和被统治者之间的关系。

Second, a substantial “digital divide” exists. In 2015, 81 per cent of households in the developed world had internet access, the proportion in all developing countries was 34 per cent and the proportion for the least developed countries was a mere⁷ 7 per cent.

第二，存在一道深深的“数字鸿沟”。2015年，发达国家81%的家庭能够接入互联网，而所有发展中国家的互联网接入比例为34%，最不发达国家的接入比例仅为7%。

Information is power. It is not yet clear whether the rapid spread of access will prove more important than the persistent⁸ differences in its availability. But there is reason for optimism. The ability to leapfrog poor communication and financial networks has already transformed some developing countries.

信息就是力量。目前还不清楚，互联网接入的迅速普及会不会比互联网可用性方面的持久差异更重要。但我们有理由抱乐观态度。越过糟糕的通信和金融网络、实现跳跃式发展的能力已经转变了一些发展中国家。

Third, the arrival of the internet and mobile phones has failed to generate a sustained upturn⁹ in the growth of productivity. This is shown best by the US, the leader in the development of the new technologies and, for more than a century, the world’s most productive and innovative¹⁰ large economy.

第三，互联网和手机的普及并未带来生产率增速的持续提高。美国就是最好的例证。美国是新技术发展的领导者，而且在一个多世纪期间一直是世界上生产率最高、最创新的经济大国。

Output per hour worked in the US grew at rate of 3 per cent a year in the 10 years up to 1966, after which the growth rate declined, falling to just 1.2 per cent in the 10 years to the early 1980s. After the launch of the worldwide web, the moving average rose to 2.5 per cent in the 10 years to 2005. But it then fell to just 1 per cent in the decade to 2015.

在截至1966年的10年里，美国的每小时工作产出每年增长3%，其后增长率下降，在截至上世纪80年代初的10年里跌至1.2%。在万维网问世后，该增长率在截至2005年的10年里提高到2.5%。然后又在截至2015年的10年里降至1%。

A decomposition¹¹ of the sources of growth in productive capacity underlines the point. Over the 10 years up to and including 2015, the average growth of “total factor productivity” in the US — a measure of innovation — was only 0.3 per cent a year.

对生产力增长的来源进行解构突显了这一点。在截至2015年底的10年里，美国的“全要素生产率”（一种衡量创新的指标）平均每年只增长0.3%。

We should not be surprised. As Robert Gordon of Northwestern University argues, clean water, modern sewage, electricity, the telephone, the radio, the petroleum¹² industry, the internal combustion¹³ engine, the motor car and the aeroplane — all innovations of the late 19th and early 20th centuries — were far more transformative than the information technologies of the past 75 years.

我们不应感到惊讶。正如美国西北大学(Northwestern University)的罗伯特戈登(Robert Gordon)所指出的，清洁水、现代下水道、电力、电话、收音机、石油行业、内燃机、汽车以及飞机都是19世纪末到20世纪初问世的创新，它们带来的变革远远大于过去75年期间的信息技术。

Some argue, against this, that statisticians are failing to measure output correctly, partly by failing to capture free services, such as search, which generate vast unmeasured surplus value.

针对这一点，一些人主张，统计学家未能正确地衡量产出，部分原因是未能把搜索等免费服务计算在内，这些服务产生了未经测量的巨大剩余价值。

Yet it is not at all clear why statisticians should have suddenly lost their ability to measure the impact of new technologies in the early 2000s. Again, most new technologies have also generated vast unmeasured surplus value. Think of the impact of electric light on the ability to study.

然而，我们不清楚为何统计学家会在21世纪之初突然失去衡量新技术影响的能力。与上文阐述的道理一样，大多数新技术都会产生未经测量的巨大剩余价值。想想电灯对学习能力的影响吧。

Fourth, the new technologies have reinforced tendencies towards greater inequality, in at least three respects. One is the rise of “winner-takes-all” markets in which a few successful people, businesses and products dominate the world economy. Another is the rise of globalisation. A last is the explosion in financial trading and other rent-extracting financial activities.

第四，至少在三个方面，新技术加强了不平等扩大的趋势。第一是“赢者通吃”市场的崛起——少数成功人士、企业和产品主导了世界经济。第二是全球化的兴起。第三是金融交易和其它抽租金融活动的爆炸式增长。

Some argue that the arrival of robots and artificial intelligence will transform labour markets, rendering¹⁴ even quite sophisticated skills redundant¹⁵. This could, if true, generate divisions between the owners of the robots and the rest of the population as fundamental as those between landowners and landless labourers.

一些人主张，机器人和人工智能的出现将改变劳动力市场，使一些相当复杂的技能变得多余。若果真如此，这可能会使机器人的主人与其他人之间出现根本鸿沟，就像当年的地主和无地劳动者之间的鸿沟那样。

Sixth, the rise of global communications, of our reliance on cyberspace¹⁶, of behemoth technology-enabled corporations and of “big data” raises difficult questions about privacy, national security, the ability to tax and, more broadly about the relationship between governments, corporations and individuals.

第六，全球化通信的兴起、我们对网络空间的依赖上升、巨型技术公司的崛起和“大数据”的发展给隐私、国家安全、征税能力，以及更广义的政府、企业和个人之间的关系提出了许多棘手的问题。

Finally, the rise of pluralistic interactive¹⁷ media is affecting politics. Wider access to knowledge is a potential boon¹⁸. But the new technologies can also be used to disseminate¹⁹ lies, hatred²⁰ and stupidity.

最后，多元化的互动媒体的发展正在影响政治。更广泛的获取知识的途径是一个潜在的福音。但新技术也可能被用于散播谎言、仇恨和愚昧。

Technologies are tools. They offer opportunities and dangers. What we make of them is, as always, up to us.

技术是工具。它们提供机会，也暗藏危险。古往今来，我们如何利用技术始终取决于我们自己。