Barack Obama had a parting shot for his successor this week. A day before Donald Trump¹ predicted he would be “the greatest jobs producer that God ever created”, the outgoing US president appeared like the ghost at the feast, warning of “the relentless² pace of automation that will make many jobs obsolete⁴”.

巴拉克?奥巴马(Barack Obama)给他的继任者留下了一句临别赠语。在唐纳德?特朗普(Donald Trump)预言自己将成为“上帝创造的最伟大的就业制造者”一天前，离任的美国总统似乎像是宴会上的幽灵，警告称“自动化的无情步伐将淘汰很多就业岗位”。

It is at least possible that both will be proved right. Automation has been a constant for decades, and the latest advances in robotics and artificial intelligence all but guarantee that the pace will accelerate. But timing⁵ is all. For companies and their investors⁶ — no less than for politicians — the key question is not “whether”, but “when”.

这两种说法至少都可能被证明为正确。几十年来，自动化一直是个常数，而机器人和人工智能领域的最新进展基本上确保了其应用速度将加快。但关键在于时机。对于公司及其投资者（对于政治人士也是如此）而言，关键问题不是“是否”，而是“何时”。、

For society at large, the pace of automation will determine how easily the displacement⁷ of workers can be handled — and whether the political backlash grows worse. The pace is equally important for the companies trying to push the latest robots and smart machines into the real world, and their investors. Few are in the position of Google parent Alphabet, which has taken the long view on bets like driverless cars — and even Alphabet these days has a new sense of impatience⁸ about when it will see returns from “moonshots” like this.

对于整个社会而言，自动化的步伐将决定应对工人失业的难度有多大，以及政治反弹会否加剧。对于那些试图将最新机器人和智能设备推向真实世界的公司及其投资者而言，自动化的步伐同样重要。几乎无人处在谷歌(Google)母公司Alphabet那样的位置上，该公司对押注于自动驾驶汽车等领域持长远眼光，但如今就连Alphabet也开始对这样的“登月式项目”何时带来回报感到不耐烦。

The variables that will affect the rate of adoption⁹ are huge. In a new report on automation this week, McKinsey estimates that half of all the tasks people perform at work could be automated¹¹ using technologies that have already been proven. But this estimate gives no clue about how long it will take.

影响普及速度的变量很多。在有关自动化的一份最新报告中，麦肯锡(McKinsey)估计，在人们从事的所有工作中，有一半可以通过已得到验证的技术被自动化。但这个估计没有说明整个过程需要多长时间。

Given the uncertainties¹² about everything from regulation to the ability of companies to change their processes, the consultants¹³ estimate it could take anything from 20 to 60 years. Try building an investment model with that level of variability. Take the case for autonomous¹⁴ cars and trucks. Much of the technology has already been demonstrated, and the potential markets — for both vehicle makers¹⁵ and tech suppliers — are vast. But will it take five, 10 or 30 years for this to become a significant market?

考虑到各种不确定性（从监管到企业改变流程的能力），咨询顾问们估计，这可能需要20年至60年。试着根据那种程度的变异性来构建一个投资模型吧。以自动驾驶汽车和卡车为例。很多技术已得到验证，而潜在市场（对于汽车制造商和科技供应商而言）是巨大的。但是，要让它变成一个可观的市场，需要5年、10年还是30年？

Car companies are already spending hundreds of millions of dollars on building driverless car platforms. At this month’s Consumer Electronics Show and Detroit Auto³ Show, it was clear that driverless technology has graduated from the experimental: carmakers are now racing¹⁶ to bring this technology to the roads. The biggest companies are able to amortise this cost over a large vehicle fleet, but the increasing level of technology in vehicles will challenge many of the industry’s smaller players.

汽车制造商已投入数亿美元打造无人驾驶汽车平台。在本月的拉斯维加斯消费电子展(Consumer Electronics Show)和底特律车展(Detroit Auto Show)上，无人驾驶技术显然已摆脱实验阶段：汽车制造商正竞相把这项技术推向道路。最大的公司有能力将研发成本分摊在较大的车辆保有量上，但汽车的技术含量越来越高，将让该行业很多规模较小的参与者面临挑战。

Companies like Audi talk of autonomy as a progression. It says 60 per cent of new car buyers already opt¹⁰ to pay $3,000-$6,000 for features like automated acceleration¹⁷ and braking. Those customers might reasonably be expected to keep paying up for additional levels of safety and convenience. The shift from cars that stay in their lanes automatically to hands-off-the-wheel driving might turn out to be a smooth — and profitable — evolution.

奥迪(Audi)等公司将自动化称为一种进展。该公司表示，60%的新车买家已选择支付3000至6000美元添加自动加速和刹车功能。可以合理地指望这些消费者为更高水平的安全和便利付出更高价格。从汽车自动保持在自己的车道上，到开车不用手握方向盘，这一转变可能会是一场平稳（且有利可图）的演变。

But the strongest business case for driverless cars comes from the more radical¹⁸, all-or-nothing step of eradicating¹⁹ the need for human drivers. In a report on automation’s impact on the economy late last month, the White House said that most of today’s 1.7m drivers of heavy trucks in the US are likely to be replaced — though it added that “it may take years or decades” for this to happen.

但无人驾驶汽车的最强大商业理由来自于更为彻底的、要么全有要么全无的一步：消除对人类驾驶员的需要。在上月末一份有关自动化对经济影响的报告中，白宫表示，目前美国的170万重型卡车司机中，多数人很可能会被取代，尽管该报告补充称，这“可能需要几年甚至几十年”才会发生。

There are some very practical considerations. As Michael Chui, a partner at McKinsey, points out it is vastly expensive to replace the estimated 2m heavy trucks on US roads, with an average lifespan of 20 years. Even without new driverless technology, McKinsey estimates it would cost $320bn. But there are likely to be specific investment cases for speedier adoption. Long-haul routes are the low-hanging fruit of trucking. Platooning, in which trucks form a convoy²⁰ behind a lead truck driven by a human, could bring a form of supervised automation. Although the long tail of automation may take decades, the market for early adopters could still be vast.

有一些非常实际的考量。正如麦肯锡合伙人迈克尔?崔(Michael Chui)指出的那样，更换目前在美国道路上行驶的大约200万辆重型卡车成本极其高昂，这些卡车的平均寿命为20年。麦肯锡估计，即便没有新的无人驾驶技术，更换成本就将高达3200亿美元。但很可能会有加快采用新技术的特定投资理由。长途路线是卡车运输领域最容易摘取的果实。车辆结队（Platooning，多辆卡车在由人类驾驶的领头卡车后面组成一个车队）可能带来一种受到监控的自动化形式。尽管自动化的长尾效应可能耗时几十年，但早期采用者的市场仍可能巨大。

Rather than wiping out jobs immediately, progressive automation might make the lives of today’s truckers more comfortable and then make up for an expected driver shortage in the mid term, before eliminating jobs eventually. This prospect²¹ represents the rosy²² scenario²³ for the companies leading the AI and robotics charge. But as today’s turbulent political climate shows, they would be foolish to count on such a smooth transition.

渐进自动化不会立即消灭就业岗位，而是可能会先让卡车司机的日子更舒适，然后在中期弥补司机数量的短缺，最终才会消除这些就业岗位。这种前景为那些引领人工智能和机器人潮流的公司描绘了一副美好的愿景。但就像当今动荡不安的政治气候所显示的那样，指望如此平稳的过渡将是愚蠢的。