The concept of man versus machine is at least as old as the industrial revolution, but this phenomenon tends to be most acutely felt during economic downturns and fragile recoveries. And yet, it would be a mistake to think we are right now simply experiencing the painful side of a boom and bust cycle. Certain jobs have gone away for good, outmoded by machines. Since technology has such an insatiable appetite for eating up human jobs, this phenomenon will continue to restructure our economy in ways we can’t immediately foresee.
人机相争的概念至少可以追溯到工业革命时期，但是在经济下滑以及经济复苏的敏感时期，人们对这一现象的感受往往更为强烈。然而，认为我们当前正处于经济繁荣与萧条循环的痛苦阶段的这一想法并不正确。某些工作被机器所淘汰，已永久性消失。由于技术对吞噬人类工作的欲望是无穷尽的，所以该现象会继续以我们无法预见的方式重塑我们的经济结构。
This is a powerful argument, and a scary one. And yet, John Hagel, author of The Power of Pull and other books, says Brynjolfsson and McAfee miss the reason why these jobs are so vulnerable to technology in the first place.
这是一个强有力的观点，但同时也是一个让人感到恐慌的观点。然而，著有《拉动力》及其他作品的 John Hagel 认为 Erik Brynjolfsson 和 Andrew McAfee 忽略了这些工作在技术面前为什么如此脆弱的根本原因。
When there is exponential improvement in the price and performance of technology, jobs that were once thought to be immune from automation suddenly become threatened. This argument has attracted a lot of attention, via the success of the book Race Against the Machine, by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, who both hail from MIT’s Center for Digital Business.
随着成本的下降以及技术的改进，曾经不受自动化影响的工作如今也突然面临着威胁。来自麻省理工学院数学经济中心的 Erik Brynjolfsson 和 Andrew McAfee 合著了《与机器赛跑》一书，通过该书的热卖，上述观点已受到广泛的关注。
As Hagel notes, Brynjolfsson and McAfee indeed touched on this point in their book. We need to reframe race against the machine as race with the machine. In other words, we need to look at the ways in which machines can augment human labor rather than replace it. So then the problem is not really about technology, but rather, “how do we innovate our institutions and our work practices?”
Hagel 还指出，Brynjolfsson 和 McAfee 在他们的书中也确实提及这一点。我们需要把“与机器竞争”重新表述为“与机器一起赛跑”。换言之，我们需要看到机器提高人力的方面，而非取代人力。由此可见，问题确实不在于技术，而是相反，在于“我们该如何改进工作制度及工作方式”。
It’s time to reinvent the formula for how work is conducted, since we are still relying on a very 20th century notion of work, Hagel says. In our rapidly changing economy, we more than ever need people in the workplace who can take initiative and exercise their imagination “to respond to unexpected events.” That’s not something machines are good at. They are designed to perform very predictable activities.
Hagel 说，该是重新制定我们工作方式的时候了，这是因为目前我们仍然依赖着过去20世纪的工作理念。在经济形势瞬息万变的今天，我们比以往更加需要那些在工作中能够采取主动并发挥想象力去“应对突发情况”的人。这正是机器所不擅长的事情。它们是被设计来执行那些完全可预测的事情的。
Hagel says we have designed jobs in the U. S. that tend to be “tightly scripted” and “highly standardized” ones that leave no room for “individual initiative or creativity.” In short, these are the types of jobs that machines can perform much better at than human beings. That is how we have put a giant target sign on the backs of American workers, Hagel says.
Hagel 认为，在美国我们所设计的工作岗位是“严格照本宣科”以及“高度标准化”的，这样的岗位并没有给个人的主动性和创新性留有空间。简而言之，与人类相比，机器能够更为出色地完成这些工作。他同时指出，这就是我们如何为美国工人贴上了巨大的目标标签。
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