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Lately, I have been experimenting with artificial intelligence image-generating programs. Their power is astonishing. They’re not just good at the technical aspect of creating “art” but appear to be genuinely creative, producing works that not only match the competence of a highly skilled artist but that can be surprising, interesting, and even beautiful.
最近，我一直在尝试使用人工智能图像生成程序。 它们的力量是令人惊讶的。 它们不仅擅长创造 “艺术”的技术层面，而且似乎是真正的创造性，产生的作品不仅符合高度熟练的艺术家的能力，而且可能是令人惊讶的、有趣的，甚至是美丽的。
Of course, everything still depends on the human who is entering the prompt to tell the AI what to do. But nobody who sees these things in action can doubt that we’re entering a very strange new era in which a great deal that could be done by hand will soon be automated.
当然，一切仍然取决于进入提示的人类，告诉人工智能该怎么做。 但是，看到这些东西在行动的人都不会怀疑，我们正在进入一个非常奇怪的新时代，在这个时代，大量可以由人工完成的事情很快就会被自动化。
Many artists are up in arms about the new AI programs — and with good reason. Some are furious that their works have been used as training data without their permission. Others fear that corporate clients will simply turn to machines to do the work that used to be done by human hands. AI is causing the cost of image generation to plummet. In a capitalist economy, where everyone depends for survival on the value of their labor in the marketplace, a massive drop in the value of a skill will cause widespread suffering.
许多艺术家对新的人工智能程序大为不满–而且有充分的理由。 一些人对他们的作品未经许可被用作训练数据感到愤怒。 其他人则担心，企业客户将简单地转向机器来做过去由人工完成的工作。 人工智能正在使图像生成的成本急剧下降。 在资本主义经济中，每个人的生存都依赖于他们在市场上的劳动价值，一项技能的价值大幅下降将引起广泛的痛苦。
Art is far from the only domain about to be transformed by generative AI. Paralegals, programmers, market researchers, customer-service agents, financial analysts, and many other professions are at risk of seeing much of their work automated in the near future. OpenAI’s hugely successful ChatGPT not only writes bad jokes and slightly better poetry but is even helping to write published research papers. The models are only getting better, too. The newly released GPT4 is already being used to write whole books.
艺术远不是即将被生成性人工智能改变的唯一领域。 律师助理、程序员、市场研究人员、客户服务人员、金融分析师和许多其他职业都有可能在不久的将来看到他们的大部分工作被自动化。 OpenAI大获成功的ChatGPT不仅能写出糟糕的笑话和稍好的诗歌，甚至还能帮助写出发表的研究论文。 这些模型也只会越来越好。 新发布的GPT4已经被用来编写整本书。
The powers of this new technology are frightening. Scammers are already using the ability to generate realistic “deepfakes” to fool people into thinking their relatives are asking them for money. Credible-looking misinformation can now be produced at lightning speed, an especially unfortunate development at a time when we lack trusted media institutions.
这项新技术的力量是令人恐惧的。 骗子们已经在利用这种能力来生成逼真的 “深层假象”，骗取人们的信任，以为他们的亲戚在向他们要钱。 看起来可信的错误信息现在可以以闪电般的速度产生，在我们缺乏可信赖的媒体机构的时候，这是一个特别不幸的发展。
While Noam Chomsky, Gary Marcus, Erik J. Larson, and others have produced convincing arguments that the fear of artificial “superintelligence” coming in the near term is overstated, there are all kinds of ways in which the technology as it already exists can wreak havoc on society.
虽然诺姆-乔姆斯基（Noam Chomsky）、加里-马库斯（Gary Marcus）、埃里克-J-拉森（Erik J. Larson）和其他人提出了令人信服的论点，即对近期内即将到来的人工 “超级智能”的恐惧被夸大了，但现有的技术有各种方式可以对社会造成严重破坏。
People are right to be terrified of the disruptions that AI might cause within our lifetimes. But when we think about what those disruptions actually are, it’s clear that the main problem is not actually the development of the technology itself. Introduced under a different economic and political system, few of the risks would be so grave.
人们对人工智能在我们一生中可能造成的破坏感到恐惧是对的。 但是，当我们思考这些破坏究竟是什么时，很明显，主要问题实际上不是技术本身的发展。 在一个不同的经济和政治体系下引入，很少有风险会如此严重。
The problem is that new generative AI is being introduced into a capitalist society that is ill-equipped to handle it.
问题是，新的生成性人工智能正在被引入一个没有能力处理它的资本主义社会。
Artists, for example, are mostly not afraid of AI because they fear having a machine be better at art. Chess players didn’t stop playing chess when the computer program Deep Blue beat grandmaster Garry Kasparov. And if art is made for pleasure and self-expression, it doesn’t matter what anyone else can do.
例如，艺术家们大多不害怕人工智能，因为他们害怕让机器在艺术方面做得更好。 当计算机程序 “深蓝”击败特级大师加里-卡斯帕罗夫时，国际象棋选手并没有停止下棋。 而且，如果艺术是为了快乐和自我表达，其他人能做什么并不重要。
AI generated illustration for the front cover of a sci-fi book. (Courtesy of Nathan Robinson)
人工智能生成的科幻书封面插图。 (由Nathan Robinson提供)
The problem is that, in our world, artists have to make a living through their art by selling it, and so they have to think about its market value. We’re introducing a technology that can utterly wreck people’s livelihoods, and in a free-market economic system, if your skills decline in value, you’re screwed.
问题是，在我们的世界里，艺术家必须通过出售他们的艺术来谋生，因此他们必须考虑其市场价值。 我们正在引入一种可以彻底破坏人们生计的技术，而在一个自由市场经济体系中，如果你的技能价值下降，你就完蛋了。
It’s interesting that we talk about jobs being “at risk” of being automated. Under a socialist economic system, automating many jobs would be a good thing: another step down the road to a world in which robots do the hard work and everyone enjoys abundance. We should be able to be excited if legal documents can be written by a computer. Who wants to spend all day writing legal documents? But we can’t be excited about it, because we live under capitalism, and we know that if paralegal work is automated, that’s over three hundred thousand people who face the prospect of trying to find work knowing their years of experience and training are economically useless.
有趣的是，我们谈论工作有被自动化的 “风险”。 在社会主义经济体系下，许多工作的自动化将是一件好事：在通往机器人做艰苦工作、人人享受富足的世界的道路上又迈出了一步。 如果法律文件可以由计算机来写，我们应该能够感到兴奋。 谁愿意整天写法律文件？ 但我们不能为此感到兴奋，因为我们生活在资本主义制度下，我们知道，如果律师助理的工作被自动化，那将有超过三十万人面临着试图找到工作的前景，因为他们多年的经验和培训在经济上是无用的。
Luddism is a rational approach to automation in a capitalist society. If machines threaten your job, fight the machines. Even a reactionary like Tucker Carlson has said that politicians should intervene to stop automation, for example, by banning self-driving trucks, because having millions of people thrown out of work would cause too much social disruption. But that solution is absurd: Why would we have people do needless labor that could be done by robots? Truck drivers have their health destroyed and don’t get to see their families for long stretches of time. Even when a machine could do the hard work instead, we’re going to make people do it?
卢德主义是资本主义社会中对自动化的一种理性态度。 如果机器威胁到你的工作，就与机器斗争。 甚至像塔克-卡尔森这样的反动分子也说过，政治家应该干预阻止自动化，例如，禁止自动驾驶卡车，因为让数百万人失去工作会造成太大的社会混乱。 但这种解决方案是荒谬的： 我们为什么要让人们从事可以由机器人完成的无谓劳动？ 卡车司机的健康被破坏了，而且长期不能与家人见面。 即使机器可以代替他们做这些艰苦的工作，我们还要让人去做吗？
We can expand our imagination far further than Carlson’s. What if finding out that your job could be automated was a thrill? What if it meant that a worker could be paid while the robot did the work? How about this: once the job that you train for is automated, you get an automation pension and get to relax for the rest of your life. Everyone will be praying their job is next on the list to go.
我们可以把我们的想象力扩展到比卡尔森的想象力更远。 如果发现你的工作可以被自动化是一种刺激呢？ 如果这意味着在机器人完成工作的同时，工人可以得到报酬呢？ 不如这样：一旦你培训的工作被自动化，你就会得到自动化的养老金，并在余生中得到放松。 每个人都会祈祷自己的工作是名单上的下一个去处。
We shouldn’t have to fear AI. Frankly, I’d love it if a machine could edit magazine articles for me and I could sit on the beach. But I’m afraid of it, because I make a living editing magazine articles and need to keep a roof over my head. If someone could make and sell an equally good rival magazine for close to free, I wouldn’t be able to support myself through what I do. The same is true of everyone who works for a living in the present economic system. They have to be terrified by automation, because the value of labor matters a lot, and huge fluctuations in its value put all of one’s hopes and dreams in peril.
我们不应该害怕人工智能。 坦率地说，如果机器可以为我编辑杂志文章，我就会很高兴，我就可以坐在沙滩上了。 但我害怕它，因为我以编辑杂志文章为生，需要维持一个屋顶。 如果有人能以接近免费的价格制作和销售同样优秀的对手杂志，我就无法通过我的工作来养活自己。 在目前的经济体系中，每个为生活而工作的人都是如此。 他们必须对自动化感到恐惧，因为劳动力的价值非常重要，其价值的巨大波动使一个人的所有希望和梦想处于危险之中。
Most of the other problems AI could cause really boil down to problems of the way power and wealth are apportioned in our existing society. Because the world is organized into militarized nation-states, we have to worry that AI technology will be used in terrifying new superweapons. Because we let scams and fraud flourish in our Wild West economy, we will see a lot of people get rich using AI to prey on hapless consumers. The profit motive is already socially destructive, but AI will make it much worse, because it will allow companies to figure out how to more efficiently trick and exploit people. The new technologies are being developed by private corporations that have no incentive to ensure that a benefit to them is a benefit to all.
人工智能可能导致的大多数其他问题实际上可以归结为我们现有社会中权力和财富分配方式的问题。因为世界被组织成军事化的民族国家，我们不得不担心人工智能技术会被用于可怕的新超级武器。因为我们让诈骗和欺诈在我们狂野的西部经济中盛行，我们将看到很多人利用人工智能来掠夺无助的消费者而致富。利益动机已经具有社会破坏性，但人工智能将使它变得更加糟糕，因为它将使公司能够找出如何更有效地欺骗和剥削人们。新技术是由私人公司开发的，它们没有动力确保对它们的好处是对所有人的好处。
We need to be clear on the source of the problems with AI. They are real and will accelerate the crisis that socialists are devoted to helping humanity solve. But the problem is not technology itself. Technology should be a tool for liberation. Unless we transform the economic system, however, it will be a tool for ever greater exploitation and predation.
我们需要清楚人工智能的问题来源。 它们是真实的，并将加速社会主义者致力于帮助人类解决的危机。 但问题不在于技术本身。 技术应该是一种解放的工具。 然而，除非我们改造经济体系，否则它将成为越来越大的剥削和掠夺的工具。