In 1955, Walter Reuther, head of the US car workers’ union, told of a visit to a new automatically operated Ford plant. Pointing to all the robots, his host asked: “How are you going to collect union dues from those guys?” Mr Reuther replied: “And how are you going to get them to buy Fords?” Automation is not new. Neither is the debate about its effects. How far, then, does what Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee call The Second Machine Age alter the questions or the answers?
1955年,美國汽車工會主席沃爾特?魯瑟(Walter Reuther)說起自己參觀福特(Ford)新開的自動化工廠的經歷。招待方指著一排排機器人問他:“你怎么向這些伙計收會費?”魯瑟答道:“你又怎么讓他們買福特汽車?”如今自動化已不是新鮮事物,關于其影響的辯論也由來已久。那么,在埃里克?布林約爾松(Erik Brynjolfsson)和安德魯?麥卡菲(Andrew McAfee)所說的《第二個機器時代》(The Second Machine Age)里,這一問一答將如何改寫呢?