巴菲特谈AI对人类社会的影响 — 文稿

M10:00

你好，Warren。

Hi, Warren.

这个问题挺有意思的。

This one's a fun one.

Thomas Kamay 今天也来了。

Thomas Kamay is here.

他是一位二十七岁的股东，来自加利福尼亚州 Kentfield。

He's a 27-year-old shareholder from Kentfield, California.

在问这个问题之前，我得先说一下，他十七年前也来过这里。

And I should preface this question by saying that he was here 17 years ago.

那时他十岁，在观众席向你提问，问互联网会不会伤害 Berkshire 的一些投资。

At 10 years old, he asked you a question from the audience, asking you if the internet might hurt some of Berkshire's investments.

当时你说，你想先看看事情会怎么发展。

At the time, you said you wanted to see how things would play out.

现在他更新了这个问题。

He's now updated the question.

除了你已经谈过的自动驾驶和 GEICO 之外，你怎么看 artificial intelligence 对 Berkshire 旗下业务的影响？

What do you think about the implications of artificial intelligence on Berkshire's businesses beyond autonomous driving and GEICO, which you've talked about already?

你和 Bill Gates 交流时，有没有想过，还有哪些业务会受到最大的影响？

In your conversations with Bill Gates, have you thought through which other businesses will be most impacted?

还有，你觉得十年后，受 artificial intelligence 的影响，Berkshire 现有业务的员工人数会显著增加，还是显著减少？

And do you think Berkshire's current businesses will have significantly more or fewer employees a decade from now as a function of artificial intelligence?

嗯，我把几个问题混到一起了。

Well, I've mixed a couple questions together.

M20:52

对。

Yeah.

我当然没有什么关于 artificial intelligence 的特别见解，但我敢打赌，未来二十年，甚至可能在更短的时间里，这个领域会发生很多事。

I certainly have no special insights on artificial intelligence, but I will bet a lot of things happen in that field in the next couple of decades, and probably in a shorter time frame.

我当然认为，它们会让某些领域的就业人数显著减少，但话说回来，在这件事上我也没什么特别高明的看法。

They should lead to, I would certainly think, significantly less employment in certain areas, but again, I don't bring much to this party.

但这对社会是好事。

But that's good for society.

对某一家具体企业来说，未必是好事，不过我们把它推到极端来想。

And it may not be good for a given business, but let's take it to the extreme.

假设一个人只要按一下按钮，基本上就能通过各种机器、robotics，还有各种各样的东西，产出这个国家现在拥有的全部产出。

Let's assume one person could push a button and essentially, through various machines, robotics, all kinds of things, turn out all of the output we have in this country.

也就是说，大家拥有的产出总量和现在一样多。

So everybody's—there's just as much output as we have.

所有这些都由一个人完成，而不是由一亿五千多万人就业来完成。那这个世界到底会不会变得更好？

It's all being done by, you know, instead of 150-some million people being employed, uh, one person. You know, is the world better off or not?

嗯，这肯定意味着每周的工作时间会更少，诸如此类。

Well, it certainly would involve fewer hours of work per week, and so on.

我的意思是，这会是一件好事，但它要求人们彼此之间的关系、他们对政府的期待，还有各种各样的事情，都发生巨大的转变。

I mean, it would be a good thing, but it would require enormous transformation in how people relate to each other, what they expect of government, you know, all kinds of things.

当然，从实际情况来说，继续工作的人肯定不止一个。

And of course, as a practical matter, more than one person would keep working.

但沿着这个思路推下去，你肯定会认为，这就是 artificial intelligence 取得巨大进展可能带来的后果之一。

But pushing the idea that way is one of the—you'd certainly think that's one of the consequences of making great progress in artificial intelligence.

从长远来看，这对社会极其有利。

And that's enormously pro-social eventually.

但从其他方面看，它也极具颠覆性，而且对民主制度以及民主制度如何应对它，可能会带来巨大的问题。

It's enormously disruptive in other ways, and it can have huge problems in terms of a democracy and how it reacts to that.

这和我们在贸易上遇到的问题很相似。

It's similar to the problem we have in trade.

贸易对社会有益，但那些每天从贸易中获益的人，在 Walmart 买袜子，或者买其他进口商品时，看不到价格标签上写着：你现在付的是 X；但如果你买国产的，就得付 X 再加上若干美分。

Where trade is beneficial to society, but the people that see the benefits day by day from trade don't see a price at Walmart on socks or whatever they're importing that says, you know, you're buying—you’re paying X, but you would pay X plus so many cents if you bought this domestically.

所以，他们获得的是这些小小的、看不见的好处。

So they're getting these small benefits and invisible benefits.

而那个受到伤害的人，也就是自由贸易下被碾过去的人，会非常具体地感受到这种伤害。

And the guy that gets hurt by it, who's the roadkill of free trade, feels it very specifically.

这也会影响到政治。

And that translates into politics.

所以，在我看来，如果生产率大幅提高，世界会如何适应，就会变得非常不确定。

And so you can—it gets very uncertain as to how the world would adjust, in my view, to great increases in productivity.

虽然我对这方面一窍不通，但我觉得，人工智能可能会带来巨大的社会益处；不过，如果它发展得很快，我认为这是有可能的，那它在政治上产生的影响就会非常难以预测。

And without knowing a thing about it, I would think that artificial intelligence would have that hugely beneficial social effect, but a very unpredictable political effect if it came in fast, which I think it could.

M33:45

Charlie？

Charlie?

你描绘的是一个非常有意思的世界：每个人都在从事交易，而交易的内容是，我给你上高尔夫课，你帮我染头发。

Well, he—you're painting a very funny world where everybody's engaged in trade, and the trade is I give you golf lessons and you dye my hair.

那会是一个有点像科威特王室之类的世界。

And that would be a world kind of like the royal family of Kuwait or something.

我，我不觉得让一个人生产所有东西，而我们其他人只负责休闲娱乐，对美国来说会是件好事。

And I, I don't think it would be good for America to have everything produced by one person and the rest of us just engaged in leisure.

M24:10

那如果我们的生产率提高一倍呢？

How about if we just got twice as productive?

M34:12

什么？

What?

M24:13

如果我们的生产率在短时间内提高一倍，这样七千五百万人就能完成现在一亿五千万人所做的工作呢？

How about if we got twice as productive in a short period of time so that 75 million people could do what 150 million people are doing now?

M34:20

我想你会惊讶于人们对此作出反应的速度。

I think you'd be amazed how quickly people would react to that.

M24:24

会怎样反应？

In what way?

M34:24

积极地反应。

Favorably.

这正是那段时期发生的事情。大家都非常怀念艾森豪威尔时期，当时每年的增长率大概是百分之五什么的。

And that's what happened during the period, which everybody remembers with such affection, back in the Eisenhower years, 5% a year or something.

人们都很喜欢那样的日子。

People loved it.

没人会抱怨自己家里装上了空调，而以前没有。

Nobody complained that they were getting air conditioning and they didn't have it before.

也没人想回到美国南方那些又臭又热、满身是汗的夜晚。

Nobody wanted to go back to stinking, sweating nights in the South.

M24:48

如果你让所有人的工作时间都减半，那是一回事；但如果你解雇一半的人，剩下的人继续工作，那我觉得事情就会变得非常难以预测。

Well, if you cut everybody's hours in half, it's one thing, but if you fire half the people and the other people keep working—I just think it gets very unpredictable.

我的意思是，我觉得我们在这次选举中已经看到了一些类似的情况，因为我觉得——

I mean, I think we saw some of that in this election because I think that—.

M35:01

我们其实已经适应了其中相当大的一部分。

Well, we've adjusted to an enormous amount of it.

只是它每年以几个百分点的速度逐渐发生。

It just came along a few percent per year.

M25:07

那么问题就是，我们是不是需要担心——

Well, and the question then is, do we have to worry about—.

M35:10

我不觉得你需要担心它以每年百分之二十五的速度发展。

I don't think you have to worry about it coming on at 25% a year.

你知道，我觉得你真正需要担心的是，经济增长会低于每年百分之二。

You know, I think you have to worry about it, you're gonna get less than 2% a year.

那才是让人担心的地方。

That's what's worrisome.

M25:22

好，我们继续往下谈。

Okay, we'll move on.

不过，这确实是个非常引人入胜的话题，看看人工智能最终会发展成什么样。但如果你想一想，假设 GEICO 现在有三万六千名员工，而如果某种技术能够完成几乎所有同样的工作，甚至可以说几乎所有职能，却只需要五千人或一万人，那要预测接下来会发生什么，就会变得非常非常困难。

But it will be, you know, it's an absolutely fascinating subject to see what happens with this, but it gets very, very hard to predict if in some way, you know, we've got 36,000 people, say, employed at GEICO, you know, and, and, uh, if some—if you could perform all the same functions, virtually all the same functions even, and do it with 5,000 or 10,000 people.

而且这一变化来得很快，其他很多领域也在发生同样的事情。

And it came on quickly, and the same thing was happening in a great many other areas.

你知道，我觉得我们过去从来没有经历过完全类似的事情，也许未来我们也不会再遇到这样的情况。

You know, I don't think we've ever experienced anything quite like that, and maybe we won't experience anything like it in the future.

M36:03

我对人工智能了解得不多，但是，但是，我不觉得，我不觉得你需要担心那种情况。

I don't know that much about AI, but, but, uh, I don't think, I don't think you have to worry about that.

M26:08

嗯，那是因为我已经八十六岁了。

Well, that's because I'm 86.

M36:10

这不会来得那么快。

It's not going to come that quickly.

M26:14

好，Greg。

Okay, Greg.