數(shù)據(jù)民主的隱患

Justin Trudeau, prime minister of Canada, had a great line in his Davos speech last week: “The pace of change has never been this fast, and yet it will never be this slow again.”

加拿大總理賈斯廷•特魯多(Justin Trudeau)不久前在達(dá)沃斯(Davos)論壇發(fā)言時(shí)說(shuō)了句十分精辟的話：“改變從未如此之快，而且再也不會(huì)比今天更慢。”

For me, that was the key message of the World Economic Forum. The headlines may have talked about President Donald Trump’s “America first” speech, but the back story was the fragility of nation states in a time of technological change.

在我看來(lái)，這是本屆世界經(jīng)濟(jì)論壇(WEF)傳遞出的關(guān)鍵信息。雖然頭條新聞?wù)務(wù)摰目赡芏际敲绹?guó)總統(tǒng)唐納德•特朗普(Donald Trump)的“美國(guó)優(yōu)先”演說(shuō)，但背景故事卻是技術(shù)變革的時(shí)代各個(gè)民族國(guó)家的脆弱性。

The topic of “the digital economy and society” was the most popular this year at the WEF in terms of the number of sessions and social media buzz — and no wonder. The dirty secret of Davos is that the much-lauded “Fourth Industrial Revolution” — shorthand for the rise of ubiquitous automation, big data and artificial intelligence — is making most people less, not more, secure, at least in the short term.

“數(shù)字經(jīng)濟(jì)與社會(huì)”是今年世界經(jīng)濟(jì)論壇上最熱門(mén)的話題，不僅有很多分論壇討論這一話題，同時(shí)還在社交媒體上引發(fā)了熱議——這不足為奇。達(dá)沃斯骯臟的秘密是，備受贊頌的“第四次工業(yè)革命”——即對(duì)無(wú)處不在的自動(dòng)化、大數(shù)據(jù)和人工智能浪潮的簡(jiǎn)稱——這一趨勢(shì)至少在短期內(nèi)會(huì)使大多數(shù)人更危險(xiǎn)，而不是更安全。

The ability of a range of companies — in insurance, healthcare, retail and consumer goods — to personalise almost every kind of product and service based on data streams is not just a business model shift. It is a fundamental challenge to liberal democracy.

保險(xiǎn)、醫(yī)療、零售和消費(fèi)品行業(yè)的眾多企業(yè)能夠根據(jù)數(shù)據(jù)流個(gè)性化幾乎每一種產(chǎn)品和服務(wù)，這不僅僅是商業(yè)模式的轉(zhuǎn)變，也是對(duì)自由民主的一個(gè)根本性挑戰(zhàn)。

Consider the changes being wrought in the insurance business. For 200 years, it has been based on the notion of risk pooling: average the cost of insuring individual homes, cars and lives, and then divide the cost among the collective. In the age of data, insurance groups will be able to take information from tracking boxes in our cars or sensors embedded in our homes and use it to craft hyper-personalised policies.

試想一下保險(xiǎn)業(yè)正在發(fā)生的變化。200年來(lái)，保險(xiǎn)業(yè)的運(yùn)作一直是基于風(fēng)險(xiǎn)共擔(dān)的概念：計(jì)算個(gè)人住房、車(chē)輛或人壽保險(xiǎn)的平均成本，然后分給個(gè)體。數(shù)據(jù)時(shí)代，保險(xiǎn)集團(tuán)將能夠從我們車(chē)上的追蹤盒或安裝在我們家里的傳感器中獲取信息，并利用這些信息制定高度個(gè)性化的保單。

For example, you might be rewarded for putting a new plumbing system into your own old house (the sensors will measure how well it works), or stopping more quickly at red lights. But you might also be blamed when your 16-year-old puffs weed in his bedroom (smoke detectors will relay the message to your insurer in real time) or if you fail to shovel the snow off the front stoop before it ices up (now insurers could know exactly when and if you did, and limit their own risk of liability if a passer-by slips).

例如，如果你給自己的舊房子安了一套新的管道系統(tǒng)(傳感器將測(cè)量它的工作效果)，或在遇到紅燈時(shí)更快地停下，就可能獲得獎(jiǎng)勵(lì)。但如果你16歲的孩子在他的房間吸大麻(煙霧探測(cè)器會(huì)將信息實(shí)時(shí)傳遞給你的保險(xiǎn)公司)，或你沒(méi)能及時(shí)把門(mén)前的雪鏟掉、讓它結(jié)了冰(現(xiàn)在，你什么時(shí)候鏟雪和你鏟沒(méi)鏟雪保險(xiǎn)公司都能準(zhǔn)確地知道，并降低經(jīng)過(guò)的行人滑倒時(shí)他們承擔(dān)責(zé)任的風(fēng)險(xiǎn))，就可能算你的責(zé)任。

Of course, you’ll be able to opt in and out of all this, though probably not very transparently or cheaply (consider that on commercial platforms such as Facebook or Google, you basically have to forfeit your rights to use the product or service easily). But the more disturbing implication is that there may now be an uninsurable underclass who can no longer be floated by averaging. Who will insure them? Most likely subprime lenders or the state.

當(dāng)然，你可以對(duì)整個(gè)這種狀況選擇接受或拒絕，雖然這種選擇也許并不是很透明或者實(shí)惠(要知道，在像Facebook或谷歌(Google)這樣的商業(yè)平臺(tái)上，基本上你必須放棄你的權(quán)利，才能便捷地使用它們的產(chǎn)品或服務(wù))。但更令人不安的是，如今可能存在一個(gè)無(wú)法獲得保險(xiǎn)的下層階級(jí)，這些人無(wú)法再享有平均帶來(lái)的好處。誰(shuí)將給他們投保?很可能是次貸提供機(jī)構(gòu)或政府。

Which brings up another dirty secret of the digital age. Just as the US government has for years subsidised low-cost retailers that do not pay their workers a living wage, so the government will probably be asked to underwrite the safety net for a new digital underclass.

由此引出了數(shù)字時(shí)代另一個(gè)骯臟的秘密。就像美國(guó)政府多年來(lái)一直補(bǔ)貼那些不向工人支付基本生活工資的低價(jià)零售商一樣，人們很可能要求政府為數(shù)字時(shí)代一個(gè)新的下層階級(jí)提供社會(huì)保障。

The problem is that the public sector does not have the capacity to do this. It is coping with trillions of dollars of debt that has been created since the financial crisis, not to mention more partisan politics that make it tough to create consensus on much of anything. As digital bifurcation grows, it is very likely that disenchantment with the state will increase as well, fuelling the vicious cycle of political disenchantment and dysfunctional economics.

問(wèn)題是公共部門(mén)沒(méi)有能力這樣做。它正在應(yīng)付金融危機(jī)以來(lái)產(chǎn)生的數(shù)萬(wàn)億美元的債務(wù)，更不用說(shuō)還有弄得任何事情都難以達(dá)成共識(shí)的黨派政治了。隨著數(shù)字時(shí)代分歧的加劇，人們對(duì)國(guó)家的失望情緒也很可能增加，從而助長(zhǎng)政治幻滅和經(jīng)濟(jì)狀況失衡的惡性循環(huán)。

The other risk is that rather than demanding more, not only of governments, but of the companies that are monetising our data, citizens will remain passive.

另一種風(fēng)險(xiǎn)是，公民將繼續(xù)保持被動(dòng)，而不是對(duì)政府及那些變現(xiàn)我們數(shù)據(jù)的企業(yè)要求更多。

It’s a topic that financier George Soros addressed in his speech at Davos, where he noted that technology groups were “inducing people to give up their autonomy . . . it takes a real effort to assert and defend what John Stuart Mill called ‘the freedom of mind’. There is a possibility that once lost, people who grow up in the digital age will have difficulty in regaining it.”

這是金融家喬治•索羅斯(George Soros)在達(dá)沃斯演講中談到的一個(gè)話題，他指出科技團(tuán)體正在“勸誘人們放棄自主權(quán)……要費(fèi)老大勁才能堅(jiān)持和捍衛(wèi)約翰•斯圖爾特•密爾(John Stuart Mill)所說(shuō)的‘心靈自由’。一旦失去，成長(zhǎng)于數(shù)字時(shí)代的人們可能將再難重獲它。”

Mr Soros noted the risk of “alliances between authoritarian states and these large, data-rich IT monopolies that would bring together nascent systems of corporate surveillance with an already developed system of state-sponsored surveillance”.

索羅斯注意到一種隱患，即“威權(quán)國(guó)家可能與這些擁有大量數(shù)據(jù)的壟斷型大IT公司結(jié)成聯(lián)盟，將剛剛誕生的企業(yè)監(jiān)控系統(tǒng)與國(guó)家支持的已經(jīng)很發(fā)達(dá)的監(jiān)控系統(tǒng)結(jié)合起來(lái)”。

It sounds Orwellian, but it is the state of play in China, where the country’s big technology groups and the government are closely aligned. Indeed, some of the digital scientists I spoke to in Davos professed envy for the ease of data gathering even as they expressed their concerns about the political implications.

這聽(tīng)起來(lái)像奧威爾小說(shuō)中描述的事情，但這就是中國(guó)正在發(fā)生的事情，在中國(guó)，大型科技集團(tuán)與政府密切聯(lián)系在一起。事實(shí)上，我在達(dá)沃斯與一些數(shù)字科學(xué)家們聊過(guò)，他們?cè)趽?dān)憂政治影響的同時(shí)，也對(duì)能夠方便地收集數(shù)據(jù)艷羨不已。

This is why the most optimistic moment I had in Davos was with Illah Nourbakhsh, a professor at the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon, who, having become quite worried about the points I have just made, launched a project to educate elementary school children about the power of data, its risks and rewards, and how to use it to advocate for themselves.

正因如此，我在達(dá)沃斯感到最樂(lè)觀的時(shí)刻，就是遇到卡內(nèi)基梅隆大學(xué)(Carnegie Mellon University)機(jī)器人研究所教授伊拉•努爾巴赫什(Illah Nourbakhsh)的時(shí)候。他對(duì)我上文所提的問(wèn)題非常擔(dān)憂，于是發(fā)起了一個(gè)項(xiàng)目，教育小學(xué)生們了解數(shù)據(jù)的力量、風(fēng)險(xiǎn)與回報(bào)，以及如何利用數(shù)據(jù)實(shí)現(xiàn)自己的主張。

Under the scheme, children might track, say, the number of cars idling outside their school, calculate the potential pollution generated, then call a family meeting to discuss how to “challenge the incumbent power structures”, as Mr Nourbakhsh says (translation: push their principal for new parking rules). The idea is to create a new generation of citizen scientists who understand

努爾巴赫什說(shuō)，根據(jù)這項(xiàng)計(jì)劃，孩子們可以追蹤比如停在校外但沒(méi)有熄火的車(chē)輛的數(shù)量，計(jì)算潛在的污染，然后召開(kāi)家庭會(huì)議，討論如何“挑戰(zhàn)現(xiàn)有的能源結(jié)構(gòu)”(實(shí)際意思就是：敦促他們的校長(zhǎng)制定新的停車(chē)規(guī)則)。

譯者/何黎