人工智能時代該教孩子學什么

Pity school careers advisers. If economists are to bebelieved, vast numbers of jobs will have evaporatedby the time today’s pupils reach the labour market.Oxford university’s Carl Benedikt Frey and MichaelOsborne say almost half of the jobs in the US are athigh risk from computerisation in the next twodecades, together with two-thirds of those in Indiaand three-quarters in China.

學校的就業(yè)顧問真可憐。如果經(jīng)濟學家的話可以相信，當如今的小學生有朝一日進入勞動力市場時，大量就業(yè)崗位將已經(jīng)消失。牛津大學(Oxford university)的卡爾•貝內(nèi)迪克特•弗雷(Carl Benedikt Frey)和邁克爾•奧斯本(Michael Osborne)稱，未來二十年，美國幾乎一半的就業(yè)崗位、印度三分之二的崗位以及中國四分之三的工作都很可能被計算機取代。

While workers worry about whether robots will take their jobs, teachers are wondering how touse education to insulate the next generation from such a fate. This has worked before. Whenthe last wave of automation swept the developed world at the start of the 20th century,policymakers decided education was the answer. If machines were going to substitute forbrawn, they reasoned, more people would need to use their brains.

在勞動者擔心機器人是否會搶走他們的飯碗之際，老師們卻在思考如何利用教育使下一代人免遭這種命運。這種方法以前成功過。20世紀初，當上一波自動化浪潮席卷發(fā)達世界時，政策制定者認定，解決方案是教育。如果機器將取代人類的體力，他們推斷，更多人將需要從事腦力勞動。

The US invested heavily in education, with good results. Workers reaped the benefits throughbetter jobs and higher wages. Economists Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson summed it uplike this: “The industrial revolution started a race between technology and education — and,for most of the 20th century, humans won that race.”

于是美國大舉投資教育，并取得了很好的效果。勞動者通過更好的工作和薪酬待遇獲得了好處。經(jīng)濟學家安德魯•麥卡菲(Andrew McAfee)和埃里克•布林約爾松(Erik Brynjolfsson)這樣總結道：“工業(yè)革命開啟了科技與教育之間的競賽——在20世紀的多數(shù)時間里，人類是這場競賽的贏家。”

But the next race will be against technology that replaces brains and brawn. Machine learningalgorithms are already starting to supplant the likes of mergers and acquisition bankers andcurrency traders. Some experts argue we need to respond with another fundamental rethinkof education.

但是，下一場競賽的對手將是同時取代人類的腦力和體力的技術。機器學習算法已經(jīng)開始取代并購業(yè)務銀行家和外匯交易員之類的崗位。一些專家認為，我們需要以再一次徹底反思教育來應對挑戰(zhàn)。

“School education has tended to focus on developing the core cognitive competences — forexample, reading, writing and arithmetic,” said Andy Haldane, the Bank of England’s chiefeconomist, in a recent speech. “Smart machines have long since surpassed humans in theirability to do the first and third of these. And they are fast catching-up on the second. That begsthe question of whether there are other skills where humans’ comparative advantage isgreater.”

“學校教育往往注重開發(fā)核心認知能力——例如，閱讀、寫作和算術，”英國央行(Bank of England)首席經(jīng)濟學家安迪•霍爾丹(Andy Haldane)在最近一次演講中表示，“智能機器早已在第一項和第三項上超越了人類。同時它們在第二項上奮起直追。這就引出了一個問題：有沒有人類擁有更大比較優(yōu)勢的其他技能?”

So what skills should we teach our children to robot-proof their careers?

因此，為了讓我們的孩子免遭被機器人搶走工作的命運，我們應該教給他們什么技能?

How to be creative

如何擁有創(chuàng)造力

Artificial intelligence tends to solve problems methodically but the human brain is far betterat making logical leaps of imagination. It is more intuitive, creative and better atpersuasion. Humans can also combine their creativity with robot-surpassing dexterity tocut someone’s hair, for example, or cook a delicious meal. “It’s good to invest in creativeeducation because these are some of the skills that should be left [after automation],” saysStian Westlake, head of policy and research at Nesta, the UK innovation charity.

人工智能往往可以井井有條地解決問題，但是人類大腦在有邏輯地發(fā)揮想象力、進行跳躍性思維方面要出色得多。人腦直覺更好、更具創(chuàng)造性、更有說服力。人類還可以結合自己的創(chuàng)造力和讓機器人望塵莫及的靈巧，去給人理發(fā)或者烹調(diào)美食。“投資創(chuàng)造性方面的教育很好，因為創(chuàng)造力屬于(自動化)應該無法取代的技能，”英國國家科技藝術基金會(Nesta)政策和研究主管斯蒂安•韋斯特萊克(Stian Westlake)稱。

When you start to look at the world like this, you turn some familiar tropes about globaleducation on their head.

當你開始這樣看待世界時，你會完全改變對一些有關全球教育的常見比喻的看法。

Mr Westlake says: “It’s a paradoxical story where countries like the UK come out well, becauseour creative economy is quite strong. We beat ourselves up over our inability to be as good atSingapore and Shanghai at coding and things like this, but actually it turns out it’s quitepossible that sort of stuff is going to be the stuff that’s very easy for artificial intelligence toautomate.”

韋斯特萊克稱：“出人意料的是，因為創(chuàng)意經(jīng)濟相當強勁，英國等國家會安然無恙。我們因為自己在編碼等方面的能力不如新加坡和上海而苛責自己，但是事實上，這類工作最后很可能會是人工智能很容易用自動化取代的東西。”

How to be nice

情商致勝

Some machines may have learnt how to seem caring but humans still have an unsurpassedability to empathise with others. The new phrase is “EQ”, which stands for emotional quotient(or emotional intelligence). “The high-skill, high-pay jobs of the future may involve skillsbetter measured by EQs than IQs, by jobs creating social as much as financial value,” theBOE’s Mr Haldane said.

一些機器或許已經(jīng)學會如何表示關心，但是人類仍然擁有機器無法超越的“同理”能力。新的說法是“情商”(EQ)，代表情緒商數(shù)(或情緒智商)。“未來的高技能、高薪工作需要的技能，可能對情商的要求高過對智商的要求，并要求工作不僅創(chuàng)造經(jīng)濟價值，還要創(chuàng)造同樣多的社會價值，”英國央行的霍爾丹稱。

Whether or not such skills can be taught is an open question. Still, some organisations aregiving it a go. ING, the Dutch bank, has recently put 350 staff through an “EQ trainingprogramme”. The aim is to teach these bankers how to “build trust with the client throughasking lots more questions and listening out for feelings and beliefs as opposed to justlistening out for content,” explains Steve Ellis, director at Rogensi, a consultancy thatdeveloped the project with ING.

關于這些技能能否傳授的問題尚未定論。不過，一些組織正在嘗試。荷蘭銀行國際集團(ING)最近讓350名員工參加了“情商培訓課程”。目的是教這些銀行員工如何“通過多提問題、聆聽客戶的感受和想法(而非只聽內(nèi)容)，來建立與客戶之間的信任，”與ING合作開發(fā)該項目的咨詢公司rogenSi的主管史蒂夫•埃利斯(SteveEllis)稱。

One of the exercises involves sitting bankers in a room, showing them pictures of people’s facialexpressions and asking them to identify the emotion felt. Mark Pieter de Boer, head of financialmarket sales at ING, admits some bankers were initially resistant. “Typically, what you see ispeople who are very much IQ-focused struggle with making that change.”

其中一項練習是，讓銀行員工坐在一個房間內(nèi)，展示一些人們面部表情的圖片，讓他們識別這些表情反映的情緒。ING金融市場銷售主管馬克•彼得•德博爾(Mark Pieter de Boer)承認，一些員工一開始有抵觸心理。“一般情況下，你看到那些非常注重智商的人很難做出這樣的改變。”

But he says enthusiasm increased when staff saw the training had results. A survey by thecompany found people who had been on the course were more motivated, there was greatercollaboration between departments and productivity increased by 10 per cent.

但是他稱，當員工發(fā)現(xiàn)訓練有成效后，他們的積極性提高了。該公司的調(diào)查發(fā)現(xiàn)，參加該課程的員工更有干勁，部門之間的合作更順暢，生產(chǎn)率提高了10%。

Remember the basics

別忘了基本技能

Even if the promised age of artificial intelligence does arrive, experts say we cannot afford todispense with hard cognitive skills such as reading, writing and mathematics.

即使人工智能的有福時代最終真的到來，專家稱我們也不能免除學習閱讀、寫作和算術等高難度認知技能。

Daisy Christodoulou, research and development manager at the UK’s Ark Schools chain, saysthat, unless we have these foundations in place, we will not have the mental frameworks tosolve higher-order problems creatively.

英國連鎖學校Ark Schools的研發(fā)經(jīng)理黛西•克里斯托杜盧(Daisy Christodoulou)稱，除非掌握這些基本技能，否則我們無法建立起創(chuàng)造性解決高階問題的思維框架。

“Even if we do arrive at a point where most work is done by computers, cognitive skills will stillmatter — not for the economy, but for the successful functioning of a democratic society,” shesays. “In such a society, a great deal will turn on the ownership and regulation of thecomputers and robots doing all the work, and the debates around such issues will require aneducated and informed populace.”

“即使真的到了計算機完成大多數(shù)工作的那一天，認知技能仍然很重要——不是對于經(jīng)濟而言，而是為了民主社會的順利運轉(zhuǎn)。”她稱，“在那樣的社會中，對完成所有工作的計算機和機器人的擁有和監(jiān)管將關系重大，圍繞這類問題的討論將需要受過教育、有知識的民眾。