硅谷在歐洲遭遇反彈

The other day Angela Merkel took a few hours out from the cacophony of day-to-day politics. Putting to one side migration, the eurozone, Russia and Ukraine, Brexit and the rest, the chancellor gave a speech about algorithms. Yes, algorithms.

幾天前，安格拉•默克爾(Angela Merkel)抽出幾小時暫別喧囂的日常政治。德國總理把移民、歐元區(qū)、俄羅斯和烏克蘭、英國退歐以及其他事宜擱置一邊，發(fā)表了關(guān)于算法的演講。沒錯，就是算法。

Her message to an audience in Munich was that the search engines that deliver news on websites such as Google and Facebook are creating distorting prisms. The closely guarded formulas, or algorithms, used by these companies to tailor the output to recorded personal preferences can create echo chambers. Citizens eventually may receive only the news that fits their prejudices — a gift to today’s populist proponents of post-truth politics. Healthy democracies depend on the wide exposure of conflicting ideas and interpretations.

她在慕尼黑向聽眾傳達(dá)的信息是，在谷歌(Google)和Facebook等網(wǎng)站發(fā)布新聞的搜索引擎正在創(chuàng)造扭曲的棱鏡。這些公司根據(jù)記錄下來的個人偏好，運(yùn)用高度保密的公式(即算法)來定制內(nèi)容，這可能制造出“回音室”。公民們最終只會看到符合他們偏見的新聞——這對當(dāng)今“后真相政治”的民粹主義鼓吹者是一份大禮。健康的民主體制有賴于民眾全面接觸各種觀點(diǎn)和解讀的碰撞。

At the very least, Ms Merkel said, it was incumbent on the technology companies to be transparent about the way the algorithms are constructed, so viewers and readers understood they are being offered a strictly limited perspective on the world around them.

默克爾表示，科技公司至少有義務(wù)公開算法的構(gòu)建方式，讓觀眾和讀者們明白自己獲得的世界視角是嚴(yán)格受限的。

A couple of days later an employment court in London ruled in favour of Uber drivers who had complained that their contracts wrongly denied them basic employment rights such as the minimum wage and paid holidays. Uber, the court said, could not pretend they were entirely independent contractors.

兩天后，倫敦一個雇傭法庭做出了支持優(yōu)步(Uber)司機(jī)主張的判決，這些司機(jī)此前抱怨，他們的勞動合同錯誤地沒有給予他們最低工資和帶薪休假等基本雇傭權(quán)利。該法庭表示，優(yōu)步不能假裝他們是完全獨(dú)立的承包商。

As striking as the court’s judgment was the robust language in which it was couched. The notion that the London operations of Uber, Judge Anthony Snelson remarked laconically, represented a mosaic of some 30,000 small businesses linked by Uber’s technology platform, was “faintly ridiculous”. The company had resorted to fictitious and twisted language and had even invented “brand new terminology” in the effort to hoodwink the court.

和法庭判決內(nèi)容同樣引人注目的是判決書所用的有力措辭。安東尼•斯內(nèi)爾森法官(Judge Anthony Snelson)精辟地說道，有關(guān)優(yōu)步倫敦業(yè)務(wù)代表著依靠其技術(shù)平臺連接起來的大約3萬家小企業(yè)的說法“有些可笑”。優(yōu)步求助于虛構(gòu)且不通的語言，甚至發(fā)明了“全新術(shù)語”來糊弄法庭。

Uber has said it will appeal against the decision. Many lawyers think it more likely the judgment will improve the working conditions of hundreds of thousands of people now employed in Britain’s casual, or “gig”, economy.

優(yōu)步表示將提起上訴。許多律師認(rèn)為更有可能的情況是，該判決將會改善如今受雇于英國零工經(jīng)濟(jì)的數(shù)十萬人的工作條件。

You would have to be a conspiracy theorist of Trumpian proportions to connect these two events in different European cities. And yet they tell much the same story. Ms Merkel’s speech and Mr Snelson’s ruling are straws in a wind that is changing the weather in Europe for the mainly American technology groups. Not so long ago the digital innovators and disrupters seemed set to sweep all before them. Now politicians and regulators are pushing back.

你得是特朗普那種水平的陰謀論者才能將發(fā)生于歐洲不同城市的這兩件事聯(lián)系起來。然而它們在本質(zhì)上確實(shí)是一回事。對以美國為主的科技集團(tuán)來說，默克爾的演講和斯內(nèi)爾森法官的判決是歐洲風(fēng)向改變的跡象。就在不久前，數(shù)字創(chuàng)新者和顛覆者似乎還勢不可擋。如今政客和監(jiān)管機(jī)構(gòu)正在反擊。

Of course, opposition to Uber and Airbnb, its rent-an-apartment equivalent, is not confined to one side of the Atlantic. The governor of New York has signed into law severe restrictions on Airbnb’s operations in the state and Uber has faced battles with its drivers in several US cities. But it is in Europe that you sense the deeper disquiet about the economic and societal effect of these technologies.

當(dāng)然，反對優(yōu)步和公寓租賃服務(wù)網(wǎng)站Airbnb的不僅僅局限于大西洋的一邊。紐約州州長簽署法令嚴(yán)格限制Airbnb在該州的運(yùn)營，而優(yōu)步在美國多個城市遭遇其司機(jī)的抗?fàn)帯５跉W洲，你感覺人們對這些技術(shù)帶來的經(jīng)濟(jì)和社會影響的擔(dān)憂更為深切。

Another manifestation came in the summer with the European Commission’s imposition of a €13bn fine on Apple. The company’s aggressive tax avoidance — framed, it should be said, in collusion with a previous Irish government — ran foul of competition laws. The Brussels commission has few admirers these days in EU member states but applause for the fine echoed across the continent’s capitals.

今夏歐盟委員會(European Commission)對蘋果(Apple)罰款130億歐元是另一個明證。該公司激進(jìn)的避稅手法——應(yīng)該指出是與之前的愛爾蘭政府聯(lián)手炮制的——違反了反壟斷法。如今歐盟成員國幾乎沒有人對歐盟委員會抱有好感，但這一罰單在各國首都贏得贊賞。

Apple is not alone. The commission is investigating Amazon’s tax affairs and has launched a probe into whether Google has broken antitrust rules. Facebook has bowed to pressure and agreed to book more of its sales in the UK rather than the Republic of Ireland, which has a lower corporate tax rate.

蘋果并非個例。歐盟委員會正在調(diào)查亞馬遜(Amazon)的稅務(wù)安排，并對谷歌(Google)是否違反了反壟斷規(guī)則展開調(diào)查。Facebook屈從于壓力，同意在英國(而非愛爾蘭)申報更多的銷售收入——愛爾蘭的企業(yè)稅率更低一些。

Google, which has had its offices in Paris and Madrid raided by tax inspectors, may do something similar.

谷歌在巴黎和馬德里的辦公室遭到稅務(wù)機(jī)關(guān)的突擊搜查，該公司可能也會屈服。

There is a suspicion in Washington that all this is part of a protectionist plot. Europeans are simply unhappy with the way US companies dominate the marketplace. And there is something to that charge. It is probably no accident that German media businesses are among the sharpest critics of the mysteries of search engine algorithms.

華盛頓有人懷疑，所有這些都是保護(hù)主義陰謀的一部分。歐洲人只是對美國企業(yè)主導(dǎo)市場的格局感到不快。這種懷疑有一定道理。德國媒體界躋身于最猛烈抨擊搜索引擎神秘算法的行列，很可能并非偶然。

There is also something else: a collision between Silicon Valley’s “government get out of the way” disdain for anything that might dent its profits and a growing awareness among politicians of the public policy implications of the new technologies. It matters to Europe’s political leaders if voters are exposed only to views they agree with, or if workers are denied decent wages and social safety nets in the so-called sharing economy.

也有其他因素：硅谷對任何可能影響其利潤的事情都采取“讓政府走開”的不屑態(tài)度，而政客們?nèi)找嬉庾R到新技術(shù)對公共政策的潛在影響，兩者存在沖突。如果選民只能獲得他們認(rèn)可的觀點(diǎn)，如果勞動者在所謂的共享經(jīng)濟(jì)中無法獲得體面的薪資和社會安全網(wǎng)，歐洲政治領(lǐng)導(dǎo)人不想管也得管。

Tim Cook, the chief executive of Apple, often sounds as if he believes his company should be free to decide how much it pays in taxes. Mr Cook thinks it is for Apple rather than elected politicians to decide where to strike the balance between personal privacy and national security in the use of encryption. He does not seem to have noticed that these are tough political times or that governments are no longer dazzled by all the technological hype.

蘋果首席執(zhí)行官蒂姆•庫克(Tim Cook)往往給人的印象是，他相信自己的公司應(yīng)該自由決定交多少稅。庫克認(rèn)為，在加密技術(shù)的使用上，應(yīng)該由蘋果(而非民選產(chǎn)生的政客)決定個人隱私與國家安全之間的恰當(dāng)平衡。他似乎沒有注意到，當(dāng)今的政治形勢十分嚴(yán)峻，同時各國政府也不再對所有的技術(shù)炒作覺得了不起。

What is happening, I think, is that these businesses are being “socialised” — albeit slowly and with some kicking and screaming. The direction is as it should be. Technology companies cannot opt out of the responsibilities borne by other businesses. A rebalancing of the relationship between private profit and public welfare is overdue. Mr Cook would do best to stick with the clever gadgets.

我認(rèn)為，現(xiàn)在發(fā)生的情況是，這些企業(yè)正在被“社會化”，盡管這個過程緩慢而且存在抵制。從大方向說，理應(yīng)如此?？萍脊静荒芴颖芷渌髽I(yè)承擔(dān)的責(zé)任。早就應(yīng)該再平衡私人利潤與公共福利之間的關(guān)系了。庫克最好專注于推出智能設(shè)備。