Barack Obama had a parting shot for his successor this week. A day before Donald Trump predicted he would be “the greatest jobs producer that God ever created”, the outgoing US president appeared like the ghost at the feast, warning of “the relentless pace of automation that will make many jobs obsolete”.巴拉克?奥巴马(Barack Obama)给他的继任者留给了一句临别赠语。在唐纳德?特朗普(Donald Trump)应验自己将沦为“上帝建构的最最出色的低收入制造者”一天前，卸任的美国总统或许看起来宴会上的幽灵，警告称之为“自动化的无情步伐将出局很多低收入岗位”。

It is at least possible that both will be proved right. Automation has been a constant for decades, and the latest advances in robotics and artificial intelligence all but guarantee that the pace will accelerate. But timing is all. For companies and their investors — no less than for politicians — the key question is not “whether”, but “when”.这两种众说纷纭最少都有可能被证明为准确。几十年来，自动化仍然是个常数，而机器人和人工智能领域的最新进展基本上保证了其应用于速度将减缓。但关键在于时机。对于公司及其投资者（对于政治人士也是如此）而言，关键问题不是“否”，而是“何时”。

For society at large, the pace of automation will determine how easily the displacement of workers can be handled — and whether the political backlash grows worse. The pace is equally important for the companies trying to push the latest robots and smart machines into the real world, and their investors. Few are in the position of Google parent Alphabet, which has taken the long view on bets like driverless cars — and even Alphabet these days has a new sense of impatience about when it will see returns from “moonshots” like this.对于整个社会而言，自动化的步伐将要求应付工人失业的可玩性有多大，以及政治声浪会否激化。对于那些企图将近期机器人和智能设备推上真实世界的公司及其投资者而言，自动化的步伐某种程度最重要。

完全无人处在谷歌(Google)母公司Alphabet那样的方位上，该公司对押注于自动驾驶汽车等领域所持将来眼光，但如今就连Alphabet也开始对这样的“登月式项目”何时带给报酬深感发脾气。The variables that will affect the rate of adoption are huge. In a new report on automation this week, McKinsey estimates that half of all the tasks people perform at work could be automated using technologies that have already been proven. But this estimate gives no clue about how long it will take.影响普及速度的变量很多。在有关自动化的一份近期报告中，麦肯锡(McKinsey)估算，在人们专门从事的所有工作中，有一半可以通过已获得检验的技术被自动化。

但这个估算没解释整个过程必须多长时间。Given the uncertainties about everything from regulation to the ability of companies to change their processes, the consultants estimate it could take anything from 20 to 60 years. Try building an investment model with that level of variability. Take the case for autonomous cars and trucks. Much of the technology has already been demonstrated, and the potential markets — for both vehicle makers and tech suppliers — are vast. But will it take five, 10 or 30 years for this to become a significant market?考虑到各种不确定性（从监管到企业转变流程的能力），咨询顾问们估算，这有可能必须20年至60年。试着根据那种程度的变异性来建构一个投资模型吧。

以自动驾驶汽车和卡车为事例。很多技术已获得检验，而潜在市场（对于汽车制造商和科技供应商而言）是极大的。但是，要让它变为一个相当可观的市场，必须5年、10年还是30年？Car companies are already spending hundreds of millions of dollars on building driverless car platforms. At this month’s Consumer Electronics Show and Detroit Auto Show, it was clear that driverless technology has graduated from the experimental: carmakers are now racing to bring this technology to the roads. The biggest companies are able to amortise this cost over a large vehicle fleet, but the increasing level of technology in vehicles will challenge many of the industry’s smaller players.汽车制造商已投放数亿美元打造出无人驾驶汽车平台。

在本月的拉斯维加斯消费电子展(Consumer Electronics Show)和底特律车展(Detroit Auto Show)上，无人驾驶技术似乎已挣脱实验阶段：汽车制造商于是以竞相把这项技术推上道路。仅次于的公司有能力将研发成本分摊在较小的车辆保有量上，但汽车的技术含量更加低，将让该行业很多规模较小的参与者面对挑战。

Companies like Audi talk of autonomy as a progression. It says 60 per cent of new car buyers already opt to pay $3,000-$6,000 for features like automated acceleration and braking. Those customers might reasonably be expected to keep paying up for additional levels of safety and convenience. The shift from cars that stay in their lanes automatically to hands-off-the-wheel driving might turn out to be a smooth — and profitable — evolution.奥迪(Audi)等公司将自动化称作一种进展。该公司回应，60%的新车买家已自由选择缴纳3000至6000美元加到自动加快和刹车功能。

可以合理地确信这些消费者为更高水平的安全性和便捷代价更高价格。从汽车自动维持在自己的车道上，到驾车不必握方向盘，这一改变可能会是一场稳定（且有利可图）的演进。

But the strongest business case for driverless cars comes from the more radical, all-or-nothing step of eradicating the need for human drivers. In a report on automation’s impact on the economy late last month, the White House said that most of today’s 1.7m drivers of heavy trucks in the US are likely to be replaced — though it added that “it may take years or decades” for this to happen.但无人驾驶汽车的最强劲商业理由来自于更加完全的、要么仅有有要么仅有无的一步：避免对人类驾驶员的必须。在上月末一份有关自动化对经济影响的报告中，白宫回应，目前美国的170万重型卡车司机中，多数人很可能会被代替，尽管该报告补足称之为，这“有可能必须几年甚至几十年”才不会再次发生。There are some very practical considerations. As Michael Chui, a partner at McKinsey, points out it is vastly expensive to replace the estimated 2m heavy trucks on US roads, with an average lifespan of 20 years. Even without new driverless technology, McKinsey estimates it would cost $320bn. But there are likely to be specific investment cases for speedier adoption. Long-haul routes are the low-hanging fruit of trucking. Platooning, in which trucks form a convoy behind a lead truck driven by a human, could bring a form of supervised automation. Although the long tail of automation may take decades, the market for early adopters could still be vast.有一些十分实际的考量。

正如麦肯锡合伙人迈克尔?崔(Michael Chui)认为的那样，替换目前在美国道路上行经的约200万辆重型卡车成本极为高昂，这些卡车的平均寿命为20年。麦肯锡估算，即便没新的无人驾驶技术，替换成本就将低约3200亿美元。但很可能会有减缓使用新技术的特定投资理由。长途路线是卡车运输领域最更容易摘的浆果。

车辆结队（Platooning，多辆卡车在由人类驾驶员的领头卡车后面构成一个车队）有可能带给一种受到监控的自动化形式。尽管自动化的长尾效应有可能耗时几十年，但早期使用者的市场仍有可能极大。Rather than wiping out jobs immediately, progressive automation might make the lives of today’s truckers more comfortable and then make up for an expected driver shortage in the mid term, before eliminating jobs eventually. This prospect represents the rosy scenario for the companies leading the AI and robotics charge. But as today’s turbulent political climate shows, they would be foolish to count on such a smooth transition.趋向自动化会立刻歼灭低收入岗位，而是可能会再行让卡车司机的日子更加舒适度，然后在中期填补司机数量的紧缺，最后才不会避免这些低收入岗位。

这种前景为那些引导人工智能和机器人潮流的公司刻画了一副幸福的愿景。但就像当今动荡不安的政治气候所表明的那样，确信如此稳定的过渡性将是可笑的。

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