 October 2024 2024 年 10 月 I'm usually reluctant to make predictions about technology, but I feel fairly confident about this one: in a couple decades there won't be many people who can write. 我通常不愿意对技术做出预测，但我对这一点相当有信心：再过几十年，能写字的人不会很多。 One of the strangest things you learn if you're a writer is how many people have trouble writing. Doctors know how many people have a mole they're worried about; people who are good at setting up computers know how many people aren't; writers know how many people need help writing. 如果你是一个作家，你会发现最奇怪的事情之一就是有多少人写作有困难。医生知道有多少人担心自己身上的痣；擅长设置电脑的人知道有多少人不会；作家知道有多少人需要写作帮助。 The reason so many people have trouble writing is that it's fundamentally difficult. To write well you have to think clearly, and thinking clearly is hard. 许多人写作困难的原因在于这本质上是困难的。要写得好，你必须清晰地思考，而清晰思考是很难的。 And yet writing pervades many jobs, and the more prestigious the job, the more writing it tends to require. 然而，写作渗透到许多工作中，而工作越是声望高，所需的写作就越多。 These two powerful opposing forces, the pervasive expectation of writing and the irreducible difficulty of doing it, create enormous pressure. This is why eminent professors often turn out to have resorted to plagiarism. The most striking thing to me about these cases is the pettiness of the thefts. The stuff they steal is usually the most mundane boilerplate — the sort of thing that anyone who was even halfway decent at writing could turn out with no effort at all. Which means they're not even halfway decent at writing. 这两种强大的对立力量，即普遍存在的写作期望和不可减少的写作难度，造成了巨大的压力。这就是为什么著名教授常常会诉诸于抄袭。让我对这些案例感到最惊讶的是盗窃的微不足道。他们所窃取的东西通常是最平凡的模板——任何写作水平稍微过得去的人都可以毫不费力地写出来。这意味着他们连写作水平都不算过得去。 Till recently there was no convenient escape valve for the pressure created by these opposing forces. You could pay someone to write for you, like JFK, or plagiarize, like MLK, but if you couldn't buy or steal words, you had to write them yourself. And as a result nearly everyone who was expected to write had to learn how. 直到最近，针对这些对立力量所产生的压力，没有方便的释放阀。你可以像 JFK 那样付钱请人代写，或者像 MLK 那样抄袭，但如果你不能购买或窃取文字，你就必须自己写。因此，几乎所有被期望写作的人都必须学习如何写作。 Not anymore. AI has blown this world open. Almost all pressure to write has dissipated. You can have AI do it for you, both in school and at work. 不再是这样。人工智能已经改变了这个世界。几乎所有写作的压力都消失了。你可以让人工智能为你完成，无论是在学校还是在工作中。 The result will be a world divided into writes and write-nots. There will still be some people who can write. Some of us like it. But the middle ground between those who are good at writing and those who can't write at all will disappear. Instead of good writers, ok writers, and people who can't write, there will just be good writers and people who can't write. 结果将是一个分为会写和不会写的世界。仍然会有一些人能够写作。我们中的一些人喜欢这样。但擅长写作的人和完全不会写作的人之间的中间地带将消失。将不再有优秀的作家、普通的作家和不会写作的人，只有优秀的作家和不会写作的人。 Is that so bad? Isn't it common for skills to disappear when technology makes them obsolete? There aren't many blacksmiths left, and it doesn't seem to be a problem. 这真的那么糟糕吗？当技术使技能变得过时时，技能消失难道不是很常见吗？现在剩下的铁匠不多，这似乎也不是个问题。 Yes, it's bad. The reason is something I mentioned earlier: writing is thinking. In fact there's a kind of thinking that can only be done by writing. You can't make this point better than Leslie Lamport did: 是的，这很糟糕。原因是我之前提到过的：写作就是思考。实际上，有一种思考只能通过写作来完成。你无法比莱斯利·兰波特更好地阐述这一点： If you're thinking without writing, you only think you're thinking.So a world divided into writes and write-nots is more dangerous than it sounds. It will be a world of thinks and think-nots. I know which half I want to be in, and I bet you do too. 所以一个分为写和不写的世界比听起来更危险。这将是一个思考和不思考的世界。我知道我想要在哪一半，我敢打赌你也是。 This situation is not unprecedented. In preindustrial times most people's jobs made them strong. Now if you want to be strong, you work out. So there are still strong people, but only those who choose to be. 这种情况并非前所未有。在工业化之前，大多数人的工作使他们变得强壮。现在，如果你想变强，你就要锻炼。因此，仍然有强壮的人，但只有那些选择这样做的人。 It will be the same with writing. There will still be smart people, but only those who choose to be. 写作也是如此。仍然会有聪明的人，但只有那些选择成为聪明的人。 Thanks to Jessica Livingston, Ben Miller, and Robert Morris for reading drafts of this. 感谢杰西卡·利文斯顿、本·米勒和罗伯特·莫里斯阅读这份草稿。 |