 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. 我通常不太願意對科技做預測，但我對這一點相當有信心：在幾十年後，能夠寫作的人將不會很多。 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. 如果你是一位作家，你會發現最奇怪的事情之一就是有很多人寫作時會遇到困難。醫生知道有多少人擔心自己身上的痣；擅長設置電腦的人知道有多少人不擅長；而作家則知道有多少人需要寫作的幫助。 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. 許多人在寫作上遇到困難的原因是，這本質上是一項挑戰。要寫得好，必須清晰地思考，而清晰思考並不容易。 And yet writing pervades many jobs, and the more prestigious the job, the more writing it tends to require. 然而，寫作在許多職業中無處不在，而職位越是高尚，所需的寫作量也越大。 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. 這兩股強大的對立力量，即寫作的普遍期望和其無法避免的困難，造成了巨大的壓力。這就是為什麼許多著名教授最終會選擇抄襲。令我感到最驚訝的是，這些盜竊行為的微不足道。他們所竊取的通常是最平常的模板——任何一位寫作能力稍微過得去的人都能輕鬆寫出的內容。這意味著他們甚至連基本的寫作能力都不具備。 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，對於這些對立力量所造成的壓力，並沒有一個方便的逃生閥。你可以像甘迺迪那樣付錢讓人為你寫作，或像馬丁·路德·金那樣抄襲，但如果你無法購買或竊取文字，那麼你就必須自己寫。因此，幾乎每個被期望寫作的人都必須學會如何寫作。 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. 現在不再是這樣了。人工智慧已經改變了這個世界。幾乎所有寫作的壓力都消失了。無論是在學校還是工作中，你都可以讓人工智慧來幫你完成。 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. 結果將是一個分為能寫和不能寫的世界。仍然會有一些人能夠寫作，有些人對此感到喜愛。但擅長寫作的人與完全不會寫作的人之間的中間地帶將會消失。未來只會有優秀的作家和無法寫作的人。 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. 這真的那麼糟糕嗎？當技術使某些技能變得過時時，這不是很常見的現象嗎？現在剩下的鐵匠不多，這似乎也不成問題。 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，這真的很糟糕。原因在於我之前提到的：寫作就是思考。事實上，有一種思考方式只能通過寫作來實現。你無法比萊斯利·蘭波特更好地表達這一點： 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，一個分為寫作的人和不寫作的人的世界，比聽起來更危險。這將是一個思想者和不思想者的世界。我知道我想要屬於哪一半，我敢打賭你也一樣。 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. 這種情況並不罕見。在前工業時代，大多數人的工作讓他們變得強壯。如今，如果你想變得強壯，就必須進行鍛煉。因此，雖然仍然有強壯的人，但只有那些選擇這樣做的人。 It will be the same with writing. There will still be smart people, but only those who choose to be. 寫作也會如此。仍然會有聰明的人，但只有那些選擇成為的人。 Thanks to Jessica Livingston, Ben Miller, and Robert Morris for reading drafts of this. 感謝杰西卡·利文斯頓、班·米勒和羅伯特·莫里斯對這份草稿的閱讀。 |