2024年考研英语二阅读 Text 1 原文翻译及答案解析

In her new book Cogs and Monsters: What Economics Is, and What It Should Be, Diane Coyle, an economist at Cambridge University, argues that the digital economy requires new ways of thinking about progress. “Whatever we mean by the economy growing, by things getting better, the gains will have to be more evenly shared than in the recent past,” she writes. “An economy of tech millionaires or billionaires and gig workers, with middle-income jobs undercut by automation, will not be politically sustainable.”

在她的新书《齿轮与怪物：经济学是什么以及它应该是什么》中，剑桥大学经济学家黛安·柯伊尔认为，数字经济需要重新思考进步的方式。她写道：“无论我们指的是经济增长还是事物改善，收益必须比最近更加公平地分享。一个由科技百万富翁或亿万富翁和零工工作者组成的经济，其中中等收入工作被自动化削弱，在政治上是不可持续的。”

Improving living standards and increasing prosperity for more people will require greater use of digital technologies to boost productivity in various sectors, including health care and construction, says Coyle. But people can't be expected to embrace the changes if they're not seeing the benefits - if they're just seeing good jobs being destroyed.

柯伊尔说，提高生活水平和增加更多人的繁荣需要更广泛地使用数字技术来提升包括医疗和建筑在内的各行业的生产率。但如果人们看不到好处——如果他们只看到好工作被摧毁——就不能指望他们接受这些变化。

In a recent interview, Coyle said she fears that tech's inequality problem could be a roadblock to deploying AI. “We're talking about disruption,” she says. “These are transformative technologies that change the ways we spend our time every day, that change business models that succeed.” To make such “tremendous changes,” she adds, you need social buy-in.

在最近的一次采访中，柯伊尔说她担心科技的不平等问题可能成为部署AI的障碍。她说：“我们谈论的是颠覆。这些是变革性的技术，改变了我们每天度过时间的方式，改变了成功的商业模式。”她补充说，要实现如此“巨大的变化”，需要社会的认同。

Instead, says Coyle, resentment is simmering among many as the benefits are perceived to go to elites in a handful of prosperous cities.

相反，柯伊尔说，许多人中积聚着怨恨，因为收益被认为流向了少数繁荣城市的精英手中。

According to the Brookings Institution, a short list of eight American cities that included San Francisco, San Jose, Boston, and Seattle had roughly 38% of all tech jobs by 2019. New AI technologies are particularly concentrated: Brookings's Mark Muro and Sifan Liu estimate that just 15 cities account for two-thirds of the AI assets and capabilities in the United States.

根据布鲁金斯学会的数据，包括旧金山、圣何塞、波士顿和西雅图在内的八个美国城市到2019年拥有大约38%的所有科技工作。新的AI技术尤其集中：布鲁金斯学会的Mark Muro和Sifan Liu估计，仅15个城市就占美国AI资产和能力的三分之二。

The dominance of a few cities in the invention and commercialization of AI means that geographical disparities in wealth will continue to soar. Not only will this foster political and social unrest, but it could, as Coyle suggests, hold back the sorts of AI technologies needed for regional economies to grow.

少数城市在AI发明和商业化中的主导地位意味着财富的地理差异将继续飙升。这不仅会助长政治和社会动荡，而且正如柯伊尔所暗示的，可能会阻碍区域经济增长所需的各类AI技术。

Part of the solution could lie in somehow loosening the stranglehold that Big Tech has on defining the AI agenda. That will likely take increased federal funding for research independent of the tech giants.

解决方案的一部分可能在于以某种方式松动大型科技公司对AI议程定义的束缚。这可能需要增加联邦资金，用于独立于科技巨头的研究。

A more immediate response is to broaden our digital imaginations to conceive of AI technologies that don't simply replace jobs but expand opportunities in the sectors that different parts of the country care most about, like health care, education, and manufacturing.

一个更直接的回应是拓宽我们的数字想象力，构想出不仅取代工作、而且在医疗、教育和制造等国家不同地区最关心的行业中扩大机会的AI技术。