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本文選自《經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)人》1月16日刊文章。每個時代，人類發(fā)展的步調(diào)不盡相同，18世紀(jì)出現(xiàn)工業(yè)革命和機(jī)械化工廠，19世紀(jì)有鐵路和電力，20世紀(jì)汽車、飛機(jī)、現(xiàn)代醫(yī)學(xué)不斷涌現(xiàn)，然而在20世紀(jì)70年代以后，人類前進(jìn)的步伐放緩了，尤其是進(jìn)入21世紀(jì)后。本文認(rèn)為，人工智能、無人駕駛汽車、基因編輯、線上購物，這些創(chuàng)新技術(shù)的不斷積累和應(yīng)用會讓2020年代成為咆哮奔騰的十年。我們一起來見證。 
選文精講 The new era of innovation 創(chuàng)新的新時代Why a dawn of technological optimism is breakingThe 2010s were marked by pessimism about innovation. That is giving way tohope2010年代的特點是對創(chuàng)新的悲觀，這正在被希望所代替In the history of capitalism rapid technological advance has been the norm. The 18th century brought the Industrial Revolution and mechanised factories; the 19th century railways and electricity; the 20th century cars, planes, modern medicine and domestic liberation thanks to washing machines. In the 1970s, though, progress—measured by overall productivity growth—slowed. The economic impact was masked for a while by women piling into the workforce, and a burst of efficiency gains followed the adoption of personal computers in the 1990s. After 2000, though, growth flagged again.- pile into: 擠進(jìn)、進(jìn)入
在資本主義發(fā)展的歷史中，快速的技術(shù)進(jìn)步已經(jīng)成為常態(tài)。18世紀(jì)帶來了工業(yè)革命和機(jī)械化工廠;19世紀(jì)的鐵路和電力；20世紀(jì)的汽車、飛機(jī)、現(xiàn)代醫(yī)學(xué)和解放了家務(wù)的洗衣機(jī)。然而，在20世紀(jì)70年代，以整體生產(chǎn)力增長來衡量的（技術(shù)）進(jìn)步放緩了。女性大量涌入勞動力市場掩蓋了經(jīng)濟(jì)（增長放緩的）影響，而20世紀(jì)90年代，個人電腦的使用又帶來了效率的大幅提高。然而，2000年之后，經(jīng)濟(jì)增長再次放緩。There are three reasons to think this “great stagnation” might be ending. First is the flurry of recent discoveries with transformative potential. The success of the “messenger RNA” technique behind the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, and of bespoke antibody treatments, shows how science continues to empower medicine. Humans are increasingly able to bend biology to their will, whether that is to treat disease, edit genes or to grow meat in a lab. Artificial intelligence is at last displaying impressive progress in a range of contexts. A program created by DeepMind, part of Alphabet, has shown a remarkable ability to predict the shapes of proteins; last summer OpenAI unveiled GPT-3, the best natural-language algorithm to date; and since October driverless taxis have ferried the public around Phoenix, Arizona. Spectacular falls in the price of renewable energy are giving governments confidence that their green investments will pay off. Even China now promises carbon neutrality by 2060.- carbon neutrality：碳中和、碳平衡
我們有三個理由認(rèn)為，這種“大停滯”可能終將結(jié)束。首先是最近一系列具有變革潛力的發(fā)現(xiàn)。輝瑞生物科技和Moderna這兩家公司的疫苗背后的“信使RNA”技術(shù)，以及定制抗體療法的成功，表明科學(xué)在持續(xù)賦予醫(yī)學(xué)力量。無論是治療疾病、編輯基因，還是在實驗室里z造肉，人類越來越有能力讓生物學(xué)屈從于自己的意愿。人工智能終于在眾多領(lǐng)域表現(xiàn)出巨大進(jìn)展。Alphabet旗下DeepMind開發(fā)的一個程序表現(xiàn)出預(yù)測蛋白質(zhì)形狀的非凡能力；去年夏天，OpenAI發(fā)布了迄今為止最好的自然語言算法GPT-3；自去年10月以來，無人駕駛汽車已經(jīng)在亞利桑那州的鳳凰城接送乘客?？稍偕茉磧r格的大幅下跌讓各國政府相信，他們的綠色投資終將獲得回報，就連中國現(xiàn)在也承諾，到2060年實現(xiàn)碳中和。
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