作者：山姆·奥特曼
My work at OpenAI reminds me every day about the magnitude of the socioeconomic change that is coming sooner than most people believe. Software that can think and learn will do more and more of the work that people now do. Even more power will shift from labor to capital. If public policy doesn’t adapt accordingly, most people will end up worse off than they are today.
我在 OpenAI 的工作每天都提醒我，社会经济变革的规模比大多数人想象的要来得更快。能够思考和学习的软件将会承担越来越多目前由人类完成的工作。更多的权力将从劳动转移到资本。如果公共政策不随之调整，大多数人的生活将比现在更糟糕。
We need to design a system that embraces this technological future and taxes the assets that will make up most of the value in that world–companies and land–in order to fairly distribute some of the coming wealth. Doing so can make the society of the future much less divisive and enable everyone to participate in its gains.
我们需要设计一个拥抱这一技术未来的系统，并对构成未来大部分价值的资产——公司和土地——征税，以公平分配即将到来的财富。这样做可以使未来的社会减少分裂，并使每个人都能参与其中的收益。
In the next five years, computer programs that can think will read legal documents and give medical advice. In the next decade, they will do assembly-line work and maybe even become companions. And in the decades after that, they will do almost everything, including making new scientific discoveries that will expand our concept of “everything.”
在未来五年内，能够思考的计算机程序将会阅读法律文件并提供医疗建议。在未来十年内，它们将从事流水线工作，甚至可能成为伴侣。在接下来的几十年里，它们几乎会做所有事情，包括进行新的科学发现，扩展我们对“万物”的概念。
This technological revolution is unstoppable. And a recursive loop of innovation, as these smart machines themselves help us make smarter machines, will accelerate the revolution’s pace. Three crucial consequences follow:
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This revolution will create phenomenal wealth. The price of many kinds of labor (which drives the costs of goods and services) will fall toward zero once sufficiently powerful AI “joins the workforce.”
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The world will change so rapidly and drastically that an equally drastic change in policy will be needed to distribute this wealth and enable more people to pursue the life they want.
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If we get both of these right, we can improve the standard of living for people more than we ever have before.
这场技术革命是不可阻挡的。随着这些智能机器本身帮助我们制造更智能的机器，创新的递归循环将加速革命的步伐。随之而来的三个重要后果是：
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这场革命将创造巨大的财富。一旦足够强大的 AI “加入劳动力队伍”，许多种类的劳动（驱动商品和服务成本的因素）价格将趋近于零。
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世界将发生如此迅速和剧烈的变化，以至于需要同样剧烈的政策变化来分配这笔财富，并使更多人能够追求他们想要的生活。
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如果我们能正确处理这两点，我们可以比以往任何时候都更大幅度地提高人们的生活水平。
Because we are at the beginning of this tectonic shift, we have a rare opportunity to pivot toward the future. That pivot can’t simply address current social and political problems; it must be designed for the radically different society of the near future. Policy plans that don’t account for this imminent transformation will fail for the same reason that the organizing principles of pre-agrarian or feudal societies would fail today.
因为我们正处于这一重大转变的开端，我们有一个难得的机会转向未来。这个转变不能仅仅解决当前的社会和政治问题；它必须为即将到来的截然不同的社会设计。如果政策计划不考虑这一迫在眉睫的转变，它们将失败，原因与前农业或封建社会的组织原则在今天会失败的原因相同。
What follows is a description of what’s coming and a plan for how to navigate this new landscape.
以下是对即将到来的变化的描述以及如何驾驭这一新局面的计划。
Part 1 The AI Revolution(AI 革命)
On a zoomed-out time scale, technological progress follows an exponential curve. Compare how the world looked 15 years ago (no smartphones, really), 150 years ago (no combustion engine, no home electricity), 1,500 years ago (no industrial machines), and 15,000 years ago (no agriculture).
在放大的时间尺度上，技术进步遵循指数曲线。比较一下 15 年前的世界（实际上没有智能手机）、150 年前（没有内燃机，没有家庭用电）、1500 年前（没有工业机器）和 15000 年前（没有农业）的样子。
The coming change will center around the most impressive of our capabilities: the phenomenal ability to think, create, understand, and reason. To the three great technological revolutions–the agricultural, the industrial, and the computational–we will add a fourth: the AI revolution. This revolution will generate enough wealth for everyone to have what they need, if we as a society manage it responsibly.
即将到来的变化将围绕我们最令人印象深刻的能力展开：思考、创造、理解和推理的非凡能力。在农业、工业和计算三大技术革命的基础上，我们将增加第四次：AI 革命。如果我们作为一个社会负责任地管理它，这场革命将产生足够的财富，使每个人都能拥有他们所需的一切。
The technological progress we make in the next 100 years will be far larger than all we’ve made since we first controlled fire and invented the wheel. We have already built AI systems that can learn and do useful things. They are still primitive, but the trendlines are clear.
我们在未来 100 年内取得的技术进步将远远超过自我们首次控制火和发明轮子以来所取得的所有进步。我们已经构建了能够学习和做有用事情的 AI 系统。它们仍然很原始，但趋势线是明确的。
Part 2 Moore’s Law for Everything(万物摩尔定律)
Broadly speaking, there are two paths to affording a good life: an individual acquires more money (which makes that person wealthier), or prices fall (which makes everyone wealthier). Wealth is buying power: how much we can get with the resources we have.
广义上讲，有两条通往美好生活的道路：个人获得更多的钱（这使那个人更富有），或者价格下降（这使每个人更富有）。财富是购买力：我们用现有资源能得到多少东西。
The best way to increase societal wealth is to decrease the cost of goods, from food to video games. Technology will rapidly drive that decline in many categories. Consider the example of semiconductors and Moore’s Law: for decades, chips became twice as powerful for the same price about every two years.
增加社会财富的最佳方式是降低商品的成本，从食品到视频游戏。技术将迅速推动许多类别的成本下降。以半导体和摩尔定律为例：几十年来，芯片的性能每两年以相同价格翻倍。
In the last couple of decades, costs in the US for TVs, computers, and entertainment have dropped. But other costs have risen significantly, most notably those for housing, healthcare, and higher education. Redistribution of wealth alone won’t work if these costs continue to soar.
在过去的几十年里，美国的电视、电脑和娱乐费用下降了。但其他费用显著上升，尤其是住房、医疗和高等教育的费用。如果这些成本继续飙升，仅靠财富再分配是行不通的。
AI will lower the cost of goods and services, because labor is the driving cost at many levels of the supply chain. If robots can build a house on land you already own from natural resources mined and refined onsite, using solar power, the cost of building that house is close to the cost to rent the robots. And if those robots are made by other robots, the cost to rent them will be much less than it was when humans made them.
AI 将降低商品和服务的成本，因为劳动是供应链许多层级的驱动成本。如果机器人可以在你已经拥有的土地上利用现场开采和精炼的自然资源，用太阳能建造房屋，那么建造那座房屋的成本接近于租用机器人的成本。而如果这些机器人是由其他机器人制造的，那么租用它们的成本将远低于人类制造它们时的成本。
Similarly, we can imagine AI doctors that can diagnose health problems better than any human, and AI teachers that can diagnose and explain exactly what a student doesn’t understand.
同样，我们可以想象 AI 医生能够比任何人类更好地诊断健康问题，AI 教师能够准确诊断和解释学生不理解的内容。
“Moore’s Law for everything” should be the rallying cry of a generation whose members can’t afford what they want. It sounds utopian, but it’s something technology can deliver (and in some cases already has). Imagine a world where, for decades, everything–housing, education, food, clothing, etc.–became half as expensive every two years.
“万物摩尔定律”应该成为一代人的号召，这一代人无法负担他们想要的东西。这听起来像乌托邦，但这是技术可以实现的（在某些情况下已经实现）。想象一个世界，几十年来，所有东西——住房、教育、食品、衣物等——每两年价格减半。
We will discover new jobs–we always do after a technological revolution–and because of the abundance on the other side, we will have incredible freedom to be creative about what they are.
我们将发现新的工作——在每次技术革命之后我们总是会这样——由于另一边的丰富性，我们将拥有令人难以置信的自由去创造这些工作。
Part 3 Capitalism for Everyone(人人资本主义)
A stable economic system requires two components: growth and inclusivity. Economic growth matters because most people want their lives to improve every year. In a zero-sum world, one with no or very little growth, democracy can become antagonistic as people seek to vote money away from each other. What follows from that antagonism is distrust and polarization. In a high-growth world the dogfights can be far fewer, because it’s much easier for everyone to win.
一个稳定的经济系统需要两个组成部分：增长和包容性。经济增长很重要，因为大多数人希望他们的生活每年都能改善。在一个零和世界中，一个没有或几乎没有增长的世界中，民主可能会变得对立，因为人们试图通过投票从彼此手中夺走金钱。由这种对立引发的是不信任和两极分化。在一个高增长的世界中，争斗会少得多，因为每个人都更容易获胜。
Economic inclusivity means everyone having a reasonable opportunity to get the resources they need to live the life they want. Economic inclusivity matters because it’s fair, produces a stable society, and can create the largest slices of pie for the most people. As a side benefit, it produces more growth.
经济包容性意味着每个人都有合理的机会获得他们需要的资源，以过上他们想要的生活。经济包容性很重要，因为它是公平的，能产生一个稳定的社会，并能为最多的人创造最大的蛋糕份额。作为一个附带好处，它还能带来更多的增长。
Capitalism is a powerful engine of economic growth because it rewards people for investing in assets that generate value over time, which is an effective incentive system for creating and distributing technological gains. But the price of progress in capitalism is inequality.
资本主义是经济增长的强大引擎，因为它奖励人们投资于随着时间推移产生价值的资产，这是一个有效的激励系统，用于创造和分配技术收益。但资本主义进步的代价是不平等。
Some inequality is ok–in fact, it’s critical, as shown by all systems that have tried to be perfectly equal–but a society that does not offer sufficient equality of opportunity for everyone to advance is not a society that will last.
一些不平等是可以接受的——事实上，这是至关重要的，所有试图实现完全平等的系统都证明了这一点——但一个不提供足够的机会平等让每个人都能进步的社会是无法持久的。
The traditional way to address inequality has been by progressively taxing income. For a variety of reasons, that hasn’t worked very well. It will work much, much worse in the future. While people will still have jobs, many of those jobs won’t be ones that create a lot of economic value in the way we think of value today. As AI produces most of the world’s basic goods and services, people will be freed up to spend more time with people they care about, care for people, appreciate art and nature, or work toward social good.
传统的解决不平等的方法是逐步对收入征税。由于各种原因，这种方法效果不佳。在未来，这种方法的效果会更差。虽然人们仍然会有工作，但其中许多工作不会像我们今天所认为的那样创造大量的经济价值。随着 AI 生产世界上大部分的基本商品和服务，人们将有更多的时间与他们关心的人在一起，照顾他人，欣赏艺术和自然，或者致力于社会公益。
We should therefore focus on taxing capital rather than labor, and we should use these taxes as an opportunity to directly distribute ownership and wealth to citizens. In other words, the best way to improve capitalism is to enable everyone to benefit from it directly as an equity owner. This is not a new idea, but it will be newly feasible as AI grows more powerful, because there will be dramatically more wealth to go around. The two dominant sources of wealth will be 1) companies, particularly ones that make use of AI, and 2) land, which has a fixed supply.
因此，我们应该重点对资本而不是劳动征税，并应利用这些税收作为机会，直接向公民分配所有权和财富。换句话说，改善资本主义的最佳方式是使每个人都能直接作为股权所有者从中受益。这不是一个新想法，但随着 AI 变得更强大，它将变得新近可行，因为将有显著更多的财富可供分配。财富的两个主要来源将是 1）公司，特别是利用 AI 的公司，和 2）土地，其供应是固定的。
There are many ways to implement these two taxes, and many thoughts about what to do with them. Over a long period of time, perhaps most other taxes could be eliminated. What follows is an idea in the spirit of a conversation starter.
有很多方法可以实施这两种税收，也有很多关于如何使用这些税收的想法。在很长一段时间内，或许大多数其他税收都可以被取消。以下是一个作为对话开端的想法。
We could do something called the American Equity Fund. The American Equity Fund would be capitalized by taxing companies above a certain valuation 2.5% of their market value each year, payable in shares transferred to the fund, and by taxing 2.5% of the value of all privately-held land, payable in dollars.
我们可以做一些称为美国股权基金的事情。美国股权基金将通过对估值超过一定水平的公司每年征收其市值的 2.5% 的税来资本化，以转移到基金的股票支付，并对所有私人持有的土地价值征收 2.5% 的税，以美元支付。
All citizens over 18 would get an annual distribution, in dollars and company shares, into their accounts. People would be entrusted to use the money however they needed or wanted—for better education, healthcare, housing, starting a company, whatever. Rising costs in government-funded industries would face real pressure as more people chose their own services in a competitive marketplace.
所有 18 岁以上的公民每年都会收到一笔分配，以美元和公司股票的形式存入他们的账户。人们将被委托根据自己的需要或愿望使用这笔钱——用于更好的教育、医疗、住房、创业等。随着更多人选择在竞争市场中自己的服务，政府资助行业的成本上升将面临真正的压力。
As long as the country keeps doing better, every citizen would get more money from the Fund every year (on average; there will still be economic cycles). Every citizen would therefore increasingly partake of the freedoms, powers, autonomies, and opportunities that come with economic self-determination. Poverty would be greatly reduced and many more people would have a shot at the life they want.
只要国家继续进步，每个公民每年都会从基金中获得更多的钱（平均而言；仍然会有经济周期）。因此，每个公民将越来越多地享有经济自决带来的自由、权力、自主权和机会。贫困将大大减少，更多人将有机会过上他们想要的生活。
A tax payable in company shares will align incentives between companies, investors, and citizens,
以公司股票支付的税收将使公司、投资者和公民之间的激励机制保持一致，而利润税则不会——激励机制是超级力量，这是一个关键的区别。公司利润可以被伪装、推迟或转移到海外，并且通常与股票价格脱节。但每个拥有亚马逊股票的人都希望股票价格上涨。随着人们的个人资产与国家的同步增长，他们将对国家的繁荣有切实的利益。
Henry George, an American political economist, proposed the idea of a land-value tax in the late 1800s. The concept is widely supported by economists. The value of land appreciates because of the work society does around it: the network effects of the companies operating around a piece of land, the public transportation that makes it accessible, and the nearby restaurants, coffeeshops, and access to nature that makes it desirable. Because the landowner didn’t do all that work, it’s fair for that value to be shared with the larger society that did.
美国政治经济学家亨利·乔治在 19 世纪晚期提出了土地价值税的概念。这个概念得到了经济学家的广泛支持。土地的价值升值是因为社会在其周围所做的工作：在一块土地周围运营的公司的网络效应，使其可达的公共交通，以及附近的餐馆、咖啡店和自然景点使其变得有吸引力。因为土地所有者并没有做所有这些工作，所以将这些价值与做出这些贡献的更大社会共享是公平的。
If everyone owns a slice of American value creation, everyone will want America to do better: collective equity in innovation and in the success of the country will align our incentives. The new social contract will be a floor for everyone in exchange for a ceiling for no one, and a shared belief that technology can and must deliver a virtuous circle of societal wealth. (We will continue to need strong leadership from our government to make sure that the desire for stock prices to go up remains balanced with protecting the environment, human rights, etc.)
如果每个人都拥有美国价值创造的一部分，每个人都会希望美国变得更好：在创新和国家成功方面的集体股权将使我们的激励机制保持一致。新的社会契约将为每个人提供一个底线，而不为任何人设定上限，并且共同相信技术可以并且必须提供一个社会财富的良性循环。（我们仍然需要政府的强有力领导，以确保股票价格上涨的愿望与保护环境、人权等保持平衡。）
In a world where everyone benefits from capitalism as an owner, the collective focus will be on making the world “more good” instead of “less bad.” These approaches are more different than they seem, and society does much better when it focuses on the former. Simply put, more good means optimizing for making the pie as large as possible, and less bad means dividing the pie up as fairly as possible. Both can increase people’s standard of living once, but continuous growth only happens when the pie grows.
在一个每个人都作为所有者从资本主义中受益的世界里，集体的重点将是让世界“更好”而不是“更少坏”。这些方法比看起来的差异更大，当社会专注于前者时，效果会更好。简单地说，“更好”意味着优化以使蛋糕尽可能大，而“更少坏”意味着尽可能公平地分配蛋糕。两者都可以一次性提高人们的生活水平，但只有蛋糕增长时才会有持续的增长。
Part 4 Implementation and Troubleshooting(实施和故障排除)
The amount of wealth available to capitalize the American Equity Fund would be significant. There is about $50 trillion worth of value, as measured by market capitalization, in US companies alone. Assume that, as it has on average over the past century, this will at least double over the next decade.
用于资本化美国股权基金的财富数量将是巨大的。仅美国公司就有约 50 万亿美元的市值。假设在过去一个世纪的平均水平上，这一数值在未来十年内至少会翻倍。
There is also about $30 trillion worth of privately-held land in the US (not counting improvements on top of the land). Assume that this value will roughly double, too, over the next decade–this is somewhat faster than the historical rate, but as the world really starts to understand the shifts AI will cause, the value of land, as one of the few truly finite assets, should increase at a faster rate.
美国还有约 30 万亿美元的私人持有土地（不包括土地上的改进）。假设这一价值在未来十年内也会大致翻倍——这比历史速度稍快，但随着世界真正开始理解 AI 将带来的变化，作为少数真正有限的资产之一，土地的价值应该会以更快的速度增长。
Of course, if we increase the tax burden on holding land, its value will diminish relative to other investment assets, which is a good thing for society because it makes a fundamental resource more accessible and encourages investment instead of speculation. The value of companies will diminish in the short-term, too, though they will continue to perform quite well over time.
当然，如果我们增加持有土地的税负，其相对于其他投资资产的价值将会下降，这对社会来说是好事，因为它使基本资源更易获得，并鼓励投资而不是投机。公司的价值在短期内也会下降，尽管它们随着时间的推移会继续表现良好。
It’s a reasonable assumption that such a tax causes a drop in value of land and corporate assets of 15% (which only will take a few years to recover!).
合理的假设是，这种税收会导致土地和公司资产价值下降 15%（这只需要几年时间就能恢复！）。
Under the above set of assumptions (current values, future growth, and the reduction in value from the new tax), a decade from now each of the 250 million adults in America would get about 13,500 will have much greater purchasing power than it does now because technology will have greatly reduced the cost of goods and services. And that effective purchasing power will go up dramatically every year.
根据上述假设（当前价值、未来增长和新税收导致的价值下降），十年后美国每个 2.5 亿成年人每年将获得约 13,500 美元。如果 AI 加速增长，这一股息可能会高得多，但即使不是，13,500 美元的购买力也将比现在大得多，因为技术将大大降低商品和服务的成本。而且这种实际购买力每年都会大幅上升。
It would be easiest for companies to pay the tax each year by issuing new shares representing 2.5% of their value. There would obviously be an incentive for companies to escape the American Equity Fund tax by off-shoring themselves, but a simple test involving a percentage of revenue derived from America could address this concern. A larger problem with this idea is the incentive for companies to return value to shareholders instead of reinvesting it in growth.
公司每年通过发行代表其价值 2.5% 的新股来支付税款是最简单的。显然，公司会有动机通过离岸来逃避美国股权基金税，但涉及从美国获得的收入百分比的简单测试可以解决这个问题。这个想法的一个更大问题是公司将价值返还给股东而不是再投资于增长的激励。
If we tax only public companies, there would also be an incentive for companies to stay private. For private companies that have annual revenue in excess of $1 billion, we could let their tax in equity accrue for a certain (limited) number of years until they go public. If they remain private for a long time, we could let them settle the tax in cash.
如果我们只对上市公司征税，公司也会有动机保持私有。对于年收入超过 10 亿美元的私人公司，我们可以让他们的股权税在一定（有限）年限内累积，直到他们上市。如果他们长期保持私有，我们可以让他们以现金结算税款。
We’d need to design the system to prevent people from consistently voting themselves more money. A constitutional amendment delineating the allowable ranges of the tax would be a strong safeguard. It is important that the tax not be so large that it stifles growth–for example, the tax on companies must be much smaller than their average growth rate.
我们需要设计系统以防止人们不断投票给自己更多的钱。宪法修正案划定税收的允许范围将是一个强有力的保障。重要的是，税收不能大到抑制增长——例如，对公司的税收必须远小于它们的平均增长率。
We’d also need a robust system for quantifying the actual value of land. One way would be with a corps of powerful federal assessors. Another would be to let local governments do the assessing, as they now do to determine property taxes. They would continue to receive local taxes using the same assessed value. However, if a certain percentage of sales in a jurisdiction in any given year falls too far above or below the local government’s estimate of the property’s values, then all the other properties in their jurisdiction would be reassessed up or down.
我们还需要一个强大的系统来量化土地的实际价值。一种方法是由一支强大的联邦评估员队伍来进行评估。另一种方法是让地方政府进行评估，就像他们现在确定财产税一样。他们将继续使用相同的评估价值来接收地方税。然而，如果某一年度某一辖区内的销售额百分比远高于或低于地方政府对财产价值的估计，那么该辖区内的所有其他财产将重新评估。
The theoretically optimal system would be to tax the value of the land only, and not the improvements built on top of it. In practice, this value may turn out to be too difficult to assess, so we may need to tax the value of the land and the improvements on it (at a lower rate, as the combined value would be higher).
理论上最优的系统是只对土地价值征税，而不是对其上的改进征税。在实践中，这个价值可能太难评估，所以我们可能需要对土地和其上的改进价值征税（以较低的税率，因为综合价值会更高）。
Finally, we couldn’t let people borrow against, sell, or otherwise pledge their future Fund distributions, or we won’t really solve the problem of fairly distributing wealth over time. The government can simply make such transactions unenforceable.
最后，我们不能让人们借贷、出售或以其他方式抵押他们未来的基金分配，否则我们将无法真正解决公平分配财富的问题。政府可以简单地使这些交易无法执行。
Part 5 Shifting to the New System(向新系统转变)
A great future isn’t complicated: we need technology to create more wealth, and policy to fairly distribute it. Everything necessary will be cheap, and everyone will have enough money to be able to afford it. As this system will be enormously popular, policymakers who embrace it early will be rewarded: they will themselves become enormously popular.
美好的未来并不复杂：我们需要技术来创造更多的财富，并通过政策公平分配它。所有必要的东西都会变得便宜，每个人都会有足够的钱来负担它。由于这个系统将非常受欢迎，早期接受它的政策制定者将得到回报：他们自己将变得非常受欢迎。
In the Great Depression, Franklin Roosevelt was able to enact a huge social safety net that no one would have thought possible five years earlier. We are in a similar moment now. So a movement that is both pro-business and pro-people will unite a remarkably broad constituency.
在大萧条时期，富兰克林·罗斯福能够制定一个巨大的社会安全网，这是五年前没有人会想到的。我们现在处于一个类似的时刻。因此，一个既支持商业又支持人民的运动将团结一个非常广泛的选民群体。
A politically feasible way to launch the American Equity Fund, and one that would reduce the transitional shock, would be with legislation that transitions us gradually to the 2.5% rates. The full 2.5% rate would only take hold once GDP increases by 50% from the time the law is passed. Starting with small distributions soon will be both motivating and helpful in getting people comfortable with a new future. Achieving 50% GDP growth sounds like it would take a long time (it took 13 years for the economy to grow 50% to its 2019 level). But once AI starts to arrive, growth will be extremely rapid. Down the line, we will probably be able to reduce a lot of other taxes as we tax these two fundamental asset classes.
启动美国股权基金的一种政治上可行的方法，并且可以减少过渡冲击的方法，是通过立法逐步过渡到 2.5% 的税率。只有当 GDP 从法律通过时增加 50% 时，完整的 2.5% 税率才会生效。很快开始小额分配将既有激励作用，又有助于让人们适应新的未来。实现 50% 的 GDP 增长听起来需要很长时间（经济增长 50% 到 2019 年水平花了 13 年）。但一旦 AI 开始到来，增长将非常迅速。随着时间的推移，我们可能能够减少许多其他税收，因为我们对这两种基本资产类别征税。
The changes coming are unstoppable. If we embrace them and plan for them, we can use them to create a much fairer, happier, and more prosperous society. The future can be almost unimaginably great.
即将到来的变化是不可阻挡的。如果我们接受它们并为它们做计划，我们可以利用它们创造一个更加公平、幸福和繁荣的社会。未来几乎可以变得难以想象的美好。