評論
打印
Finance and Economics
財經
Free exchange: Jam tomorrow
自由交流：堵在明天
Driverless cars will not save cities from either traffic or infrastructure expense.
無人車不會將城市從滾滾的車流和基礎設施耗費錢財中拯救出來。
The most distractingly unrealistic feature of most science fiction—by some margin—is how the great soaring cities of the future never seem to struggle with traffic.
大多數科幻小說的最令人想入非非的不現實的情節——大約要算是——未來的大城市似乎從來不怎么與滾滾車流作斗爭。
Whatever dystopias lie ahead, futurists seem confident we can sort out congestion.
不管擺在前方的烏托邦到底如何，未來主義者似乎對我們能夠消除擁堵充滿信心。
If hope that technology will fix traffic springs eternal, history suggests something different.
如果說技術將調度滾滾車流的希望生生不息的話，歷史告訴人們的則是不一樣的故事。
Transport innovation, from railways to cars, reshaped cities and drove economic advance.
從鐵路到汽車的交通運輸創新重塑了城市，推動了經濟的發展。
But it also brought crowded commutes.
但是也帶來了通勤擁堵。
Now, as tech firms and carmakers aim to roll out fleets of driverless cars, it is worth asking: might this time be different?
現在，當科技公司和汽車制造商旨在推出大量的無人駕駛汽車的時候，我們有必要問：這一次會不同嗎？
Alas, artificial intelligence (AI) is unlikely to succeed where steel rails and internal-combustion engines failed.
唉，在鐵軌和內燃機發動機都失敗的地方，人工智能是不大可能獲得成功的。
More’s the pity.
真是太可惜了。
In America alone, traffic congestion brings economic losses estimated in the hundreds of billions of dollars each year.
單是在美國，交通擁堵帶來的經濟損失每年估計在上千億美元。
Such costs will rise unless existing transport systems receive badly needed investment.
除非現有的運輸系統收到了迫切需要的投資，這樣的代價將會提高。
For example, fixing New York’s beleaguered, over crowded subway will take at least $100bn, according to one recent estimate.
例如，根據一項最近的估計，維修紐約存在諸多問題并且過度擁擠的地鐵，將會花費至少1000億美元。
A driverless deus ex machinamight seem to spare governments some difficult decisions.
一個無人駕駛的解圍之神可能會讓政府免于做出一些艱難的決定。
But congestion is a near-inevitable side-effect of urban growth.
但是，擁堵是城市發展的一個不可避免的副作用。
Cities exist because being near to other people brings enormous advantages.
城市存在的原因是與挨著其他人帶來了極大的優勢。
Proximity allows people to find friends, mates and business partners, to discuss ideas and generate new ones, and to trade (and so to capture the benefits of specialisation).
近距離可以讓人們找到朋友、伴侶和商業伙伴，去討論想法、產生新的想法，并且進行交易（進而可以得到特殊化的福利）。
譯文來源余興宇
