互联网推动进步之轮
Web oils the wheels of progress
One of the world’s first disruptive technologies was invented just over 5,000 years ago when someone attached circular objects to an axle to create a form of transport.
世界上首批具有颠覆性的技术之一是5000多年前发明的，那个时候某个人将圆形的物体安到一个轴上创造了一种交通工具。
We cannot know how contemporaries reacted to the invention of the wheel, although its legacy for humanity is clear. And even in the modern age, the true impact of a disruptive technology on the global economy may take many years to be realised.
我们不知道当时的人对轮子的发明有什么反应，但它给人类留下的遗产是毋庸置疑的。即使是在现代，一种颠覆性的技术对全球经济的真正影响可能也需要很多年才能体现出来。
By any measure, the changes wrought by the internet have been fast. In the less than 20 years since the internet became commercially available, what began as an idea for scientists to share information by connecting their computers has grown to touch almost every aspect of our lives, from business, finance and education to shopping, relationships and entertainment.
不管从哪个方面来看，互联网带来的变革都是迅速的。在互联网进入商用以来的不到20年间，科学家最初通过将电脑连接起来分享信息的想法几乎拓展到我们生活的方方面面，从商业、金融、教育，到购物、人际关系和娱乐。
James McQuivey, digital disruption expert at Forrester Research, says: “The number one effect [of the internet] from a purely macroeconomic perspective is that we are witnessing the dramatic reduction of the friction that was presumed to be unavoidable in the modern economy.
福里斯特调查公司(Forrester Research)“数字化颠覆”专家詹姆斯•麦奎维(James McQuivey)说：“从纯粹的宏观经济角度来看，互联网带来的第一大影响就是，我们正在见证，现代经济中被认为不可避免的摩擦正在急剧减少。”
“The industrial era helped us master the production of materials, and what some called the information age helped us transfer some information quickly. But none of that created the kind of change we are on the cusp of now, where the friction that slows down the economy is being reduced in every aspect of business – in some cases to zero. Even in parts of the economy that we thought were efficient, we are finding new efficiencies to be gained.”
“工业时代使得我们掌握了材料的生产，一些人所称的信息时代帮助我们快速传播一些信息。但它们都没有带来我们当前正在经历的变化——在经济运行的方方面面，导致经济放缓的摩擦正在减少，在有些情况下甚至降为零。就连在我们认为效率已经很高的经济领域，我们也发现效率在提高。”
Initial excitement about the possibilities offered by the internet created the dotcom boom of the late 1990s. Today, more than a decade after that bubble burst, a clearer picture has begun to emerge about the role of internet-based innovation in society.
互联网潜能引发的最初激情创造了上世纪90年代末的网络繁荣。今天，在网络泡沫破裂的十多年之后，人们开始更清晰地认识到基于互联网的创新在社会中的作用。
The internet’s total contribution to global gross domestic product is bigger than the GDP of Spain or Canada and is growing faster than that of Brazil, according to estimates in a 2011 report by McKinsey Global Institute, part of the McKinsey management consultancy.
管理咨询机构麦肯锡(McKinsey)旗下的麦肯锡全球研究院(McKinsey Global Institute)2011年的一份报告估测，互联网对全球GDP的整体贡献大于西班牙或者加拿大的GDP，并且正在以高于巴西GDP的幅度增长。
The internet is also affecting living standards much faster than was the case with other technological revolutions. “We found that an increase in internet maturity similar to the one experienced in advanced countries over the past 15 years correlates with an increase in real per capita GDP of $500 on average during that period,” the McKinsey report said. “It took 50 years for the industrial revolution of the 19th century to achieve the same results.”
互联网提高生活水平的速度也比其他技术变革快得多。麦肯锡报告指出：“我们发现，类似于过去15年发达国家经历的互联网成熟度的提高，平均使在此期间的人均实际GDP增加了500美元。而19世纪工业革命则需要50年才能达到这个效果。”
Yet even in the relatively few years that the internet has been with us, the technology and its application have undergone radical transformation, including the introduction of sites based on social networking, accessible almost anywhere via smartphones and tablet computers.
而且，即使是在互联网诞生以来相对较短的时间内，这种技术及其应用也已经经历了重大变革，包括基于社交网络的网站的引入，通过智能手机和平板电脑几乎随时随地可以使用。
The future is likely to be different again.
未来似乎还会再次发生改变。
“At this stage, we know that the internet has had significant impact on advanced economies, but the impact on aspiring economies has been much smaller,” says James Manyika, director of McKinsey Global Institute.
麦肯锡全球研究院主管詹姆斯•马尼卡(James Manyika)说：“我们都知道，目前互联网已经对发达经济体产生了重要影响，但对新兴经济体的影响就小得多。”
In 2010, half of the world’s internet users – 1bn people – were spread across 30 developing economies, according to McKinsey. Yet those economies’ internet infrastructure was still in its infancy. The internet has contributed an average of 2.3 per cent of GDP growth in developing countries in the past five years, compared with 21 per cent in developed nations.
麦肯锡统计显示，2010年，全球20亿互联网用户中有一半分布在30多个发展中国家。然而，这些国家的互联网基础设施却依然处于初始阶段。过去五年，互联网对发展中国家的GDP增长平均贡献率为2.3%，而发达国家的这一比例为21%。
Nigeria, for example, is rich in natural resources, but the internet accounts for just 0.5 per cent of GDP, says Mr Manyika. “When the internet does expand in the developing world, the upside potential is significant.”
马尼卡指出，比方说，尼日利亚自然资源很丰富，但互联网只占其GDP的0.5%。“当互联网真正在发展中世界拓展起来的时候，向上的潜力是无穷的。”
He adds: “Much of what we have seen so far is what you might call the human internet – people buying things from each other and communicating. What it doesn’t include is the ‘industrial internet’. In 20 years’ time, it will connect fully factories, machines, roads, bridges, smart grids . . . The scale of that is trillions of dollars in terms of what we will save in better management of energy and so on.”
他补充说：“目前为止我们所看到的大部分就是我们所说的人际互联网——人们之间的商品交易和交流。它并没有包括‘工业互联网’。20年之后，它将把工厂、机器、道路、桥梁、智能电网等完全连接起来。这样规模的互联网将意味着，由于对能源等实现了更好的管理，我们将能够节约数万亿美元的资金。”
Mr McQuivey of Forrester says: “The internet has the ability to change every part of the economy. We are talking about trillions of dollars that can be pulled out of cost, which would then free people to spend their money on making better and cheaper products. There is growth hiding in the economy if we simply take advantage of all the multiple efficiencies.”
福里斯特研究公司的麦奎维说：“互联网有能力改变经济的各个层面。它所节约的成本是数万亿美元级别的，这些资金可以用来让人们生产更好更廉价的产品。仅仅是利用好所有这些多重效率，就会给经济带来巨大的增长潜力。”
In the meantime, what other disruptive technologies are set to make the biggest impact on the global economy? In May, McKinsey Global Institute will publish its assessment of the technologies it thinks will be important in the next two decades.
那么，还有哪些颠覆性技术将对全球经济产生最重大的影响呢？5月份，麦肯锡全球研究院将发布技术评估报告，指出哪些是未来20年的重要技术。
Mr Manyika highlights innovations that combine biotechnology and digital technology; and autonomous vehicles that, he believes, will bring far more than just driverless cars.
马尼卡看重将生物技术和数字技术结合起来的创新以及自动汽车技术，在他看来，后者带来的不仅仅是无人驾驶汽车。
He also points to advances in robotics. “Automation has massive implications, especially for the jobs market,” he says. “It will not only affect manufacturing but also knowledge workers in the service sector.”
他还提到先进的机器人技术。“自动化有着重要影响，特别是在就业市场，”他说，“它不仅会影响到制造业，也会对服务业的知识工作者产生影响。”
天之聪教育
2013-05-09
天之聪教育
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