People have dreamt for many years about a world without work. In an essay in 1891, Oscar Wilde imagined a future where, “just as trees grow while the country gentleman is asleep, so while humanity will be amusing itself, or enjoying cultivated leisure — which, and not labour, is the aim of man — or making beautiful things, or reading beautiful things, or simply contemplating the world with admiration and delight, machinery will be doing all the necessary and unpleas-ant work”. This year, rapid developments in artificial intelligence have reignited questions about whether machines might one day replace the need for human labour entirely. I am sceptical, not least because we humans have a remarkable ability to make work for ourselves. But let’s suppose for a moment that technological progress did usher in an age of leisure. Would we actually be able to cope with it?
多年來，人們一直夢寐以求一個沒有工作的世界。奧斯卡?王爾德(Oscar Wilde)在1891年的一篇散文中想象了這樣一種未來：“就像樹木在生長，而鄉村紳士卻在休憩中，因此當人類在自得其樂、享受文雅的閑暇（人類的目標是它而不是勞動）、創造美麗的事物、閱讀美好的東西，或僅僅是懷著贊美和喜悅沉思這個世界時，機器就會在做一切必需的和令人不快的工作。”