双语阅读：2025年或拥有机器人情人

Human relationships have had their day。

人与人之间谈恋爱很快就要过时啦。

They have enjoyed all the excellence of wine-in-a-box. Too often, what starts with a flame ends as soot。

人类之间的恋爱总是很美好，刚开始会像烟花一样绚烂，可往往到最后爱情灰飞烟灭，令人伤感。

So a new report from the Pew Research Center offers hope for humans in search of true and abiding love。

皮尤研究中心的一项研究为人类找到更真挚、更持久的爱情带来了希望。

For in "AI, Robotics And The Future Of Jobs" (PDF)， one of the experts surveyed predicts that, in 2025, many of us will have robot lovers. No, not those who are human and merely go through the motions because they have a ring on their finger and a joint bank account.No, these will be actual robots that will know our every need and minister to it accordingly。

在这项名为“人工智能，机器人与未来职业”的研究中，有专家预测，到2025年，我们很多人都会拥有一个机器人伴侣。这不同于人类伴侣，不是那种因为手上带了结婚戒指、和你共享银行账户的所谓的伴侣，而是指可以了解你的所有需求，辅助你的生活的实实在在的机器人伴侣。

The report, released last week, canvassed the views of experts. As we know with experts, they are always right. Especially in their own minds. So this is as sure a picture as we can have of our loving and lovable future。

上周公布的这份研究报告里征询了多方专家学者的观点，他们各有各的说辞，所以我们也只能尽量描绘出一个充满正能量的未来世界蓝图。

Robots will, it seems, threaten current jobs more than ever. These won't merely be jobs that require automation. These will be jobs of the white-collar variety, those that involve a touch of politics, as well as a heap of patience. Almost half the experts believe that the advance of robot deployment will mean the advance of human unemployment. They fear greater income inequality, and even heightened social disorder。

在未来，机器人有可能对人类的职业造成前所未有的威胁。受到威胁的职业不仅包括那些要求自动化的职业，也包括白领、需要懂政治、需要有耐心的职业。近一半的专家认为，机器人的大范围使用可能会导致失业人群增加，贫富差距拉大，甚至是社会混乱程度加剧。

Some differ. Salesforce's JP Rangaswami, for example, insists that: "The effects will be different in different economies (which themselves may look different from today's political boundaries). Driven by revolutions in education and in technology, the very nature of work will have changed radically--but only in economies that have chosen to invest in education, technology,and related infrastructure."

其他一些专家则持不同的观点。例如来自CRM(客户关系管理)软件服务提供商Salesforce的然格斯沃米就认为，“在不同的经济状况下，机器人的影响也会不同，而未来的经济状况划分也有可能与现在不一样。在教育和科技革命的推动下，除了投资教育、科技及相关公共事业的经济领域之外，各行业的工作性质都将发生翻天覆地的变化。”

Jonathan Grudin, Microsoft's principal researcher, believes technology has always been a net jobs creator. He said: "Although there have always been unemployed people, when we reached a few billion people there were billions of jobs. There is no shortage of things that need to be done and that will not change。"

微软首席研究员乔纳森认为，技术一直是创造网络就业岗位的一只手，“虽然我们的社会一直存在失业人群，但是有数十亿人口就会有上十亿的工作岗位。我们从来都不缺事做，这一点是不会改变的。”

But let's be optimistic. There will be vast numbers of people with little to do. They will need far more love -- or, at least, lovin' -- than ever before。

乐观点来看的话，机器人一旦普及，人类需要亲自做的事情就变少了，也因此可能比之前需要更多的爱，或者，至少是需要更多的爱好。

That's where, one expert surveyed for the report suggests, robots may be a salvation. Stowe Boyd, lead researcher for GigaOM Research, predicts: "Robotic sex partners will become commonplace, although the source of scorn and division, the way that critics today bemoan selfies as an indicator of all that's wrong with the world."

这个时候，机器人可能就会成为一个救星。GigaOM研究中心的首席研究员斯多认为：“在未来，把机器人作为性伴侣将会是一件司空见惯的事情，虽然今天这种事还会被人嘲笑或仍存在着分歧。”

Will there be scorn and division? Or will there be blessed relief at the simplicity of it all? The robot will never stand you up, always listen to everything you say without even a whisper of disagreement, and will happily turn over and go to sleep if you happen not to be in the mood。

将来还会被嘲笑、还会有分歧吗?将来机器人伴侣会成为一种被人祝福、让人解脱的方式吗?不管怎样，机器人伴侣会永远站在你那边，倾听你的每一句话而不会有任何异议。在性生活上，如果你没心情，机器人也不会勉强你，而是开心地转过身去睡觉。

Moreover, if you have managed to cash out of the IPO of a thoroughly useless startup, you'll still have the money for a couples date。

另外，如果你炒股失败，也不用担心没钱约会。

Each of you can bring your own robot. Think of how much cheaper this will be. The robots don't need to nibble on so much as a kale salad and a piece of boiled celery root。

每个人都能有属于你自己的机器人伴侣，这还会缩减你的开支。机器人完全不挑食，无论是水煮芹菜根还是蔬菜沙拉，TA都不会跟你计较。

Of course some might mock at first. But these will be people who are still struggling with the notion that the halfwit they married turned out to be a quarterwit。

当然一些人可能还是会觉得这事不靠谱。他们害怕与他们结婚的这些机器人会越来越傻。

Moreover, just last year, 9 percent of people expressed their cheeriness at the idea of robot sex. That's surely more than want to wear Google Glass。

去年在一个有关是否愿意让机器人做伴侣的调查中，9%的人表示很期待，这比想要带谷歌智能眼镜的人数比例还高。

Ultimately, we have no idea what our roboticized world will look like. What joy, though, if our sudden roboticization of the world coincides precisely with our natural efforts to destroy it。

对于未来机器化的世界会是什么样子，是会造福人类，还是会破坏我们曾做的所有努力，我们都无法预知。

How poignant it would be if it were the robots who managed to actually save us from our worst habits。

但是，如果人类真的到了需要利用机器人来摆脱坏习惯的地步，那也真是值得反思的了。