经济学人 | 把 AI 当软件用,是 2026 年最蠢的战略决策

作者Ethan Mollick是宾夕法尼亚大学沃顿商学院教授，著有《Co-Intelligence》，是学界最早系统研究”如何与AI协作“的学者之一。他提出的”workslop”一词已在AI讨论圈广泛流传，专指用AI批量生成的、看似勤奋实则空洞的文档垃圾。

这篇文章发表于《经济学人》2026年4月刊，正值各大企业AI部署热潮，Mollick的观点代表了一种”反主流”的清醒声音。

出处：The Economist April 4th 2026作者：Ethan Mollick标题：Companies should treat AI as what it is: profoundly weird

System designed to predict the most likely next word in a sentence can also write good computer code, offer strategic advice and respond with remarkable empathy to human problems. We don’t fully understand why. And yet the dominant instinct across the corporate world is to treat artificial intelligence as if it were just another piece of enterprise software: slot it into existing processes, assign it Key Performance Indicators and hand it to the IT department for management.

【注释】

1. the dominant instinct across the corporate world

商界的主流。

同义替换：prevailing mindset (普遍心态), primary tendency (主要倾向)。

2. slot it into existing processes

将其硬塞入现有的工作流程中。

分析：生动描绘了企业试图让AI适应旧有工作模式的僵化做法。slot into 有“按部就班地安排进某处”之意。

同义表达：integrate into (整合进), fit into (融入)，embed into（嵌入）

3. assign it

同义：delegate / allocate / entrust assign tasks/metrics (分配任务/指标)

 This is a profound strategic mistake. Companies are racing tode-weird AI, and in doing so they are squandering what makes it transformative, turning it into just the latest wave of office automation. To be clear, making AI easy to use is important, and building it into familiar tools and workflows is just smart engineering. The mistake is letting those smooth interfaces flatten your understanding of the technology’s possibilities.

【注释】

1.profound strategic mistake

重大战略失误

解析：profound 在此指“深远的、极大的”，而非“深奥的”。

同义词：severe (严重的), fundamental (根本性的)，grave，critical strategic blunder/error

2.racing to

争相/竞相去（做某事）。

同义：hurrying to / rushing to / scrambling to

3.de-weird AI / weird AI

驯化AI/ 诡异的AI。

分析：这是全文的核心自创概念。“Weird AI”代表AI非传统、难以预测且极具颠覆性的本质。而“de-weird”则指企业试图将其改造成普通、无聊但易于管理的自动化工具。

拓展：weird (奇怪的，不可思议的) 

同义词：bizarre, unconventional。

【翻译】

de-weird/weird AI 在文章中多次出现，在翻译时也可以多样化处理。

① Companies should treat AI as what it is: profoundly weird

企业应正视 AI 的本质：它是个颠覆性的存在

② The urge to de-weird is understandable

这种试图“驯化”AI 的冲动可以理解

③ Companies are racing to de-weird AI

企业正争先恐后地将AI常规化 （将其平庸化）

④ Firms that sand down AI’s strange edges…（同义表达）

那些试图磨平 AI 棱角的企业……

4. they are squandering what makes it transformative (squandering)

翻译：他们正在浪费那些让AI具有颠覆性变革能力特质。

分析：squander 意为“挥霍（金钱、机会等）”。企业因为急于让AI“常规化”，反而失去了技术本身最大的价值。

同义词：wasting (浪费), frittering away (挥霍), / misspend / dissipate

5. the mistake is letting those smooth interfaces flatten your understanding of the technology’s possibilities.

翻译：错误在于，那些简易的用户界面，局限了你对这项技术潜力的理解(局限你的认知，使理解变得片面、浅薄)。

分析：这是一个极具洞察力的长句。smooth interfaces 指简单易用的产品外观，flatten（使变平）在这里做动词，比喻思维和认知被简化、被降维。

The urge to de-weird is understandable. Executives are trained to normalise new technologies and fit them into familiar categories. So AI becomes a fuzzy-logic processor built into a workflow or a tool that shaves minutes off a task. Normal technology gets normal rollout plans, like requiring that 90% of employees must use a new software package each week.

【注释】

1. Fuzzy-logic processor

模糊逻辑处理器

（处理模糊信息的AI专用组件）

2. Shaves minutes off a task

在一项任务上节省几分钟时间。

分析：shave off 本意是刮掉、削减。这里形容企业把AI当成微小的效率优化工具（仅仅节约了一点时间），而不是生产力的重构工具。

同义：cuts minutes from / saves time on

3. normal rollout plans

常规推广计划。

分析：指针对普通软件的常规部署计划（如要求90%的员工每周使用）。

同义：deployment plans / implementation plans

But when you set that target for AI, what actually happens? Employees use AI to transcribe meetings, or produce an endless stream of “workslop” in the form of dozens of extra memos or PowerPoints. Treating this technology as another software deployment is like receiving a mysterious alien artefact and immediately using it as a paperweight.

 【注释】

1. endless stream of “workslop”

大量无实际价值的工作产物（文中指 AI 生成的多余备忘录、PPT 等）

分析：workslop这是一个生造词，由 work 和 slop（泔水、粗劣的东西）合成。指员工用AI批量生成的毫无营养的备忘录或PPT, AI可替代的低价值繁琐劳动

同义：drudgery / tedious work

2. a paperweight

镇纸

（文中为比喻，指将高价值的 AI 当作低价值的普通工具使用）

原文句：Treating this technology as another software deployment is like receiving a mysterious alien artefact and immediately using it as a paperweight.

若仅以传统的软件部署思维来对待 AI，正如获赠一件超自然外星神器，却因认知局限，将其视为普通的镇纸。

这是绝妙的比喻，讽刺企业暴殄天物，大材小用。

The de-weirding impulse produces a second, deeper failure: it leads companies to default towards automation rather than augmentation. When leaders see studies showing productivity gains of 30% from AI, their instinct is to cut 30% of the workforce. That arithmetic is simple. What is hard, and requires genuine imagination, is asking a different question: what does it mean to rebuild an organisation around the fact that a single programmer can now write a hundred times more code? What new products become possible? What new markets open up? No vendor can answer those questions for you. No consultant has a playbook (much as they might claim they do). The hard strategic work of reimagining what your organisation could become is precisely the work that de-weirding AI allows companies to avoid.

【注释】

1. Their instinct is to cut 30% of the workforce

他们的本能反应是裁员30%。

分析：当管理者看到AI能提升30%生产力时，他们首先想到的是缩减成本（自动化），而不是增加产出（增强能力）。

2. No consultant has a playbook

没有哪个顾问拥有现成操作指南

分析：playbook 指美式橄榄球中的战术册，商界常指“一套成熟的策略或行动指南”。意思是AI太新了，任何人都没有现成答案。

3. The work that de-weirding AI allows companies to avoid

翻译：正是把AI常规化才得以让公司逃避那些工作。

分析：重构组织的战略工作太难了，所以公司选择把AI降级为普通工具，以此来逃避真正的思考。

And there is a natural place where de-weirded AI goes to die: the IT department. This is not a criticism of IT professionals, who do essential work. But in most firms their mandate is to minimise risk. If they could take away your keyboards, they would sleep better at night. Every creative thing an employee does on a computer leaves the firm potentially vulnerable. AI, by contrast, demands that organisations embrace risk by experimenting wildly, tolerating failure and accepting that nobody yet knows the right way to use these tools. Handing sole control over AI to a department whose core mission is risk elimination is a category error. So what should firms do instead? In my work in this area I have come to advocate a three-part model: Leadership, Crowd and Lab.

【注释】

1. three-part model

三位一体模型

2. In most firms their mandate is to minimise risk (mandate)

翻译：在大多数公司中，他们的使命/职责是最小化风险。

分析：这里的 mandate 指IT部门被赋予的官方指令或核心任务。

同义：mission / responsibility

3. Handing sole control over AI to a department whose core mission is risk elimination is a category error

翻译：将AI的绝对控制权交给一个以规避风险为核心的部门，是根本性错误。

分析：category error（范畴错误）是一个哲学/逻辑学术语，指把属于某个范畴的属性强加给另一个根本不属于该范畴的事物。意指让IT管AI，是完全搞错了事物属性。

Leadership means that direction must come from the top. The CEO and other senior managers cannot delegate AI strategy to middle management or IT. They must articulate a vision for how AI changes what the organisation is, not merely how it operates, and they must create incentives that make experimentation safe. And they have to lead by using these systems themselves.

【注释】

1. Direction must come from the top

方向必须来自高层

解析：AI战略需要顶层设计

同义：top-down direction

If they do, they can inspire the Crowd, a company’s employees, who, when given access to AI tools and genuine permission to experiment, will figure out use cases not even the AI firms expected. Since AI is most effective in the hands of experts, the Crowd is where the best ideas come from.Those ideas then go to the Lab, where a team of technical and non-technical employees work on generative AI full-time. These are people whose job is to push boundaries, develop new workflows and feed discoveries back into the organisation. I am shocked by how many large companies still lack even this. Without it, they have no mechanism for learning what AI can actually do for them. They are flying blind, relying on vendor demos and conference keynotes instead of building institutional knowledge.

【注释】

1. Push boundaries

突破边界，突破界限/挑战极限。

同义：break limits / go beyond limits

2. Flying blind

盲目飞行/盲目行动。

分析：航空术语，指在没有仪表或视线的情况下飞行。比喻企业缺乏自我探索机制，对AI的潜力一无所知，无方法、无数据地推进AI

同义：acting blindly

3. Vendor demos

供应商演示

4.  Conference keynotes

翻译：会议主题演讲。

There is one more problem that de-weirding creates, and it may be the most consequential. When companies fail to create the right incentives, employees respond rationally: they hide their AI use. Some fear punishment. Some do not trust that productivity gains will be shared with them rather than captured by the firm. Some quietly work 90% less and see no reason to volunteer that information. The result is an enormous information gap. Managers cannot see the true impact AI is already having inside their own organisations, which makes it even harder to develop a real strategy.

【注释】

1. Some do not trust that productivity gains will be shared with them rather than captured by the firm

翻译：部分人不相信效率提升会惠及自身，而非被企业独占

分析：极其精准的人性洞察。员工隐藏使用AI的事实，是因为怕公司利用AI提高效率后，反而剥削或裁退自己。Captured by the firm 意指利益被公司单方面攫取

 Weird AI, the stage is yoursResisting the de-weirding trend does not guarantee AI will go well. There is no default good outcome. But a failure to see AI for what it is—a profoundly odd, risky and powerful technology—will guarantee bad ones. Firms that sand down AI’s strange edges will veer towards automation and layoffs, as that is all they can see. Those willing to confront the technology head-on can find something far more interesting, including ways to help make their people, and their organisations, capable of things that were impossible a year ago and will be impossible to predict a year from now. Nobody knows exactly where this is going. But you don’t navigate strange territory by pretending your old maps will work.

【注释】

1. There is no default good outcome

没有天然的好结果

2. A profoundly odd

极其古怪的。

分析：再次强调AI异于常态的本质。与标题中的 profoundly weird 呼应。

同义：extremely strange / highly unusual

3. Sand down

打磨、抹平、去掉棱角

解析：把AI变得常规、失去创新，sand 做动词是“用砂纸打磨”。比喻企业强行削掉AI那些令人不适但却极具潜力的独特性。

拓展：sand down the edges 磨平棱角

4. Veer towards

转向/偏向。

分析：如果不正视AI，企业的方向就会不可避免地滑向（自动化和裁员）。

同义词：steer towards, shift towards/to ，turn toward ，incline to

5. You don’t navigate strange territory by pretending your old maps will work.

翻译：在陌生领域航行，不能指望旧地图管用

分析：全文的点睛之笔。strange territory 指AI带来的全新商业环境；old maps 指传统的管理思维、KPI和IT部署流程。告诫管理者必须抛弃旧思维，才能在AI时代生存。

Ethan Mollick is an associate professor at the Wharton School and the author of “Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI.”

Mollick 教授指出，企业目前最大的战略错误是试图将 AI “de-weirding”，即像管理普通办公软件一样，将其塞进现有流程并交给以规避风险为使命的 IT 部门 。这种做法如同将“神器当成镇纸”使用，会让企业陷入单纯追求自动化和裁员的死胡同，从而错过技术重构组织和开拓新市场的机会。

为了真正发挥 AI 的价值，Mollick 建议建立由 CEO 亲自挂帅的“领导层、员工与实验”模型，鼓励员工在安全的环境下疯狂实验，并建立属于公司自己的机构知识 。他警告称,管理者必须正视 AI，因为在新时代沿用旧逻辑，无疑是固步自封。