夜雨聆风1
思维导图：
May Li，男，我要去追逐心中的太阳，还要继续努力的亚古兽
#外刊精读#考研英语#CATTI#心灵成长#双语美文2
Will AI lower interest rates?
AI会降低利率么？
英文部分选自经济学人20260627期财经版块
Will AI lower interest rates?
AI会降低利率么？
Kevin Warsh is drawing lessons about tech from Alan Greenspan—but selectively
凯文·沃什正从艾伦·格林斯潘那里总结科技领域的教训，但有所取舍
AS CHAIRMAN OF the Federal Reserve in the 1990s, the jazz-loving Alan Greenspan earned a reputation as the maestro of monetary policy. Many of his colleagues believed that unemployment had fallen so low that it was certain to stoke inflation, and called for higher interest rates. But Mr Greenspan heard a different tune. From anecdotes about retailers tracking inventories by satellite or airlines using computers to adjust fares to match demand, he inferred that an IT-driven productivity boom was taking hold before it appeared in official statistics. The economy could thus grow faster without stoking inflation. He held rates steady for much of 1996 and 1997, trusting his inference over economic models. For a time, it worked.
20世纪90年代，在担任联邦储备委员会主席期间，酷爱爵士乐的艾伦·格林斯潘赢得了货币政策“大师”的美誉。当时，他的许多同事认为失业率已经降得太低，势必会引发通货膨胀，因此呼吁提高利率。但格林斯潘听到了不同的声音。从零售商通过卫星跟踪库存、航空公司利用计算机调整票价以满足需求等逸闻趣事中，他推断出，，一场信息技术驱动的生产率繁荣已经悄然来临，只是尚未体现在官方统计数据中。因此，经济可以更快增长，同时不会引发通货膨胀。在1996年和1997年的大部分时间里，他选择保持利率稳定，相信自己的推断胜过经济模型。在一段时间内，这一思路奏效了。
注释：
1. maestro：n. 大师；名家；大音乐家
2.stoke：If you stoke something such as a feeling, you cause it to be felt more strongly. 激起 (某种感觉)
Kevin Warsh, the Fed’s new chairman, has cast himself as Mr Greenspan’s heir. In his telling, artificial intelligence will expand supply and lower costs, allowing the economy to grow faster with less inflationary pressure. He, too, thinks the productivity statistics will arrive late. In an interview last December Mr Warsh praised Mr Greenspan for forming his views “from anecdotes and rather esoteric data”, arguing that when the data and the anecdotes diverge, central bankers should trust the latter. He sees the “excitement” in the eyes of chief executives as evidence that a productivity revolution is afoot. This forms part of Mr Warsh’s broader case, disputed by many of his colleagues: that AI is a disinflationary force, and that it calls for lower interest rates. Has Mr Warsh drawn the right lesson from his hero?
美联储新任主席凯文·沃什自认是格林斯潘的继承人。他认为，人工智能将扩大供应，并降低成本，从而让经济更快增长，同时通胀压力更低。他也认为，生产率统计数据会滞后。在去年12月的一次采访中，沃什赞扬了格林斯潘，称赞其“根据行业逸闻和相当冷门的数据”形成判断的做法，并认为当数据与逸闻分歧时，中央银行家应该相信后者。他将首席执行官们眼中的“兴奋”视为生产率革命正在进行的证据。这只是沃什完整理论的一部分（该论点遭到他许多同事的反驳）：人工智能能够抑制通胀，需要降低利率。沃什从他的偶像身上吸取了正确的教训吗？
注释：
1. Esoteric：深奥的，秘传的
2.afoot：ADJ If you say that a plan or scheme is afoot, it is already happening or being planned, but you do not know much about it. 在进行中的; 在酝酿中的
In the near term the effect of AI on rates comes down to a race between supply and demand. For now, demand is winning. Debt-fuelled spending on data centres, chips and power plants has surged. A stock-market bull run makes the share-owning public feel rich, boosting consumption even as income growth slows. As Austan Goolsbee of the Chicago Fed has warned, “the bigger the hype, the more rates may need to rise to prevent overheating.”
在短期内，人工智能对利率的影响归结为一场供需之间的博弈。目前，需求正占上风。市场举债投资数据中心、芯片和发电厂，相关支出大幅激增。股市牛市行情让股民感到富有，因而，即使收入增长放缓，消费依旧走强。正如芝加哥联储的奥斯坦·古尔斯比（Austan Goolsbee）所警告的那样，“炒作热度越高，利率可能就越需要上调，以防经济过热。”
The Fed’s new conductor can hear the loud brass of demand. His bet is that the quieter strings of supply will soon join in. As firms reorganise work around AI, the same workers and machines should produce more, cutting unit costs and expanding the economy’s capacity. Yet even a supply-side transformation may not engender the lower rates Mr Warsh expects. That is because higher productivity raises real incomes, stirring fresh demand of its own and leaving the near-term effect on rates far from certain.
美联储这位新任“总指挥”已然听到需求端那响亮的铜管乐声。他押注的是，供给端那较为轻柔的弦乐很快也会加入演奏。随着企业借助人工智能重组工作方式，同样数量的劳动者和机器将能够生产出更多产品，从而压低单位成本，并扩大经济的生产能力。然而，即使供给侧真的发生了这种转型，也未必会带来沃什先生所期待的更低利率。原因在于，更高的生产率会提高实际收入，从而激发新的需求。因此在短期内，生产率提升对利率的影响仍未有定论。
A related, longer-term force also points towards higher rates. If AI causes faster economic growth and higher future incomes, it is also likely to lift the “neutral rate” (r-star for short), the real interest rate at which monetary policy neither heats nor cools the economy. The intuition is familiar: a student expecting a fat salary after graduation is willing to take on debt today. Likewise, households borrow against higher future incomes and firms invest more as expected returns rise. Both raise demand for capital, increasing the interest rate needed to balance saving and investment. Recent work by Lukasz Rachel of University College London estimates that AI could lift r-star by around one percentage point. If he is right, a return to the pre-pandemic world of ultra-low interest rates is unlikely, even once supply catches up with demand.
另一项相关的长期因素也推高利率。如果人工智能可以提速经济增长，提高未来收入，那么“中性利率”（简称 r-star）大概率也会上升，即，货币政策既不刺激也不抑制经济的实际利率。其中的道理并不难理解：一名预期毕业后会拿到高薪的学生，今天就会愿意举债。同样，家庭会因为预期未来收入增加而提前借贷消费，企业则会因为预期投资回报提高而增加投资。这两者都会提高资本需求，从而推高使储蓄与投资重新达到平衡所需的利率。伦敦大学学院的卢卡什·雷切尔（Lukasz Rachel）近期的一项研究估计，人工智能可能会使中性利率提高约1个百分点。如果他的判断正确，那么即使未来供给最终追上需求，疫情前那种超低利率的时代也不太可能回归。
Would the same conclusion hold in a world of benign superintelligence, where hyperproductive AI allows humans to pursue a life of leisure? In principle, yes. Explosive growth would lead people to expect booming future income—and so spend more today. If instead AI starts looking like an existential threat to humanity, why save for a future that may not arrive? Either way, rates must rise steeply to coax people into saving.
那么，如果未来出现一种“良性的超级智能”世界——超高效的人工智能让人类能够安享悠闲生活——上述结论还会成立吗？原则上，答案仍然是肯定的。爆发式的经济增长会使人们预期未来收入将大幅增加，因此会在今天增加消费。反之，如果人工智能开始演变为对人类生存的威胁，那又何必为一个虚无缥缈的未来而储蓄呢？无论是哪种情况，利率都必须大幅上升，才能说服人们去储蓄。
Some forces could pull r-star down. If superintelligence commoditises knowledge work and stiffens competition, corporate mark-ups, profits and expected returns could shrink, weakening demand for investment. Faced with upheaval in the labour market, households may build precautionary savings rather than borrow against a brighter future. Widespread displacement of jobs could push the neutral rate lower still. If less income flows to workers and more to owners of capital, aggregate spending may weaken, since the rich save more of each additional dollar they receive. Redistribution could offset some of this by directing income back towards households more likely to spend it. Without that, the result might well be a savings glut even as productive capacity soars—secular stagnation born of abundance at the top.
也有些因素会让中性利率下降。若超级智能将知识类工作商品化、加剧竞争，企业定价能力、利润和预期回报都会收缩，进而缩减投资需求。面对劳动力市场剧变，家庭可能会增加预防性储蓄，而非增加借贷、透支未来。大规模失业会进一步降低中性利率。若资本家的收入越多，工人的收入越少，总支出就会减少，因为富人的储蓄率更高。财富再分配可以让收入流向消费意愿更强更强的家庭来抵消一些影响。若无再分配，即使产能激增，储蓄也会过剩。一种顶层财富过剩导致的长期经济停滞状态。
注释：savings glut / secular stagnation：资本集中、贫富分化、消费不足，长期低增长、低利率。
That all these outcomes are at least conceivable suggests that Mr Warsh would be wise to approach the question of AI and rates with humility. Even if the AI revolution proves as revolutionary as the technology’s boosters insist, it could push rates in either direction, depending on how precisely its gains filter through the economy and who captures them. The range of scenarios also points to the limits of historical analogy. AI may be anything but an ordinary technology.
一切皆有可能，沃什先生应以审慎谦逊的态度，面对人工智能和利率的关系。即使人工智能革命如鼓吹者所坚信的带来变革性的影响，它对利率的影响也有多种可能，最终取决于人工智能以何种方式渗透到经济体系，以及谁能抓住人工智能的浪潮。种种不同场景推演也证明，照搬历史经验具有局限性。人工智能绝非一项普通的技术变革。
Play it again, Alan
再奏一曲，艾伦
And even if history of the 1990s does repeat itself, Mr Greenspan’s record contains a second movement which Mr Warsh seems not to have heard. The late Fed chair noticed the productivity boom before others, but then came to fear the demand it unleashed. In 1996 he warned of “irrational exuberance” in asset prices. Once the boom was well under way, Mr Greenspan was warning that faster productivity would create “even greater increases in aggregate demand than in potential aggregate supply”. In response the Fed raised rates six times between June 1999 and May 2000. Even so, it was already behind the beat. By early 2000 inflation had reached its highest level in almost a decade; the asset bubble burst soon afterwards. Mr Warsh may have learned the first part of the maestro’s score. He should listen carefully to the coda.
即便上世纪90年代的历史再度重演，格林斯潘的执政履历中还有第二段乐章，这似乎是沃什未曾留意的。这位昔日美联储主席最先察觉到生产率繁荣的到来，但后来却担忧这场繁荣所催生的巨大需求。1996年，他警示资产价格将出现“非理性繁荣”。当经济热潮全面开始，格林斯潘警告：生产率提速带来的总需求涨幅会远超潜在总供给的增幅。为此，美联储在1999年6月至2000年5月先后6次加息。即便如此，政策调整依然滞后，2000年初，通胀率创下近十年新高，资产泡沫不久便宣告破裂。沃什或许只看懂了这位货币政策大师乐章的开篇，他更该用心聆听最后的结尾。
翻译组：
vivifang，女，本人丰富，日新月异，无法简介
Hannah，女, 爱读财经的金融小白 经济学人唯粉
Humi，女，学习财经的金融小白，不负韶华，平视世界
审校组：
Alexis, Less is more
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