在人工智能时代，人类的创造性产出正成为一种奢侈品
In the age of AI, human creative output is becoming a l…
People value human-created art not just for its quality, but because it represents effort, intention and lived experience.
人们珍视人类创作的艺术，不仅因为它本身的质量，更因为它代表了心血、意图和生活经验。
Imagine two identical spoons. One is hand-wrought from silver by a skilled metalworker. The other, a base-metal facsimile, was mass-produced by a machine. Which would you value more? Most of us would say the handmade spoon.
想象两把一模一样的勺子。一把是熟练金属工匠用银手工打造的。另一把则是用贱金属仿制的，由机器大规模生产的。你会更看重哪一把？大多数人会说手工打造的勺子。
In 1899, more than a century ago, American economist and sociologist Thorstein Veblen used this very example to explain how we assign value, or his theory of conspicuous consumption, in which he contended that bourgeois consumption was driven primarily by a desire to display wealth to others. Even if these spoons were indistinguishable, explained Veblen, the hand-made spoon, once identified, would be more highly valued.
1899年，一个多世纪前，美国经济学家和社会学家梭尔斯泰恩·韦伯伦（Thorstein Veblen）就用这个例子来解释我们如何赋予价值，也就是他的“炫耀性消费”理论，他认为资产阶级的消费主要源于向他人展示财富的欲望。韦伯伦解释说，即使这两把勺子无法区分，一旦认出，手工打造的勺子也会被赋予更高的价值。
This is in part because “the hand-wrought spoon gratifies our taste, our sense of the beautiful, while that made by machinery out of base metal has no useful office beyond a brute efficiency.” But for Veblen there is another factor more important than any aesthetic judgment: costliness.
这部分原因在于：“手工打造的勺子满足了我们的品味，我们的审美情趣，而用贱金属机器制造的勺子，除了纯粹的效率，没有任何实际用途。”但对韦伯伦来说，还有一个比任何审美判断都更重要的因素：成本。
The hand-wrought spoon is preferred above all, Veblen suggested, because it is a means of demonstrating wealth. However, as we enter a world in which almost anything, including art, writing and music, can be machine-wrought, it seems that Veblen may have misjudged his spoons.
韦伯伦指出，手工打造的勺子之所以最受青睐，是因为它是一种展示财富的手段。然而，当我们进入一个几乎任何东西，包括艺术、写作和音乐，都可以被机器制造的时代，似乎韦伯伦可能误判了他的勺子。
We don’t value human creations solely for their beauty or their price tag. We also value them because they embody deliberate labour and expertise.
我们评价人类的创造物，并非仅仅基于其美观或价格标签。我们还因为它们体现了刻意的劳动和专业知识而赋予它们价值。
AI-generated writing is judged differently
AI生成的内容受到不同的评价
Our own research has shown that even highly trained writing educators cannot reliably distinguish between AI-generated and human-written essays. In fact, one study has shown that general audiences may actually prefer blander AI-generated poetry over more difficult, human-written poetry.
我们自己的研究表明，即使是受过高等训练的写作教育者，也无法可靠地区分AI生成和人类撰写的文章。事实上，一项研究显示，普通受众甚至可能更喜欢平庸的AI生成诗歌，而不是更具难度的、人类撰写的诗歌。
But while public taste may favour the simple and formulaic, the disclosure of artificial authorship is enough to make most people recoil.
然而，尽管公众的品味可能偏爱简单和公式化的作品，但仅仅揭示其人工作者身份，就足以让大多数人感到反感。
In a recent study involving a series of experiments, participants were asked to compare pieces of AI-generated creative writing, including poetry and fiction. In each case, they were told that some passages were human-written and some were AI-generated. Across 16 experiments, respondents consistently devalued the writing labelled as AI-generated.
在一项涉及一系列实验的近期研究中，参与者被要求比较AI生成和人类撰写的创意写作作品，包括诗歌和小说。在每种情况下，他们都被告知有些段落是人类撰写的，而有些是AI生成的。在16个实验中，受访者持续地贬低被标记为AI生成的作品。
The authors of the study call this the “AI disclosure penalty.” It is possible to conclude from the study that audiences unfairly judge AI-generated content, but we disagree. This bias towards human creation is inherent to our relationship with art. When people believe something was made by a machine, they like it less.
研究作者称之为“AI披露惩罚”。从这项研究中可以得出结论，受众不公平地评判AI生成的内容，但我们不同意。这种偏爱人类创作的倾向，是我们与艺术关系中固有的。当人们相信某物是由机器制造时，他们就会喜欢得更少。
Some argue that AI can democratize creativity by lowering barriers to production and enabling more people to participate in cultural expression. But the evidence suggests that when authorship becomes effortless, perceived value declines.
一些人认为，AI可以通过降低创作门槛，使更多人参与文化表达，从而实现创造力的民主化。但现有证据表明，当作者身份变得毫不费力时，其感知价值就会下降。
The importance of effort and experience
努力和经验的重要性
Art costs something. Both John Milton and James Joyce believed that their writing had cost them their eyesight. John Keats believed that the emotional exertion of writing poetry would worsen his tuberculosis and cost him his life. They kept writing anyway. We resent the machine because its creations cost it nothing.
艺术是有代价的。约翰·米尔顿和詹姆斯·乔伊斯都认为，他们的写作让他们失去了视力。约翰·济慈相信，写诗的情感消耗会加重他的肺结核，让他丧命。但他们还是坚持写作。我们对机器感到不满，因为它创造的一切成本为零。
When an algorithm generates a story about heartbreak or an essay on human struggle, it is trading in stolen emotions. AI has never felt pain, suffered a loss or wrestled with the frustration of a blank page, so its output, no matter how technically smooth, feels fundamentally deceptive.
当一个算法生成关于心碎的故事或关于人类挣扎的散文时，它贩卖的是偷来的情感。人工智能从未感受过痛苦，从未经历过损失，也从未与空白页的挫败感搏斗，因此，无论其输出在技术上多么流畅，都让人感觉本质上是虚假的。
People hate the idea of being moved by a parlour trick. In addition, many of us have a deep, instinctive revulsion to the industrialization of our inner lives. As Joanna Maciejewska observed, “I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for AI to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes.”
人们讨厌被“魔术小把戏”感动。此外，我们许多人对内心生活的工业化有一种深刻的、本能的排斥感。正如乔安娜·马切耶夫斯卡所观察到的：“我希望人工智能帮我洗衣服和洗碗，这样我才能从事艺术和写作，而不是我希望人工智能帮我做艺术和写作，这样我才能洗衣服和洗碗。”
We happily accept machines stamping out our car parts and toasters because efficiency is the goal, but applying that same cold logic to human expression strips away the vulnerability, risk and stakes that make art mean anything in the first place.
我们欣然接受机器生产汽车零件和烤面包机，因为效率是目标，但将同样的冰冷逻辑应用于人类表达，剥夺了艺术最初所具备的脆弱性、风险和筹码。
This becomes more consequential as AI-generated content floods the digital media landscape.
随着人工智能生成的内容充斥数字媒体领域，这一点变得更加重要。
Why human work is becoming more valuable
人类劳动为何越来越有价值
Our media ecosystem has evolved so that paying directly for much of the content we consume is optional. In an era of streaming music, television and film, we rarely own the product we consume, and creators receive pennies on the dollar compared to previous economic models.
我们的媒体生态系统已经发展到，我们消费的大部分内容，直接付费购买都成了可选项。在一个流媒体音乐、电视和电影的时代，我们很少拥有我们消费的产品，而创作者获得的报酬与以往的经济模式相比，简直是九牛一毛。
To make matters worse, media companies are increasingly pushing AI-generated content in the form of tens of thousands of social media posts, books, podcasts and videos every day and encouraging artists and content creators to supercharge the quantity of their output by relying on AI.
更糟糕的是，媒体公司正越来越多地推送人工智能生成的内容，每天的形式包括数以万计的社交媒体帖子、书籍、播客和视频，并鼓励艺术家和内容创作者依靠人工智能来超负荷地增加产出数量。
Much of this output is highly formulaic — produced at scale and designed for rapid, low-engagement consumption. It is an endless, flavourless paste of clichés and nonsense, meant to be mindlessly consumed by doomscrolling thumbs and immediately forgotten. Despite working in an era in which payment is optional amid a deluge of slop, many artists, journalists and writers are making a living because enough of their audience chooses to support the work of real human creators.
这些产出大多是高度公式化的——它们是规模化生产的，旨在实现快速、低参与度的消费。它是一团无止尽、乏味的陈词滥调和废话的混合物，目的是让那些沉迷于刷手机的拇指心不在焉地消费，并立刻遗忘。尽管身处一个付费可选、充斥着垃圾内容的时代，许多艺术家、记者和作家仍然能够维持生计，因为足够多的观众选择支持真实人类创作者的作品。
The “AI disclosure penalty” reminds us that the consumption of art is not tied to purely aesthetic considerations but involves a need to connect with and appreciate the effort and labour of others.
“AI披露惩罚”提醒我们，艺术的消费不仅仅与纯粹的审美考量挂钩，它还涉及一种需要连接和欣赏他人努力与劳动的需求。
Consumers have long been willing to pay more for goods labelled “handmade,” “handcrafted,” “artisanal” or “bespoke” on the understanding that those goods were made using traditional techniques that took more effort and human skill.
消费者长期以来一直愿意为那些贴有“手工制作”、“手工打造”、“匠心”或“定制”标签的商品支付更高的费用，其前提是这些商品是使用耗费更多精力的人类技能的传统技术制作的。
As generative AI turns writing, art and digital media into frictionless, infinitely replicable outputs, human cognitive effort is undergoing a profound shift. It is becoming an artisanal good that consumers must choose to support and value.
随着生成式人工智能将写作、艺术和数字媒体转化为无摩擦、无限可复制的产出，人类的认知努力正在经历一场深刻的转变。它正在成为一种需要消费者选择支持和珍视的“匠心”商品。
The Industrial Revolution transformed hand-made furniture and hand-woven textiles into premium markers of craftsmanship and authenticity. The AI revolution is doing something similar for intellectual and creative labour — audiences are beginning to place a premium not necessarily on the competent execution of a poem or an essay, which a machine can generate in seconds, but on the invisible friction, the lived experience and the deliberate toil of the human mind behind it.
工业革命将手工家具和手工编织纺织品转变为工艺和真实性的高端标志。人工智能革命正在为知识和创造性劳动做着类似的事情——观众开始重视的，不再是机器可以在几秒内生成的诗歌或散文的完美执行力，而是其背后人类心智所蕴含的无形摩擦、生活经验和刻意付出的心血。
In a landscape increasingly saturated with instant content, the verified effort of a human creator is shifting from a baseline expectation to a highly coveted, bespoke quality. Ultimately, what we value about art is not whether it’s perfect, but its ability to connect us with another human being.
在一个充斥着即时内容的饱和环境中，人类创作者经过验证的努力，正从一个基础期望，转变为一种极度渴望、独一无二的品质。归根结底，我们欣赏艺术的，不是它是否完美，而是它连接我们与另一个人类个体的能力。
Nathan Murray has received funding for his research from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) .
Nathan Murray 的研究获得了加拿大社会科学和人文研究委员会（SSHRC）的资助。
Elisa Tersigni has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) .
Elisa Tersigni 的研究获得了加拿大社会科学和人文研究委员会（SSHRC）的资助。
