摘要：THIS IS A tale of squandered wealth and the vast, needless waste of human potential. The secret of economic success is innovation
The desperate search for superstar talent
THIS IS A tale of squandered wealth and the vast, needless waste of human potential. The secret of economic success is innovation and the secret of innovation is the brilliance, creativity and drive of the most talented few. But even as governments throw money at schemes to boost their economies, including chipmaking factories and rare-earth mines, brainpower is going unloved. And the waste is getting worse.
这是一个关于挥霍财富和人类潜力巨大浪费的故事。经济成功的秘诀在于创新，而创新的秘诀则在于少数最具天赋、创意和动力的人的卓越表现。然而，即使各国政府将资金投入到包括半导体工厂和稀土矿山等经济振兴计划中，智力资源却没有得到应有的关注。而这种浪费正在加剧。
You need only look at the red-hot market for grey cells to understand how commercial and economic success is increasingly being powered by the individual rather than the firm. In the race to dominate artificial intelligence (AI), America ’ s tech giants are assembling small teams of crack data scientists. On Wall Street a race for top talent is under way · , with hedge funds nabbing hotshot traders for vast sums. Scientific breakthroughs tend to be the work of a small elite: the leading 1% of researchers generate over a fifth of citations. In China scientists returning from spells in the West are being feted as national heroes.
只需看看灰色细胞（大脑）的火热市场，就能理解商业和经济成功正越来越依赖于个人而非公司。在人工智能（ AI）争夺战中，美国的科技巨头正在组建由顶尖数据科学家组成的小团队。在华尔街，争夺顶级人才的竞争也在进行中，对冲基金以巨额资金挖掘优秀交易员。科学突破往往出自少数精英：领先的1%研究人员贡献了超过五分之一的引用。在中国，从西方归来的科学家被视为民族英雄。
The rewards for superstars are growing. The best surgeons and concert pianists have long commanded the highest fees and the patronage of the wealthy. Today, however, the superstar effect is on steroids. Some programmers in their 20s command seven-, eight- or even nine-figure salaries. The number of artists on Spotify taking home more than $10m a year has grown three times as much since 2017 as the number earning above $100,000. Lawyers ’ fees used to be shared out; increasingly the big money is going to the top earners at the best law firms, who massively outperform partners at their second-tier rivals.
超级明星的奖励在不断增加。最优秀的外科医生和钢琴家早已获得了最高的报酬和富人的赞助。然而，今天的超级明星效应可以说是 “加速版”。一些20多岁的程序员年薪达到七位数、八位数甚至九位数。Spotify上年收入超过1000万美元的艺术家数量自2017年以来已增长了三倍，而年收入超过10万美元的艺术家则大幅增加。律师费用过去通常是平均分配的；但如今，大额收入越来越集中在顶级律师事务所的高级合伙人手中，这些人远超二线竞争对手的表现。
Some of this reflects the exuberance of America ’ s financial markets: flush with capital, firms are able to spend even more on talent. But something deeper is afoot. Vast computing resources turbocharge the capacity of the wonkiest hedge-fund brains to devise and carry out trades, helping them turn their talents into even greater profits. Ultra-cheap digital distribution creates bigger markets for individual creators. And the size of the potential rewards for winning the race in AI turns even the most extravagant individual salary into a rounding error.
这些现象的部分原因在于美国金融市场的繁荣：资本充裕的公司能够投入更多资金用于人才招募。但更深层次的原因也在悄然发生。庞大的计算资源加速了那些最具天赋的对冲基金大脑的交易能力，帮助他们将自己的才华转化为更大的利润。超便宜的数字化分发方式为个人创作者创造了更大的市场。而在人工智能竞赛中获得胜利的潜在奖励，让即便是最奢侈的个人薪酬也显得微不足道。
As AI spreads from discovery to exploitation, a similar effect could ripple through the rest of the economy. Studies of investors and entrepreneurs suggest that the technology will extend the dominance of the best performers, who can use it to do better still. AI agents could strip out layers of the business-process workers needed to run today ’ s firms, making it easier still for bright sparks to set up companies with ever-smaller collections of clever people.
随着人工智能从发现阶段进入商业化应用，类似的效应可能会在经济其他领域蔓延。研究表明，技术的进步将延续顶尖表演者的主导地位，他们可以利用这些技术做得更好。人工智能代理可能会剥离掉今天企业运作所需的那些业务处理工作者，使得聪明的人能够更容易地用更小的团队组建公司。
This is a boon to superstars born with talent and blessed with good fortune. But it is also a vital source of wealth for everyone else. The world is ageing rapidly. If the economy is to keep growing meaningfully as the number of workers stops rising, the pace of innovation will need to stay high. Talent will become even more vital as the engine of progress. If superintelligent AI is to come to the rescue, it will require ingenious people, not merely chips and electricity.
这对于天生有才华并且命运之神眷顾的超级明星们来说是一种福音，但它也是每个人获取财富的重要来源。世界正在迅速老龄化。如果经济要在劳动力增长停滞的情况下保持有意义的增长，创新的步伐必须保持高涨。人才将成为推动进步的关键动力。如果超级智能人工智能真能拯救世界，它将需要的是富有创造力的人，而不仅仅是芯片和电力。
The trouble is that, although the world ’ s reservoir of talent is vast, too few people are achieving their potential. Today scientific innovation is concentrated among Westerners, many of them from well-off backgrounds. Talent often goes unidentified; even when it is found, early promise is not always realised, because of the financial and logistical hurdles of going to university or moving to another country.
问题在于，尽管世界上有着庞大的智力资源，太多人并没有充分实现自己的潜力。如今，科学创新的重心仍然集中在西方，其中许多人来自富裕家庭。人才往往未被发现，即使被发现，早期的潜力也常常未能实现，因为去大学深造或移居他国的经济和后勤障碍让很多人无法跨越。
The result is a tragic waste of human gifts in both rich countries and poor. By one estimate, students in poorer countries who fare as well in maths contests as their richer peers go on to publish less research, and are half as likely to earn a doctorate from a leading university. Another study suggests that if America ’ s class, gender and race gaps in invention were closed, the number of innovators in the country would quadruple.
这导致了在富裕国家和贫穷国家都存在着悲剧性的浪费。据估计，在贫穷国家，数学竞赛成绩与富裕国家的同龄人相当的学生，往往会发表更少的研究，而且从顶尖大学获得博士学位的几率也只有一半。另一项研究表明，如果美国能消除阶层、性别和种族在发明领域的差距，该国的创新者数量将会翻四倍。
Far from eliminating this waste, politicians are neglecting it. One failure is immigration. Firms and universities should be able to fish in the global pool of talent. Without such a chance for themselves and their families, the superstar bosses of four of America ’ s “ Magnificent Seven ” tech firms would not be in their jobs today. One estimate reckons that easing immigration by removing financial barriers for especially bright students would raise the scientific output of future cohorts by as much as 50%. But special immigration programmes are often half-hearted and bureaucratic — because immigration is unpopular.
然而，政治家们并没有采取有效措施来消除这一浪费。移民政策就是其中一个失误。企业和大学应该能够从全球人才池中汲取精英。如果没有这样的机会，美国四大 “科技七巨头”的超级老板们今天不可能出现在他们的职位上。有估算认为，简化移民政策，消除对特别聪明学生的经济障碍，能够将未来科研群体的产出提高50%。但是，特殊的移民项目往往半心半意且官僚化——因为移民政策并不受欢迎。
What of the search for genius at home? · Contests and scouting programmes are surprisingly good at spotting early promise. Gold-medal winners at international maths Olympiads are 50 times more likely to go on to win a big science prize than undergraduates at MIT; half the founders of OpenAI cut their teeth in the contest. But most countries are not systematic about talent. The rich have all the advantages; everyone else relies on individual drive and a dose of luck.
那么，国内的天才寻找工作又如何呢？比赛和选拔计划在发现早期潜力方面非常有效。国际数学奥林匹克金牌得主比麻省理工学院的本科生更有可能获得重大科学奖项，比例为 50倍；OpenAI的半数创始人在比赛中就已经有所建树。但大多数国家并没有系统地挖掘人才。富人拥有一切优势，其他人则只能依靠个人努力和一点运气。
America is an example of what to avoid. Built on immigration, with a culture of meritocracy and top-ranking universities, it should win the tussle for talent. An obsession with diversity, equity and inclusion in the early 2020s stalled programmes for gifted students. Donald Trump is adding to the missteps. His administration has just announced drastically higher fees for the H-1B visa programme, through which many researchers and techies enter America. And a vindictive crackdown on Harvard and other elite universities has jeopardised funding for research and the scope to take foreign students.
美国就是一个反面教材。美国以移民为基础，拥有卓越的功绩文化和顶尖大学，理应在人才争夺中胜出。然而，在 2020年代初期，对于多样性、公平性和包容性的执着导致了天才学生计划的停滞。特朗普政府加剧了这一误判。特朗普政府刚刚宣布大幅提高H-1B签证项目的费用，而这一签证项目为众多研究人员和技术人员进入美国提供了渠道。对哈佛等精英大学的报复性打压，也危及了科研资金和招收外国学生的机会。
The brainy train
America ’ s errors are a chance for other countries to catch up. China is introducing a visa scheme for young foreign scientists and technologists. Britain may ditch visa fees for skilled arrivals altogether. France hopes to attract foreign researchers who move · . That is fine so far as it goes, but it is half-hearted. Talent is waiting to be tapped. The gains would be immense. When will the world wake up?
美国的错误为其他国家赶超提供了机会。中国正在为年轻的外国科学家和技术人员推出签证计划。英国可能会彻底取消技术人才的签证费用。法国希望吸引那些愿意移居的外国研究人员。虽然这些措施尚可，但依然显得不够彻底。人才正在等待被发掘，潜力巨大。全球何时才能觉醒呢？
来源：趣闻捕手一点号
