A couple of years ago Brian Arthur, an academic affiliated with the Palo Alto Research Center, made a startling prediction. In the next two to three decades, western digital networks would end up performing functions equal to the size of the “real” US economy. Or, to put it another way, if you looked at all the work being done by electronic supply chains, robots, communications systems – and the humble bar code – then the digital economy would “surpass the physical economy in size”, Arthur wrote, on the basis of productivity and output calculations.
兩年前，供職於帕洛奧圖研究中心(Palo Alto Research Center)的學者布萊恩•亞瑟(Brian Arthur)做出了一項驚人預測。未來二三十年，西方數字網路履行的功能最終將相當於美國「實體」經濟的規模。亞瑟寫道，或者，換句話說，如果你考察一下電子供應鏈、機器人、通信系統以及毫不起眼的條形碼所做的所有工作，你會發現，根據生產率和產出計算，數字經濟將「在規模上超越實體經濟」。