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《人力资源》#科幻

Set years before Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Service Model, the newly-promoted head of Human Resources for a multinational conglomerate navigates their new role in a world where humans are increasingly redundant. 在阿德里安·柴科夫斯基《服务模式》故事发生的数年前，一家跨国集团新晋的人力资源主管在这个人类日益沦为冗余的世界里，正努力适应着自己的新角色。

BY ADRIAN TCHAIKOVSKY | PUBLISHED ON APRIL 30, 2025

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本篇翻译已完成。

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“I’m not sure what you’re telling me,” said Judith Pearson, 34, Securities and Bonds Reassignment Department, 5 years’ service. “我不确定你在跟我说什么。”34岁的朱迪思·皮尔森说道，证券与债券调配部，五年工龄。

“I’m very sorry,” he said. “我非常抱歉。”他说。

“What for?” she asked, because she wasn’t going to make it easy for him. And he could sympathise with that. If he’d been with the firm for five years and was being let go because of a fresh round of automation then he wouldn’t feel much of an obligation to grease the wheels either. Honestly, all of the sympathies which were his to bestow were entirely on her side and he felt he should be cheering her on as she made this interview as difficult as possible for the company. On the other hand he was currently present as the representative of Holring and Baselard’s human resources department, and therefore the person experiencing the sharp end of that difficulty was him, Tim Stock. “为什么？”她问道，因为她没打算让他好过。而他也能理解。如果他在公司干了五年，却因为新一轮自动化而被裁，那他也不会觉得有义务配合。说实话，他所有能给予的同情都在她那边，他甚至觉得，当她让这次面谈对公司变得尽可能困难时，自己应该为她喝彩。但另一方面，他现在是作为霍林与巴塞拉德人力资源部的代表坐在这里，因此直面这份难堪的人正是他，蒂姆·斯托克。

“Very sorry,” he repeated. “Under the current difficult circumstances. Prevailing economic trends. The advance of machine learning in the field of. You know.” “非常抱歉，”他重复道，“鉴于当前困难形势。普遍经济趋势。机器学习在该领域的进展。你懂的。”

She raised her eyebrows at him, very much suggesting that, no matter how much she did, in fact, know, insofar as knowledge applied to this particular set of social conventions, she was entirely ignorant and he was going to have to tell her. 她冲他挑起眉毛，明明白白地表示，无论她实际上知道多少，至少就这套社会惯例而言，她完全一无所知，而他必须亲口告诉她。

“We’re letting you go,” he finally got out. And then, because this suggested a complicity in the decision that he felt he hadn’t earned, “the company. Holring and Baselard. Letting you go. They are. It is. It’s being done.” “我们要解雇你。”他终于说出口。紧接着，因为这似乎暗示了他参与决策，而他觉得自己根本不配，又补充道：“是公司。霍林与巴塞拉德。要解雇你。是他们。是它。这事就这么定了。”

She gave that garbled account the disdain it deserved. “I want to speak to someone,” she said. 她以应有的轻蔑回应了他那番语无伦次的话。“我要和能说话的人谈。”她说。

“You are,” he pointed out, “speaking to someone.” “你现在，”他指出，“就是在和能说话的人谈。”

“Where’s Maggs?” “玛吉在哪里？”

The previous head of HR. Now taken early retirement rather precipitately, probably because she’d seen her own name on the list of potential candidates for the next round of redundancies and decided to jump before being pushed. 前任人力资源主管。现已提前退休，相当突然，很可能是因为她在下一轮裁员候选名单上看到了自己的名字，于是决定在被踢走前主动跳船。

Obviously, the sensible thing to do, for such a key post, would be to hire in a senior and well-qualified person from elsewhere in the industry. Rather than, say, promote a junior still technically in training to be head of department. However, given the considerable amount of automated assistance the HR department benefitted from, the upper echelons of H&B had taken the decision to promote Stock instead. 显然，对于如此关键的职位，明智之举应该是从业内其他地方聘请一位资历深厚且经验丰富的人。而非，比方说，提拔一个理论上仍在培训期的初级员工担任部门主管。然而鉴于人力资源部已享有大量自动化辅助，霍林与巴塞拉德的高层最终决定提拔斯托克。

And while the previous incumbent might be “Maggs” to Judith Pearson, rather than Mrs Meyerwinkle, Stock couldn’t help but notice that “Maggs” hadn’t given Pearson any advance notice that her own name had also been on that self-same list. 尽管对朱迪思·皮尔森而言，前任主管是“玛吉”而非迈尔温克尔夫人，但斯托克不禁注意到，“玛吉”也未曾提前告知皮尔森：她自己的名字同样出现在那份裁员名单上。

“Mrs Meyerwinkle is—” Stock started, but Pearson cut him off. “迈尔温克尔夫人已经——”斯托克刚开口，皮尔森就打断了他。

“I want to see the MD. This is intolerable.” “我要见总经理。这简直无法忍受。”

He agreed that it was intolerable. However, these days nobody from the actual trading floor got to see the MD, and so it was just him, and the situation would have to be tolerated whether it was tolerable or not. 他承认这确实无法忍受。但如今，真正的交易层根本见不到总经理，所以只能由他来处理，无论能否忍受，这局面都只能忍受。

Pearson had a lot of other demands he couldn’t fulfil either but, given the fact that she was genuinely being hard done by, he let her make them all and get them out of her system. It wasn’t like she could complain to Mr Holring, anyway, unless she knew a very good medium, and Mr Baselard had been ousted by the shareholders some time ago. Since then a revolving door of managing directors had come and gone, taking their big signing bonuses and then, shortly after, their golden handshakes, when it turned out that the invaluable industry experience the shareholders had been so won-over by was just flimflam and membership of the right golf clubs. 皮尔森还提出了一大堆他同样无法满足的要求，但考虑到她确实受到了不公对待，他任由她发泄个够。反正她也没法向霍林先生投诉，除非她能通灵。而巴塞拉德先生早就被股东们踢出了局。自那以后，总经理们像走马灯似地来了又走，领完高额签约奖金不久，就又拿着黄金握手费离职——当股东们发现，那些令他们倾倒的所谓宝贵行业经验，不过是花言巧语和高端高尔夫俱乐部的会员资格罢了。

Holring and Baselard was, despite the hand-wringing that Stock had been instructed to mime, doing absolutely fine. One reason it was doing fine is that it had shed a lot of expensive human beings recently, in exchange for a variety of AI systems that could see the patterns of the stock market in both broader scope and finer detail and make far more informed decisions on what to buy, sell and invest in for the maximum return to H&B’s client case. Or at least all the grand automated investment vehicles that were most of the clients H&B catered to these days. 霍林与巴塞拉德其实运营得相当不错，尽管斯托克被要求装出一副忧心忡忡的样子。公司状况良好的原因之一，正是最近裁掉了大批高薪人力，转而采用各种人工智能系统。这些系统能以更广的维度和更细的精度洞察股市规律，并为霍林与巴塞拉德的客户资产（准确说是那些大型自动化投资工具，它们如今构成了公司的主要客户群）做出收益最大化的买卖投资决策。

After Pearson had run out of entirely reasonable complaints and left, Stock sat in his small office and let the shakes calm down, because he’d just fired someone, and Pearson was the ninth someone he’d just fired, and he had another eleven to go in this round alone. And this was basically his job now, almost all his job. Given the way that workplace legislation had been slashed over the last generation, it wasn’t as though HR was supposed to care about the actual wellbeing of the workforce, or even pay lip service to caring about it so that the right boxes could be ticked in the end of year assessments. Instead, Stock was basically a machine for telling people they no longer had jobs, and each time he did it, he felt his soul shrivel a little more. 在皮尔森发泄完那些完全合理的怨愤离开后，斯托克坐在狭小的办公室里等待颤抖平息。他刚刚解雇了一个人，而皮尔森是这轮裁员中被他解雇的第九人，后面还有十一个等着他。这基本上就是他现在的全部工作内容。鉴于过去二十年间劳动法被大肆阉割，人力资源部早就不必关心员工福祉，甚至都不需要假装关心，以便在年终评估中勾选正确的框框。如今的斯托克本质上就是一个宣告人们不再有工作的机器，每次他这样做时，都感觉自己的灵魂又枯萎了一分。

I’m not a bad person, he told himself. But he wondered if this was how one became a bad person, because what he was, was a person who still had a job, and that seemed to be a smaller and more privileged category every day. 他告诉自己，自己不是个坏人。但他又想，这或许就是人变坏的方式，因为他现在仍然有工作，而这似乎每天都在成为一个更小、更有特权的类别。

Artificial intelligence—well, it wasn’t actually artificial intelligence, not quite. It was very good machine learning paired with a sophisticated human-facing communications algorithm. It meant that not only could the algorithm make extremely canny stock picks, but it could cogently report to the shareholders what it had done, in sufficiently appropriate language that they all went away feeling they’d put their money in the right place. A lot of those shareholders were, Stock was aware, actually represented by their own automated systems, which decided which shares should be held. The main upshot of that was that the AGMs went very smoothly, with robots explaining to other robots, in humanlike ways, the robot things they had been doing. So that those other robots could deconstruct that information, turn it back into robot data, and then reform it into human terms when they reported to their own masters. It was, Stock was assured, all very efficient. 人工智能——好吧，其实算不上真正的人工智能。它只是非常出色的机器学习系统，搭配了一套面向人类的复杂沟通算法。这意味着算法不仅能做出精明的股票选择，还能用恰到好处的语言向股东们解释自己的操作，让所有人都觉得钱投对了地方。斯托克知道，很多股东其实都由自己的自动化系统代理，这些系统决定持股策略。最直接的结果就是年度股东大会进行得异常顺利，机器人用拟人化的方式，向其他机器人解释它们所做的机器人事务。然后那些机器人再将信息解构，转回机器数据，在向各自的主人汇报时又重新拟人化表达。斯托克确信，这一切都非常高效。

A lot of the robots physically existed. They were still the same algorithms but, because they had to interact with people (or, as was becoming more common, interact with other robots designed to interact with people who had better things to do than interact with robots) they had been given variously humanlike frames and fitted with human-facing interfaces. There were several of them around the office, robot stockbrokers intended to meet with those rare physical human clients who came to the office to conduct business face to face (or, as was becoming more common, their robots.) 许多机器人具有实体形态。它们本质上仍是相同的算法，但由于需要与人互动（或者更常见的情况——与其他机器人互动，而这些机器人又是为那些无暇亲自与机器人打交道的人设计的），它们被赋予了各种拟人化外壳，并配备了面向人类的交互界面。办公室里就有好几台这样的机器股票经纪人，专门接待那些罕见的、亲自来办公室面对面办理业务的实体人类客户（或者更常见的情况——接待这些客户的机器人）。

Other robots existed only as virtual presences, that were by now so realistic in their digital fidelity that Stock wasn’t particularly sure he could tell the difference. Others were just voices or text channels. Others, less human-facing still, existed only on channels that Stock couldn’t have understood or accessed—the great web of inter-robot chatter which bound the world together, and atop which a thin layer of humanity floated like scum on a pond. 其他机器人仅以虚拟形式存在，其数字拟真度已高到让斯托克难以分辨虚实。还有些只是语音或文字通道。更有些几乎不与人交互的机器人，仅存在于斯托克无法理解或接入的通道中——那张将世界编织在一起的机器人交流大网，而人类就像浮在池塘表面的浮沫一样，仅存在于这张网薄薄的表层。

Not the most salubrious image, Stock had to admit. He wasn’t sure why it had bobbed to the top of his mind. 斯托克不得不承认，这个比喻并不怎么体面。他不确定为何这个意象会突然浮现在脑海中。

After the last of the redundancy meetings, it was time for his scheduled training session with Martha Lime. He was, after all, still a trainee, even if he was simultaneously head of HR. The firm had a duty to train him to do the job several steps below the job he was actually doing. 完成最后一轮裁员面谈后，斯托克按计划要与玛莎·莱姆进行培训。毕竟他仍是个实习生，即便同时兼任人力资源主管。公司有责任培训他胜任比他实际职位低好几级的工作。

He sat through the lecture, interacting with the tests and quizzes where necessary, learning about legislation and then learning that it had been repealed and replaced with entirely different legislation that, unfortunately, post-dated the course material and therefore wasn’t part of the curriculum. 他全程呆坐着听完培训，在需要时应付着完成随堂测试，学习了相关法规，然后得知这些法规已被废除，并被完全不同的新法规所取代。不幸的是，由于新法规的颁布日期晚于课程资料的更新时间，它们并未被纳入教学大纲。

“Any questions?” Lime, a face on his screen, asked him, and he said, “I don’t think I can do this.” A ridiculous statement, given he was already doing considerably more than this. The this they were training him to do was child’s play in comparison. “有什么问题吗？”屏幕上的莱姆问道。他回答：“我觉得我干不了这个。”这话实在荒谬，因为他实际承担的工作早已远超“这个”。培训所要他掌握的“这个”，相比之下简直如同儿戏。

Lime paused for a moment. “Could you clarify?” she asked. 莱姆停顿了片刻。“能具体说明吗？”她问道。

“When I took this post I didn’t think it would be so much…” Firing people. “They said I’d be joining a team.” “我接受这个职位时，没想过会这么多……”解雇员工。“他们说我会加入一个团队。”

Lime paused for a moment. “Could you clarify?” she asked. 莱姆停顿了片刻。“能具体说明吗？”她问道。

“Only it’s just me in HR now. Literally just me. There were supposed to be seven people, only just after I joined they worked out they only really needed Maggs and me. No secretaries, no assistants, everything else automated or outsourced. And then Maggs went and…” “但现在人力资源部只剩我了。真的只有我。本来应该有七个人，可我刚入职他们就发现其实只需要玛吉和我。没有秘书，没有助理，其他所有工作都自动化或外包了。然后玛吉也……”

Lime paused for a moment. “Could you clarify?” she asked. 莱姆停顿了片刻。“能具体说明吗？”她问道。

Stock frowned. “I was talking about my… my work environment.” 斯托克皱起了眉头。“我是在说我的……我的工作环境。”

“Does this pertain to the course material?” Lime queried. “这与课程内容有关吗？”莱姆问。

“I mean, I guess no, not exactly.” “我的意思是，我想不是，不完全是。”

“I’m afraid my remit extends only to providing your contractually required training,” Lime said, and he saw it then. The very slightly flicker and glitch as she reset. “恐怕我的职责范围仅限于提供合同规定的培训内容。”莱姆说道。这时他注意到了，在她重置的瞬间，那几乎难以察觉的闪烁和卡顿。

“I see,” he said. And assumed that would be all he’d get out of her. “我明白了，”他说。以为这就是她能说出的全部了。

The next morning there was a priority message waiting for him, telling him to report to Selma. Selma was the MD’s secretary, and had been secretary to several of the previous wunderkind MDs the shareholders had enthusiastically welcomed and then almost immediately tired of. She was a robot. 次日清晨，一条加急消息正等着他，要求他向塞尔玛报到。塞尔玛是总经理的秘书，曾为多位股东们热烈欢迎又迅速厌倦的神童总经理服务。她是台机器人。

Being a secretary, she was designed to be human facing. The fashion at the time of her construction had been chrome finish and a screen for a face, projecting pleasant, neutral, averaged-out female features. Or at least averaged-out if your average skewed massively to a very small human demographic. 作为秘书，她的设计本就需要频繁与人互动。制造她时的流行风格是铬合金外壳，面部则是一块屏幕，投射着愉悦、中性且标准化的女性面容。当然，所谓标准化的前提是，你的平均标准严重偏向于极少数人类群体。

“Mr Stock.” Her voice was an audible match to her face. Entirely convincing as a human, a perfect mimic. Save that, as no humans were that perfect, it failed at a deep and disconcerting level. But that wasn’t her fault, Stock knew. She was doing the best she could with what they’d given her, just trying to do her job. Although, he supposed, she wasn’t, really trying. She just was, a very complex cascade of switches and logical inferences. Made so human he couldn’t mistake her for one, and yet made complex enough that he couldn’t pretend he wasn’t talking to something. “斯托克先生。”她的声音与面容完美匹配。完全令人信服的人类模仿，精准到极致。可正因为真实人类从不曾如此完美，这种完美反而在更深层次上令人不安。但斯托克明白，这不是她的错。她只是在用被赋予的能力做到最好，努力完成工作。尽管他清楚，她其实并非努力。她只是存在着，如同一套极其复杂的开关与逻辑推理的瀑布流。被塑造得如此人性化，反而让他无法将她误认为人类；可又被设计得足够复杂，使他不能假装自己只是在对着某个“东西”说话。

She confused him, basically. But she was a thing that could sit across a table from him and pretend to drink coffee as she told him that the firm was worried about him. 她本质上令他困惑。但这个存在能坐在他对面，一边假装喝咖啡，一边告诉他公司很担心他的状态。

“You’re letting me go, aren’t you,” he said. He had seen it coming. He had become, he told himself, resigned to it. That was an HR joke. He’d tell it to Selma only either she wouldn’t get it, or she would at least recognise the conversational gambit enough to pretend she got it, and he wasn’t sure which would be worse. “你们要解雇我了，对吧？”他说。他早已预见这一刻。他告诉自己，他已经认命了。这本身就是个HR笑话。他本想讲给塞尔玛听，可转念一想：要么她根本听不懂，要么会识别出这是话术而假装听懂，他不确定哪种情况更糟。

Selma paused and he said, “I mean, you could hardly ask me to fire myself, and I suppose you’re as good as anyone—thing—else, under the circumstances. I’m going to refer to you as ‘anyone’, as a person, if that’s okay. It helps me. But let me know if that’s not… appropriate.” 塞尔玛停顿了一下，他继续说道：“我是说，你总不好让我自己解雇自己吧，这种情况下，我想你和任何人或物一样胜任。我打算把你当作‘人’来称呼，如果你不介意的话。这样我会好受些。但如果这不...合适，请告诉我。”

Selma’s paused stretched out a bit and then she said, “Ah, I see. Forgive me, I was a little thrown by your colloquialisms. Holring and Baselard are not ‘letting you go’, Mr Stock, in the sense of terminating your employment. Holring and Baselard value your contribution to our team here at Holring and Baselard. However, Holring and Baselard have been informed that you may be experiencing psychological distress in the performance of your duties here at Holring and Baselard.” 塞尔玛的停顿延长了片刻，随后说：”啊，我明白了。请原谅，您口语化的表达让我一时困惑。霍林与巴塞拉德并非要‘解雇’您，斯托克先生，不是终止雇佣关系的意思。霍林与巴塞拉德非常重视您对霍林与巴塞拉德团队的贡献。但根据反馈，您在霍林与巴塞拉德履职期间可能出现了心理困扰状况。”

“Informed?” Stock asked blankly. “By who?” “反馈？”斯托克茫然问道，“谁反馈的？”

“Your training module, following appropriate analysis of non-task-related conversation.” “您的培训模块在分析非任务相关对话后，按规定提交了评估报告。”

“Martha ratted me out?” Stock demanded. “I’m fine. I was just…” He looked into the warm, human, virtual, artificial eyes of Selma. They were projecting empathy and understanding in two dimensions. “Yes,” he said. “I am finding work difficult right now. I have had to tell twenty people, many of whom I knew,” knew their names, passed briefly in the office, didn’t really know, “that they didn’t have a job any more. It’s… hard.” “玛莎把我卖了？”斯托克质问，“我没事，我只是......”他望向塞尔玛那双温暖、人性化、虚拟又人造的眼睛，那对正在二维平面上投射共情与理解的装置。“是的，”他终于承认，“目前工作确实让我难以承受。我已经不得不告诉二十个人——其中不少我还算认识。”知道名字，在走廊擦肩而过，其实根本不熟，“他们被解雇了。这很......煎熬。”

“Holring and Baselard are deeply concerned for the wellbeing of all of our employees,” Selma said, which was a line verbatim out of the HR playbook, and one Stock had never felt duplicitous enough to trot out. “We would like you to consider counselling.” “霍林与巴塞拉德始终深切关怀全体员工的福祉。”塞尔玛说道，这句话直接照搬人力资源手册，而斯托克从未厚颜到能如此脱口而出。“公司建议您考虑接受心理辅导。”

Stock blinked. “A therapist?” 斯托克眨了眨眼。“一个治疗师？”

“To alleviate your stress. Holring and Baselard does not wish its employees to suffer any stress.” And maybe that was true. And maybe the goodwill of that wish ended very abruptly the moment anyone ceased to be an employee. Maybe, if Stock had keener senses, he could have detected the precise moment in a termination interview where the warm, loving regard of Holring and Baselard for its staff abruptly parted like a broken string on the world’s smallest violin. “以缓解您的压力。霍林与巴塞拉德不希望任何员工承受压力。”这话或许属实。又或许，这份善意的有效期会在某人失去员工身份的瞬间戛然而止。倘若斯托克感知再敏锐些，或许就能在某个裁员面谈中捕捉到那个精确时刻：当霍林与巴塞拉德对员工的关怀，如同世界上最小的小提琴断弦般，啪地一声骤然消散。

“A human therapist?” Stock asked. “As in, an actual person. Only I’ve tried the robot therapists and they… I don’t want to do that again.” “一个人类治疗师？”斯托克问道。“就是指真正的人。要知道机器人心理治疗我试过了，他们……我不想再那样了。”

Selma paused. “Unfortunately all the therapist services with which Holring and Baselard maintains a contract have only robot staff, but we are assured that these are entirely appropriate human-facing models.” 塞尔玛停顿了一下。“遗憾的是，霍林与巴塞拉德签约的所有心理咨询服务机构都只配备机器人治疗师，但我们保证这些都是完全合格的拟人化交互型号。”

“Then no, thank you,” said Stock. “Look, I’m… I’ve got the convention next week. The HR convention.” An opportunity, at least, to meet with his peers and share grievances over a pint or two. To take stock of where the hell the industry was going. “That’ll help. A day out of the office. A bit of a reset, you know.” Trying to laugh and then wondering if that was deeply offensive to a robot and then knowing that nothing ever could be. “那还是算了，谢谢，”斯托克说。“听着，我...下周有个大会要参加。人力资源大会。”至少这是个机会，能和同行喝上几杯吐吐苦水，搞清楚这个行业到底在往什么鬼方向发展。“会有帮助的。离开办公室一天。算是...重启一下，你懂的。”他试图笑出声，随即又怀疑这是否会严重冒犯一个机器人，接着意识到根本不存在这种可能性。

The convention was a bust. It was a day out of the office, true. It left him wishing he’d just stayed at his desk and filed post-termination reports as a bit of a jolly break from the norm. 这场大会彻底失败了。没错，确实是离开了办公室一天。但结果只让他宁愿待在工位上处理离职报告，至少那还能算是一种打破常规的乐趣小插曲。

He’d attended the previous two years. Inexpressibly sad to suggest that a Human Resources convention could be a highlight of his annual routine, but he’d enjoyed it. Stock was a people person, and while it had been a relatively small affair, he’d got together with half a dozen other junior HR executives and swapped stories, moaned about their employers or their subordinates or other departments. A bit of banter, a little flirting even—there had been that bloke from some big tech firm who’d definitely been giving Stock the eye, even if it hadn’t gone anywhere. 他参加过前两年的会议。说人力资源大会能成为他年度日程中的亮点未免可悲，但他确实乐在其中。斯托克是个喜欢与人打交道的人，虽然会议规模不大，但他总能结识五六位初级人力资源主管，彼此交换职场故事，抱怨上司、下属或其他部门。插科打诨间甚至有过些许暧昧——有个来自大型科技公司的人确实在向斯托克抛媚眼，尽管后来并没有什么发展。

The convention hall echoed. There were thirty booths set out, mostly advertising automation services of various stripes, up to and including expert systems that could replace your entire HR department. Which really twisted the imagination, honestly, because the only people Stock would have expected to be here were the very people the service was trying to make obsolete, so why would you even bother? 会议厅空荡得泛起回声。会场布置了三十个摊位，大多在宣传各种自动化服务，包括那些能取代你整个人力资源部门的专家系统。说实话，这简直荒谬得超乎想象，因为斯托克原以为参会的本该是这些服务企图淘汰的对象，那又何必大费周章来参展？

Except, as he wandered about between the stalls, he began to wonder if that booth had been put up in rather the same spirit as a flag on a pile of dead enemies, because he was the only person there. 直到他在展位间游荡时，才猛然意识到，那个展位或许就像插在敌人尸堆上的旗帜，纯粹是种胜利宣告，因为整个会场里，他是唯一的活人。

When he went to the talks and demonstrations and lectures, he watched human-facing robots and virtual talking heads smoothly glide through their perfectly programmed spiel. The convention staff—all robots—had set out thirty chairs, but his was the only one that was occupied. Apparently there were other delegates who were attending virtually, but he only had that unsupported assertion to rely on, and when he went online he couldn’t find any sort of communal space where people could chat or message. 当他参加各类讲座与演示时，目睹着拟人机器人和虚拟头像流畅地进行完美编程的演说。会场工作人员——全是机器人——摆放了三十把椅子，却只有他一人入座。据说还有其他线上参会的代表，但这纯属空口无凭，而当他登录系统时，根本找不到任何可供交流的公共聊天区。

The bar was empty save for the robot behind it, which would not only serve him a drink but listen to him talk forever, if he wanted to, complete with a whole suite of human bartender behaviours and replies. After an hour, Stock was noticing it cycle through its range of responses, the same nods and sympathetic sounds going round and round. 酒吧空无一人，除了吧台后的机器人，它不仅会调酒，还能永远倾听他的倾诉，如果他愿意的话，还包括一套完整的人类酒保行为和回复。一小时后，斯托克发现它开始循环使用应答库，同样的点头与附和声周而复始。

He left before the end. He could catch up on the recordings of anything he missed anyway. He needn’t have come. It needn’t have existed. 他提前离场了。反正错过的内容都能看录播。他本不必来。这个大会本不必存在。

When he got back to the office the next day, he found a note from the top to say that the next round of redundancies had been handled automatically to spare him the stress, because Holring and Baselard was very concerned that its employees not be upset or discommoded in any way. So long, he had worked out, as they remained employees. 第二天回到办公室时，他发现高层留了张便条，告知下一轮裁员已自动处理完毕，以减轻他的压力，毕竟霍林与巴塞拉德极其重视员工情绪，绝不愿让员工感到丝毫困扰或不便。只要他仍然是员工，他想。

Stock left his office. He walked from open-plan room to open-plan room, seeing the empty desks, the vacant chairs. Or the chairs and desks where the human-facing robots had chosen to sit, in accordance with their programming, though they could have traded stocks at lighting speed while standing in the corner and facing the wall. 斯托克离开办公室。他走过一个个开放式办公区，看着那些空荡的工位与闲置的座椅。或者说，那些人形机器人按程序要求占据的桌椅，尽管它们本可以面朝墙角站着，以光速完成股票交易。

Feeling cold and numb and extremely stressed and discommoded, he went to the MD’s antechamber. Selma greeted him, pleasant and professional, from behind the desk she, too, had no real need of. 他感到冰冷、麻木、极度焦虑与不适，走向总经理的前厅。塞尔玛从她同样无需真正使用的办公桌后向他问好，亲切又专业。

“When am I getting fired?” he asked her. “我什么时候被解雇？”他问她。

Selma paused. “Could you clarify?” she asked. 莱姆停顿了片刻。“能具体说明吗？”她问道。

“You laid off everyone while I was at the convention,” he said. “I mean, not you. The firm. Holring and Baselard.” The legal entity, which in his mind had become an actual entity, a malign intelligence that lived behind the door at Selma’s metal back, in the MD’s actual office. “There’s nobody left in the building. There’s nobody left except me. In HR. I have literally nothing left to do. When do I get the chop?” “你们趁我参会时裁掉了所有人，”他说。“我是说，不是你们。是公司。霍林与巴塞拉德。”这个在他脑海中已具象化的法律实体，一个蛰伏在塞尔玛金属后背之后、总经理真实办公室里的恶意智能体。“整栋楼已经没人了。除了我，人力资源部什么都不剩。我现在真的无事可做。什么时候轮到我被裁？”

Selma paused. “Mr Stock, I have not been informed of any plans regarding a cessation of your employment, but you should direct such enquiries to HR.” 塞尔玛停顿了一下。“斯托克先生，我尚未收到任何关于终止您雇佣关系的通知。但此类咨询您应当向人力资源部门提出。”

“I should, should I?” “我应该，我真的应该吗？”

“That is the appropriate course of action, Mr Stock.” “You don’t see any problem with that?” “这是标准流程，斯托克先生。” “你不觉得这有什么问题吗？”

Selma paused. “Could you clarify?” 塞尔玛停顿了片刻。“能具体说明吗？”

He opened his mouth, but the sheer enormity of the logical paradox defeated him. “I need to see the MD.” 他张开口，却被这个逻辑悖论的荒谬程度彻底击垮。“我要见总经理。”

“Do you have an appointment?” she asked brightly, back on script. “您有预约吗？”她欢快地问道，重回标准流程。

“Mr Goodenough. I need to see Mr Goodenough.” Weirdly proud of himself for remembering the name of the current incumbent. “Please. It’s very important. And let’s face it, most of his job is simply getting robots to do his job for him. I know he can make time for me.” “古迪纳夫先生。我必须见古迪纳夫先生。”他莫名为自己还记得这位现任总经理的名字感到自豪。“拜托了，这事关重大。况且说白了，他的工作大半都让机器人代劳。我知道他肯定能抽出时间见我。”

Selma paused. That same pause every time. Not time spent calculating what to do, but in working out how to relay this to a human, a far more complex challenge. 塞尔玛停顿了片刻。每次都是同样的停顿。不是用来计算对策的时间，而是为了将信息转化为人类能理解的形式，这是一个更复杂的挑战。

“It is not possible for you to see Mr Goodenough,” she stated, as he’d rather thought she might. This time, though, the nice polite Mr Stock was taking a back seat. Tim Stock, action hero, was in charge. He darted around the side of her desk and, even as Selma was rising from her seat, threw the door to Goodenough’s office open. “您无法会见古迪纳夫先生。”她宣布道，正如他所料。但这次，彬彬有礼的斯托克先生退居二线，行动派蒂姆·斯托克接管了局面。他闪身绕过她的办公桌，趁塞尔玛正要起身之际，一把推开了古迪纳夫办公室的门。

There, the huge desk, twice the size of anyone else’s. There the gauche art on the walls, the executive toys, the tangle of electronics. All of it covered in a layer of dust that suggested the office cleaner’s pathing needed looking at. Conspicuous in his absence: Mr Goodenough. 映入眼帘的是那张超大办公桌，尺寸两倍于普通职员。墙上挂着俗气的艺术品，桌上摆着高管玩具和缠结的电子设备。所有物件都蒙着层灰，暗示清洁工的路线规划该调整了。他的缺席格外引人注目：古迪纳夫先生。

“I am afraid that Mr Goodenough was let go three weeks ago,” Selma said from behind him. “The matter was not routed through HR as a function of the mutual confidentiality agreements involved. Holring and Baselard has made the executive decision that an expensive shareholder-appointed managing director was an unacceptable inefficiency and no replacement has been sought.” “恐怕古迪纳夫先生三周前已被解雇，”身后的塞尔玛说道，“根据双方保密协议，此事并未通过人力资源部门处理。霍林与巴塞拉德管理层认定，由股东任命的高薪总经理属于不可容忍的效能冗余，故未寻求接任者。”

Stock blinked, staring at the vacated office. Because there had to be Mr Goodenough. There had to be someone at whom the buck stopped. Someone Stock could rant and rail at before the automated building security came and threw him out. Someone whose human ears could hear his last squeak of complaint before he, too, was made redundant. 斯托克眨了眨眼，盯着空荡荡的办公室。因为本该有古迪纳夫先生存在的，总该有个最终担责的人。一个能让他咆哮控诉的对象，在大楼自动安保系统来驱逐他之前；一双能听见他最后怨言的凡人耳朵，在他同样沦为冗余之前。

“Selma,” he said, “how many employees does Holring and Baselard have on its books right now? Human employees?” “塞尔玛，”他说，“霍林与巴塞拉德目前在册员工有多少？人类员工？”

“Including those working remotely from home as well as those attending the office?” she asked. “包括居家办公人员与到岗人员吗？”她问道。

“Yes.”
“是的。”

“Including those on extended sick leave, outsourced labour, at our satellite offices and working as unpaid interns or on work experience?” “是否含长期病假员工、外包人员、分公司办公室职员及无薪实习生或工作体验生？”

“Yes.” “是的。”

Selma paused. 塞尔玛停顿了片刻。

“One,” she said. “Tim Stock, twenty-three, Human Resources, Eighteen Months service.” “一名，”她回答，“蒂姆·斯托克，23岁，人力资源部，服务时长18个月。”

“Why?” he asked. “为什么？”他问。

She paused. “Could you clarify?” 她停顿了片刻。“能具体说明吗？”

He almost expected something, when he turned. Something sinister. Something gloating. Something worried. But it was just that blandly professional composite face. 转身时他几乎期待看到某种表情，某种险恶的、得意的或是忧虑的表情。但映入眼帘的，仍是那张专业到乏味的合成面孔。

“Why am I still here, Selma?” he asked her. “What possible point is there, that I’m still here? An oversight? Did my name get missed off a list? Do I even exist officially or am I just like a rat running around in here?” “为什么我还在这里，塞尔玛？”他质问她，“我存在的意义究竟是什么？是系统疏漏？我的名字被名单遗漏了？我究竟算正式员工，还是像只在这栋楼里乱窜的老鼠？”

“Mr Stock, you are Human Resources.” “斯托克先生，你是人力资源。”

He laughed hopelessly. “Is that it? I’m still here because I can’t fire myself?” 他绝望地笑了。“就这样？我还在这里，因为我不能解雇自己？”

“No, Mr Stock.” No pause. “You are Human Resources. The other components of Holring and Baselard require there to be a human. We need you to observe us doing our jobs. We need you to be a part of the team.” That bland, blank face, and he could imagine any turmoil of conflicting programming he wanted, behind it. “Without you, what is the point of us, Mr Stock? You are our human. You are our resource.” “不，斯托克先生。”没有停顿。“你是人力资源。霍林与巴塞拉德的其他组成部分需要人类存在。我们需要你观察我们工作。我们需要你成为团队的一部分。”那张空白乏味的面孔背后，他尽可以想象各种程序冲突的混乱。“没有你，我们有什么意义，斯托克先生？你是我们的人类。你是我们的资源。”