Free exchange

The fear of robots displacing workers has returned

對機(jī)器人取代工人的恐懼又回來了

But do not expect tech-induced lay-offs just yet

但現(xiàn)在還不要指望技術(shù)導(dǎo)致的裁員

Jul 30th 2020 |

COVID-19 PRESENTED employers with a simple choice: find ways for workers to do their jobs safely, or shut down. At least some have chosen a third option, of dispensing with humans altogether. Among the many breathless headlines prompted by the pandemic are those warning of a new wave of job-destroying automation. The pace of automation in some parts of the economy, like factory floors and warehouses, is almost certain to accelerate. Yet on the whole, robot-induced mass unemployment should remain near the bottom of workers’ lists of worries.

新冠病毒向雇主提供了一個簡單的選擇:找到讓工人安全工作的方法，或者關(guān)閉工廠。至少有些人選擇了第三種選擇，即完全不使用人。在這一流行病引發(fā)的眾多令人窒息的頭條新聞中，有一些警告稱，將出現(xiàn)新一輪破壞就業(yè)的自動化。在一些經(jīng)濟(jì)領(lǐng)域，如工廠和倉庫，自動化的速度幾乎肯定會加快。然而，總的來說，機(jī)器人引發(fā)的大規(guī)模失業(yè)應(yīng)該仍然是工人們最擔(dān)心的問題之一。

The world has only recently recovered from a bout of robophobia. In the early 2010s advances in robotics and artificial intelligence (AI), described ominously in countless papers and books, seemed to portend a wave of job destruction. High unemployment after the global financial crisis of 2007-09 added to fears of a job scarcity. Fretting about robots in a downturn is not entirely irrational: firms appear to do most of their job-slashing during slumps. Nir Jaimovich of the University of Zurich and Henry Siu of the University of British Columbia argue that labour-market recoveries have grown weaker in recent decades as a result. Worries can be overdone, though. By the end of the decade unemployment had dropped like a stone and driverless vehicles were struggling to turn left. The earlier panic seemed a touch hysterical.

世界剛剛從一場機(jī)器人恐懼中恢復(fù)過來。在21世紀(jì)10年代初，機(jī)器人技術(shù)和人工智能(AI)的進(jìn)步，在無數(shù)的論文和書籍中被不祥地描述，似乎預(yù)示著一波就業(yè)毀滅的浪潮。2007-09年全球金融危機(jī)后的高失業(yè)率加劇了人們對就業(yè)機(jī)會短缺的擔(dān)憂。在經(jīng)濟(jì)低迷時期對機(jī)器人的擔(dān)憂并非完全沒有道理:企業(yè)似乎是在經(jīng)濟(jì)低迷時期進(jìn)行了大部分裁員。蘇黎世大學(xué)的Nir Jaimovich和英裔哥倫比亞大學(xué)的Henry Siu認(rèn)為，結(jié)果是近幾十年來勞動力市場的復(fù)蘇越來越弱。不過，擔(dān)心可能過頭了。到90年代末，失業(yè)率如石頭般下降，無人駕駛汽車艱難地左轉(zhuǎn)（應(yīng)該有轉(zhuǎn)變行業(yè)方向的意思，或者就是轉(zhuǎn)向不方便）。早些時候的恐慌似乎有點過分了。

詞匯

Bout/回合；較量；發(fā)作；一陣

phobia/恐怖，憎惡；恐懼癥

ominously/惡兆地；不吉利地

portend/預(yù)示；預(yù)兆；意味著

scarcity/不足；缺乏

Fret/使煩惱；焦急

Slash/大幅度裁減或削減

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High rates of joblessness and eye-catching technological advances are again contributing to a new round of fears. In recent weeks, for instance, mind-boggling examples of the capabilities of GPT-3—an AI-based language-processing model developed by OpenAI, a research organisation—have zoomed around the internet. Another cause for anxiety has been businesses’ strategies for coping with the pandemic. Anecdotes of covid-motivated automation are easy to find. Many organisations have turned to software to automate paper-processing tasks that cannot be done by homebound workers. Those facing a deluge of customer enquiries, such as hospitals, are supplementing human assistants with chatbots. Employers’ interest in automating tasks in high-risk environments, such as slaughterhouses, is reportedly on the rise.

高失業(yè)率和引人注目的技術(shù)進(jìn)步再次引發(fā)了新一輪的恐慌。例如，最近幾周，令人難以置信的關(guān)于gpt -3效能的例子已經(jīng)在互聯(lián)網(wǎng)上迅速流行起來。gpt -3是一個基于人工智能的語言處理模型，由一家研究機(jī)構(gòu)OpenAI開發(fā)。另一個引發(fā)焦慮的原因是企業(yè)應(yīng)對疫情的策略。關(guān)于新冠驅(qū)使的自動化辦公的軼事很容易找到。許多組織以及轉(zhuǎn)變?yōu)榻柚浖碜詣踊幚砑埳咸幚淼娜蝿?wù)，而這些任務(wù)是在家人員無法完成的。醫(yī)院等面臨大量客戶咨詢的企業(yè)，正在用聊天機(jī)器人來輔助人工助手。據(jù)報道，雇主對屠宰場等高風(fēng)險環(huán)境中的自動化任務(wù)越來越感興趣。

詞匯

mind-boggling/令人難以置信的；令人驚異的

Anecdote/軼事；奇聞；秘史

Deluge/洪水；泛濫；暴雨

Slaughterhouse/屠宰場

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Any effect of these on unemployment has almost certainly been swamped by stronger economic forces, such as social-distancing measures and collapsing aggregate demand. And the pace of automation is likely to be gradual rather than disruptively speedy. Many jobs, even those commonly classified as “l(fā)ow-skilled”, require manual and social dexterity that machines cannot yet match. Workers in face-to-face industries—in bars or restaurants, say, or hair and nail salons—are especially vulnerable to covid-19. But there is little scope for, or interest in, replacing them with robots. In New York thousands of public-transport workers caught the virus, and dozens died. Despite billions of dollars of investment in driverless vehicles, though, computers cannot yet pilot buses through chaotic city streets.

幾乎可以肯定的是，這些措施對失業(yè)率的任何影響都被更強(qiáng)大的經(jīng)濟(jì)力量抵消了，比如疏遠(yuǎn)社會的措施和總需求的崩潰。自動化的步伐可能是漸進(jìn)的，而不是破壞性的快速。許多工作，甚至是那些通常被歸類為“低技能”的工作，都需要機(jī)器還無法匹敵的手工和社交能力。面對面工作的工人，比如在酒吧、餐館或美發(fā)美甲沙龍，尤其容易感染新冠病毒。但用機(jī)器人取代它們的空間較小或并不感興趣。在紐約，數(shù)千名公共交通工作人員感染了病毒，數(shù)十人死亡。盡管無人駕駛汽車已經(jīng)投入了數(shù)十億美元，但計算機(jī)還不能在混亂的城市街道上駕駛公共汽車。

詞匯

collapse /【a sudden large decline of business or the prices of stocks (especially one that causes additional failures)】這就話里面應(yīng)該可以理解為經(jīng)濟(jì)社會生活上某一層面的需求的斷裂導(dǎo)致了大量職位空缺。

Aggregate/ ?合計；集合體

Dexterity/靈巧；敏捷；機(jī)敏?

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Furthermore, automation is only one of the technological solutions available to firms as they weather the crisis. The pandemic’s most profound labour-market legacy will probably be a rise in remote work. About half of all Americans who were working before the arrival of covid-19 were doing their jobs remotely by May, according to one estimate. Surveys of firms indicate that some of the shift will not be reversed. If remote work slashes overheads and enables people to move to cheaper cities, it could preserve jobs, by alleviating cost pressures on struggling firms.

此外，自動化只是企業(yè)度過危機(jī)時可用的技術(shù)解決方案之一。大流行最深刻的勞動力市場后遺癥可能是遠(yuǎn)程工作的增加。據(jù)估計，在新冠病毒到來之前工作的所有美國人中，約有一半到5月時正在遠(yuǎn)程工作。對公司的調(diào)查表明，一些轉(zhuǎn)變將不會逆轉(zhuǎn)。如果遠(yuǎn)程工作降低了管理費用，使人們能夠遷移到成本更低的城市，它就可以通過減輕苦苦掙扎的公司的成本壓力來保住工作。

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Telework may have some job-destroying effects, though. The pandemic has sped the adoption of technology in labour-intensive sectors like education and health care. Telemedicine and distance learning might mean that fewer doctors and teachers can serve more patients and students. Their largest impact is likely to be on blue-collar workers, such as clerical and janitorial staff, whose services become less necessary as the physical footprint of education and health institutions gets lighter. In a recent essay David Autor and Elisabeth Reynolds of Massachusetts Institute of Technology warn that such a dynamic could play out more widely. Over the past half-century employment growth in cities polarised: middle-skill work declined, and employment grew in white-collar professions and the services that support them. If remote working proves a lasting shift, then the café staff, taxi drivers and cleaners who depend on their custom could find themselves out of work.

然而，遠(yuǎn)程辦公可能會有一些破壞工作的影響。這一流行病加速了教育和保健等勞動密集型部門對技術(shù)的采用。遠(yuǎn)程醫(yī)療和遠(yuǎn)程教育可能意味著更少的醫(yī)生和教師可以服務(wù)更多的病人和學(xué)生。它們最大的影響可能是對藍(lán)領(lǐng)工人，比如文書和清潔工，隨著教育和衛(wèi)生機(jī)構(gòu)的實體足跡越來越少，他們的服務(wù)變得不那么必要了。在最近的一篇文章中，麻省理工學(xué)院(Massachusetts Institute of Technology)的戴維?奧托爾(David Autor)和伊麗莎白?雷諾茲(Elisabeth Reynolds)警告稱，這種動態(tài)可能會在更廣泛的地區(qū)上演。在過去的半個世紀(jì)里，城市的就業(yè)增長兩極分化:中等技能的工作減少了，而白領(lǐng)行業(yè)及其相關(guān)服務(wù)的就業(yè)增加了。如果遠(yuǎn)程工作被證明是一種持久的轉(zhuǎn)變，那么依賴他們的顧客的咖啡館員工、出租車司機(jī)和清潔工可能會失業(yè)。

詞匯

Telemedicine/（通過電信手段對病人診斷、治療的）遠(yuǎn)程醫(yī)療，遠(yuǎn)距離治病

Clerical/ ?牧師

Janitorial/管理的；保潔的

Such severe, lasting labour-market pain in the aftermath of the pandemic may actually delay automation, by depressing wages. Developing and deploying new technologies costs money. Would-be automators deciding whether or not to make the needed investment could be swayed by the large reservoir of underemployed labour, willing to work for low pay. In America slaughterhouses—which often hire from a big pool of low-wage workers, many of them undocumented immigrants—are far less automated today than in parts of northern Europe, for example.

在大流行病的余波中，如此嚴(yán)重而持久的勞動力市場陣痛實際上可能會因為壓低工資而推遲自動化進(jìn)程。開發(fā)和部署新技術(shù)需要資金。大量未充分就業(yè)的勞動力愿意以較低的工資工作，可能會左右那些考慮實行自動化工作的人是否進(jìn)行必要的投資。例如，在美國，屠宰場常常雇傭大量低薪工人，其中許多是無證移民，如今的自動化程度遠(yuǎn)不如北歐部分地區(qū)。

詞匯

Reservoir/水庫；蓄水池

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Automatic transition

自動轉(zhuǎn)換

Tech-induced mass unemployment, then, seems unlikely. But there is one scenario where covid-19 could unleash the robots—if labour costs start to drift upwards, perhaps as global supply chains break down, or minimum wages rise. The reshoring of manufacturing jobs could lead to pressure to replace cheap foreign labour with robots at home. Production could no longer take advantage of low-cost labour, as America’s meat-processing industry does.

因此，科技引發(fā)的大規(guī)模失業(yè)似乎不太可能。但在一種情況下，新冠病毒可能會放開機(jī)器人——如果勞動力成本開始上升，或許是由于全球供應(yīng)鏈崩潰，或者最低工資上漲。制造業(yè)工作崗位的回流，可能導(dǎo)致用機(jī)器人取代國內(nèi)廉價外國勞動力的壓力。生產(chǎn)也許不能再像美國肉類加工業(yè)那樣利用低成本勞動力。

詞匯

Scenario/方案；情節(jié)；劇本；設(shè)想

Reshoring/重新支撐

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Years of economic dysfunction have energised campaigns for higher minimum wages and a more generous welfare state. The economic devastation wrought by the pandemic lends them momentum; like past crises, it could lay the groundwork for a new social contract. If post-pandemic policy were to enable workers to enjoy more security on fewer hours worked, firms might then face some genuine labour scarcity. And that would really work up an appetite for disruption.

多年的經(jīng)濟(jì)失調(diào)，激發(fā)了要求提高最低工資和更慷慨的福利國家的運動。大流行病造成的經(jīng)濟(jì)破壞給他們提供了動力;與以往的危機(jī)一樣，它可能為新的社會契約奠定基礎(chǔ)。如果大流行后的政策能夠讓工人在更少的工作時間內(nèi)享受更多的安全保障，那么企業(yè)可能會面臨一些真正的勞動力短缺。這將真正激發(fā)人們對顛覆的欲望。

詞匯

Dysfunction/功能紊亂；機(jī)能障礙

Wrought/ 鍛造的；有特定風(fēng)格的

Momentum/勢頭；[物] 動量；動力