《经济学人》双语：机器人的崛起会导致大规模失业吗？
发布时间 ：2022-03-04《经济学人》双语：机器人的崛起会导致大规模失业吗？
原文标题：
Workplace automation
The world should welcome the rise of smart machines
Rise of the robots
办公场所自动化
世界应乐见智能机器的崛起
机器人的崛起
Concerns over mass unemployment are unfounded
对大规模失业的担忧是毫无根据的
[Paragraph 1]
THE WORD “robot” was coined in 1920 by the Czech playwright Karel Capek.
“机器人”这一词是由捷克剧作家卡雷尔·恰佩克于1920年创造出来的。
In “R.U.R.” (“Rossum’s Universal Robots”) Capek imagined artificial, fully functional servants.
在剧作《罗素姆万能机器人》中，恰佩克构想塑造了人工、全自动的仆人。
For most of their history, however, robots have been dumb, inelegant mechanical devices sitting out of sight in factories.
然而，在大部分有关机器人的历史中，他们都是笨拙，粗俗的机械设备，放在工厂里不起眼的地方。
[Paragraph 2]
Things are starting to change, however.
不过，情况正在发生转变。
Robots have benefited from rapid innovations in smartphones, which brought cheap cameras and sensors, fast wireless communications and powerful, smaller computer chips.
机器人受益于智能手机的飞速创新，智能手机带来了便宜的相机和传感器，快速的无线沟通和功能强大、体积更小的计算机芯片。
More recent advances in machine learning have added software to make robots better informed about their surroundings and equipped them to make wiser decisions.
机器学习方面的最新进展为机器人增添了软件，使其可以更好地了解周遭环境，做出更明智的决定。
Robots are leaving carefully managed industrial settings for everyday life and, in the coming years, will increasingly work in supermarkets, clinics, social care and much more.
机器人将离开严格管控的工厂环境，进入日常生活，未来的几年，他们将越来越多地在超市，诊所，社会关怀机构等领域工作。
[Paragraph 3]
They could not be coming at a better time.
它们出现得正是时候。
Many industries are facing a shortage of labour—the demand for workers has recovered much faster than expected from the pandemic and some people have left the workforce, particularly in America.
疫情中，一些人已经离开了劳动力市场，许多工厂正面临劳动力短缺，在美国尤其严重——随着疫情的好转，工厂对工人的需求比预期的要快得多。
Warehousing has grown rapidly thanks to the e-commerce boom.
由于电商的繁荣发展，仓储行业也发展迅速。
Robots are now indispensable, picking items off shelves and helping people pack an exponentially rising numbers of boxes.
机器人现在不可或缺，它们把货从货架上取下来，并帮助人们打包数量呈指数增长的包裹。
They are even beginning to trundle slowly along some pavements, delivering goods or food right to people’s doors.
它们甚至开始沿着马路缓慢移动，把货品和食物送到顾客的家门口。
In a pandemic-ravaged world, short of workers but with lots of elderly folk to look after, having more robots to boost productivity would be a good thing.
在一个疫情横行的世界，工人短缺，又有许多老年人亟待照看，拥有更多的机器人对刺激生产力是件好事。
[Paragraph 4]
And yet many people fear that robots will destroy jobs.
然而，很多人害怕机器人会毁掉就业机会。
A paper in 2013 by economists at Oxford University was widely misinterpreted as meaning that 47% of American jobs were at risk of being automated.
牛津大学经济学家在2013年发表的一篇论文被广泛误解，人们认为47%的美国就业岗位面临被机器替代的风险。
[Paragraph 5]
In fact, concerns about mass unemployment are overblown.
事实上，关于大规模失业的担忧被夸大了。
The evidence suggests robots will be disruptive but ultimately beneficial for labour markets.
证据表明，机器人会引起混乱，但最终对劳动力市场是有益的。
Japan and South Korea have the highest robot penetration but very strong workforces.
日本和韩国的机器人普及率最高，但劳动力也非常强大。
A Yale University study that looked at Japanese manufacturing between 1978 and 2017 found that an increase of one robot unit per 1,000 workers boosted a company’s employment by 2.2%.
耶鲁大学针对1978年至2017年期间日本制造业的一项研究发现，每1000名工人增加一个机器人单位，公司的就业机会就会增加2.2%。
Research from the Bank of Korea found that robotisation moved jobs away from manufacturing into other sectors, but that there was no decrease in overall vacancies.
韩国央行的研究发现，机器人化将工作岗位从制造业转移到了其他行业，但总体职位空缺并未减少。
Another study, by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and colleagues elsewhere, looked at Finnish firms and concluded that their use of advanced technologies led to increases in hiring.
由麻省理工学院的研究人员和其他地方的同事进行的另一项研究，研究人员观察了芬兰的公司，得出的结论是，先进技术的使用促进了招聘的增长。
[Paragraph 6]
For all that, the march of the robots will bring big changes to workplaces.
尽管如此，机器人的发展将给工作场所带来巨大的变化。
The skills and firms that are rewarded will shift, too. But that need not be the disaster many fear.
赢得回报的技能和公司也将会转变。但这未必是许多人担心的灾难。
One supposed example of “bad automation” is self-service checkouts in supermarkets, because they displace human workers.
一个“糟糕的自动化”的例子是超市的自助收银台，因为它们取代了人力。
But this is hardly dystopian—robots could perform work, such as butchering, that is unpleasant or stigmatised.
但这很难说是反乌托邦的——机器人可以从事令人不快或不体面的工作，比如屠宰。
Checkout staff who retrain to help customers pick items from aisles may well find that dealing with people in need is more rewarding than spending all day swiping barcodes in front of lasers.
收银员经过重新培训后去帮助顾客从货架通道中挑选商品，他们可能会发现，跟需要帮助的人打交道比整天在激光扫码器前刷条形码更有价值。
[Paragraph 7]
Inevitably, some people will be on the losing end of change even as the robots make society as a whole better off.
不可避免的是，尽管机器人让整个社会变得更好，但一些人也会在变革中落于失败的境地。
One lesson from the freewheeling globalisation of the 1990s and 2000s is that the growth in trade that was overwhelmingly beneficial triggered a political backlash, because the losers felt left behind.
从上世纪90年代和21世界初自由放任的全球化中得到的一个教训是，带来极大好处的贸易增长引发了政治反弹，因为输家感觉被甩在了后面。
That is one more reason why firms and governments would do well to recognise the value of retraining and lifelong learning.
这也是为什么企业和政府应该充分认识到再培训和终身学习的价值的另一个原因。
As jobs change, workers should be helped to acquire new skills, including how to work with and manage the robots that will increasingly be their colleagues.
随着工作岗位的变化，他们应该帮助工人们获得新技能，包括如何与机器人合作及如何操作机器人，他们将有更多的机器人同事。
[Paragraph 8]
The potential gains from the robot revolution are huge.
机器人革命的潜在收益是巨大的。
In Capek’s play, the robots revolt against their human masters and cause mass unemployment and worse.
在恰佩克的戏剧中，机器人反抗他们的人类主人，导致大规模失业和更糟的情况。
The beginnings of the world’s real robots have not matched Capek’s satire.There is no reason to think that their future needs to either.
世界上真正机器人的诞生与恰佩克的讽刺作品并不相符。也没有理由认为它们的未来会与之相符。
（恭喜读完，本篇英语词汇量719左右）
原文出自：2022年2月26日《The Economist》Leaders版块。
精读笔记来源于：自由英语之路
本文翻译整理：Fei Min
本文编辑校对: Irene
仅供个人英语学习交流使用。
【补充资料】（来源于网络）
卡雷尔·恰佩克（Karel Čapek，1890——1938），捷克作家、剧作家、科幻文学家、童话寓言家和新闻记者，著有大量长短篇小说、剧本、游记等。1920年恰佩克发表了科幻剧本《万能机器人》，发明了机器人这个词，此剧本已成为世界科幻文学的经典。 生于捷克一个乡村医生家庭。其兄为作家，他自幼喜欢文艺，14岁开始发表诗作。因爱国心和正义感遭德国法西斯残害。恰佩克从查理大学哲学系毕业后并开始文学创作。1921年后陆续出版科幻作品。1936年出版了他著名的代表作长篇科幻小说《鲵鱼之乱》。他擅长讽刺幽默和幻想，以运用虚幻、象征的现代派手法为世人瞩目。他的童话作品以鸟禽牲畜和幻想的形象来揭露、嘲讽社会生活中的丑恶现象。由于卡雷尔·恰佩克在文学上的巨大成就，他担任过捷克笔会的主席，并与人共同建立了斯洛伐克笔会。他真正为儿童写的童话，虽然只有几篇，却可称为世界童话的精品。 卡雷尔·恰佩克对生活有着非凡的热情，他的兴趣广泛，文学之外，园艺、绘画和摄影都令他沉醉，《我的小狗达森卡》中那些可爱的达森卡“玉照”就由他拍摄，为自己的作品画插图更是常事。
【重点句子】（3个）
They are even beginning to trundle slowly along some pavements, delivering goods or food right to people’s doors.它们甚至开始沿着马路缓慢移动，把货品和食物送到顾客的家门口。
In fact, concerns about mass unemployment are overblown.事实上，关于大规模失业的担忧被夸大了。
Inevitably, some people will be on the losing end of change even as the robots make society as a whole better off.不可避免的是，尽管机器人让整个社会变得更好，但一些人也会在变革中落于失败的境地。
