2023年经济学人 人工智能如何影响你的工资(1)

 

    Finance and economics

    财经版块

    What does AI mean for your pay?

    人工智能对你的工资意味着什么？

    A dispatch from the front line of an economic revolution.

    从经济革命前线发来的消息。

    Around a decade ago Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne, two economists¹, published a paper that went viral.

    大约十年前，两位经济学家卡尔·贝内迪克特·弗雷和迈克尔·奥斯本发表了一篇论文，这篇论文在网上被疯传。

    It argued that 47% of American jobs were at risk of automation.

    论文称，47%的美国工作岗位面临被自动化的风险。

    A deluge² of research followed, which suggested the poorest and least-educated workers were most vulnerable to the coming revolution.

    随后出现了大量研究，研究表明，最贫穷和受教育程度最低的工人最容易受到即将到来的工作革命的影响。

    Such fears have intensified³ as artificial-intelligence (AI) capabilities⁴ have leapt ahead.

    随着人工智能发展的突飞猛进，这种担忧也在加剧。

    On November 2nd, speaking after Britain’s AI summit, Elon Musk⁵ predicted: “There will come a point where no job is needed.”

    11月2日，埃隆·马斯克在英国人工智能峰会结束后发表讲话时预测道：“终有一天，人们不再需要工作。”

    Yet at the same time, economists have become more optimistic.

    与此同时，经济学家们也变得更加乐观。

    Recent studies have found that fewer workers are exposed to automation than Messrs Frey and Osborne supposed.

    最近的研究发现，面临自动化风险的劳动者要比弗雷和奥斯本以为的更少。

    In 2019 Michael Webb, then of Stanford University, showed that AI patents are more targeted at skilled jobs than those for software and robots.

    2019年，当时在斯坦福大学的迈克尔·韦伯表明，人工智能专利更多地针对技术型工作，而不是软件和机器人能完成的工作。

    New AI seems better at coding and creativity than anything in the physical world, suggesting low-skilled jobs may be insulated.

    而新的人工智能似乎比现实世界中的任何东西都更擅长编码和创意类工作，这表明低技能工作可能会免受影响。

    In March Shakked Noy and Whitney Zhang, both of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), published an experiment showing that ChatGPT boosted the productivity when writing of lower-ability workers more than that of higher-ability workers.

    今年3月，麻省理工学院的沙基德·诺伊和惠特尼·张发表了一项实验结果，表明ChatGPT对低技能办公者的写作效率的提升比对高技能办公者更明显。

    Although AI is still in its infancy⁶, some industries have been eager adopters.

    尽管人工智能仍处于初级阶段，但一些行业已经热切地开始使用这一技术。

    A close look at three of these—translation, customer service and sales—is broadly supportive of the optimistic shift among economists, though not without complications.

    仔细看看其中三个行业--翻译、客服和销售，可以发现观察结果大体上支持经济学家的乐观预测，尽管也还是有一些更复杂的问题。

    In translation, perhaps the first industry to be heavily affected⁷ by language modelling, workers have become copy editors, tidying a first draft undertaken by AI, which eases the path of newbies into the industry.

    翻译行业可能是第一个受到语言大模型严重影响的行业，这个行业的工作者已经成为文案编辑，只需整理由人工智能完成的初稿，这为新手更容易入行。

    In customer service, AI has helped raise the performance of stragglers.

    在客服行业，人工智能帮助提高了落后者的表现。

    But in sales, top performers use the tech to find leads and take notes, pulling away from their peers.

    但在销售行业，能力强者会使用人工智能来寻找线索并做记录，从而领先同行。

    Will AI boost the incomes of superstars more than those of stragglers, much as the internet revolution did?

    人工智能会像互联网革命那样，给超级明星带来比落后者更高的收入吗？

    Or will it be a “great equaliser”, raising the incomes of the worst off but not those of high flyers?

    还是会成为一个“伟大的均衡器”，提高境况最差的人群的收入，而非高薪群体的收入？

    The answer may depend on the type of employment in question.

    答案可能取决于所讨论的是哪种就业类型。

    Roland Hall has been translating board games and marketing⁸ material from French to English for 27 years.

    罗兰·霍尔的工作是将桌游和营销材料从法语翻译成英语，他从事这种工作已经有27年了。

    He recalls that even in the 1990s software was used to render specific words from one language to another.

    他回忆说，早在20世纪90年代，软件就被用来将特定的某些单词从一种语言翻译成另一种语言。

    Today the tools are more advanced, meaning the types of job available have split in two.

    如今，这些工具更加先进，这意味着现有的工作已经分成两类。

    One type includes texts where fluency⁹ is less important.

    一类包括对行文流畅性要求不那么高的文本。

    An example might be a several-thousand-page manual for an aircraft, says Mr Hall, where readers simply need to know “what part to look for” and “do you turn it left or right”.

    霍尔表示，这种文本可能是长达数千页的飞机说明手册，读者只需知道“应该找哪个部件”，以及“你是把它向左转还是向右转”。

    The other type includes literary translations, where the finest details matter.

    另一类包括文学翻译，文本的细枝末节都非常重要。

    The first type has been most affected by AI.

    第一类受人工智能影响最大。

    Many workers now edit translations that have gone through a machine similar to that underlying¹⁰ Google’s translation service.

    许多工作人员都是先用与谷歌翻译的底层技术类似的机器生成译文，然后再对译文进行编辑。

    They are paid at a steep discount per word, but more work is available.

    他们按字数计算的报酬大打折扣，但工作也变多了。

    Lucia Ratikova, a Slovakian who specialises in construction and legal translations, reckons that such work now makes up more than half of listings on job sites, up from a tenth a few years ago.

    专门从事建筑和法律翻译的斯洛伐克人露西娅·拉蒂科娃估计，这类工作现在占求职网站上发布信息的一半以上，而几年前这一比例为十分之一。

    A larger pool of businesses, many eager to expand into global markets, are taking advantage of the drop in price.

    更多的企业正在利用翻译价格下跌的机会，其中许多企业渴望进军全球市场。

    If machines are able to do what humans do more cheaply, employers will turn to computers.

    如果机器能够以更低的成本做人类做的事情，雇主就会转而使用计算机。

    But as prices fall, overall demand for a service may rise, and possibly by enough to offset¹¹ the increased use of machines.

    但随着价格下降，整体需求会上升，从而可能抵消使用机器（带来的工作减少）。

    There is no law to determine which effect will dominate.

    没有定律可以决定哪种影响将占主导地位。

    So far in America the number of translators has grown, yet their real wages have fallen slightly—probably because the profession now requires rather less skill.

    到目前为止，美国的译员人数有所增加，但他们的实际工资却略有下降，可能是因为这一职业现在对技能的要求要低得多。

1 economists   

n.经济学家，经济专家( economist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The sudden rise in share prices has confounded economists. 股价的突然上涨使经济学家大惑不解。
• Foreign bankers and economists cautiously welcomed the minister's initiative. 外国银行家和经济学家对部长的倡议反应谨慎。 来自《简明英汉词典》

2 deluge   

n./vt.洪水，暴雨，使泛滥

参考例句：

• This little stream can become a deluge when it rains heavily.雨大的时候，这条小溪能变作洪流。
• I got caught in the deluge on the way home.我在回家的路上遇到倾盆大雨。

3 intensified   

v.（使）增强， （使）加剧( intensify的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Violence intensified during the night. 在夜间暴力活动加剧了。
• The drought has intensified. 旱情加剧了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 capabilities   

n.能力( capability的名词复数 )；可能；容量；[复数]潜在能力

参考例句：

• He was somewhat pompous and had a high opinion of his own capabilities. 他有点自大，自视甚高。 来自辞典例句
• Some programmers use tabs to break complex product capabilities into smaller chunks. 一些程序员认为，标签可以将复杂的功能分为每个窗格一组简单的功能。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓

5 musk   

n.麝香, 能发出麝香的各种各样的植物，香猫

参考例句：

• Musk is used for perfume and stimulant.麝香可以用作香料和兴奋剂。
• She scented her clothes with musk.她用麝香使衣服充满了香味。

6 infancy   

n.婴儿期；幼年期；初期

参考例句：

• He came to England in his infancy.他幼年时期来到英国。
• Their research is only in its infancy.他们的研究处于初级阶段。

7 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

8 marketing   

n.行销，在市场的买卖，买东西

参考例句：

• They are developing marketing network.他们正在发展销售网络。
• He often goes marketing.他经常去市场做生意。

9 fluency   

n.流畅，雄辩，善辩

参考例句：

• More practice will make you speak with greater fluency.多练习就可以使你的口语更流利。
• Some young children achieve great fluency in their reading.一些孩子小小年纪阅读已经非常流畅。

10 underlying   

adj.在下面的，含蓄的，潜在的

参考例句：

• The underlying theme of the novel is very serious.小说隐含的主题是十分严肃的。
• This word has its underlying meaning.这个单词有它潜在的含义。

11 offset   

n.分支，补偿；v.抵消，补偿

参考例句：

• Their wage increases would be offset by higher prices.他们增加的工资会被物价上涨所抵消。
• He put up his prices to offset the increased cost of materials.他提高了售价以补偿材料成本的增加。