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(单词翻译:双击或拖选)
Customer service offers more difficult terrain1 for AI.
客户服务的人工智能应用情况更为棘手。
Firms have been trying to automate2 it for years.
多年来，公司一直在尝试将客服自动化。
Thus far they have mostly just annoyed customers.
到目前为止，这种做法主要只是惹恼了客户。
Who doesn’t try to game the chatbot in order to speak to an actual human?
为了和真人对话，谁不会试着对聊天机器人扯谎呢？
The American Customer Satisfaction Index has been falling since 2018, and workers also appear fed up.
自2018年以来，美国消费者满意度指数一直在下降，员工们似乎也受够了。
Turnover3 in American “contact centres” hit a record high of 38% last year.
去年，美国“联络中心”的员工流动率达到了创纪录的38%。
But there may be consolation4: the workforce5 is becoming more welcoming to the low-skilled.
但还有一些安慰：客服行业对能力较差的人开始变得更加友好。
Erik Brynjolfsson of Stanford, as well as Danielle Li and Lindsey Raymond of MIT, studied the roll-out of an AI assistant to more than 5,000 customer-support agents earlier this year.
今年早些时候，斯坦福大学的埃里克·布林约尔松以及麻省理工学院的丹妮尔·李和林赛·雷蒙德研究了向5000多名客服专员推出人工智能助理的情况。
The assistant offered real-time suggestions to workers.
人工智能助手向客服工作者提供了实时建议。
This lifted the productivity of the least-skilled agents by 35%, while the most-skilled ones saw little change.
这将能力最差的客服专员的工作效率提高了35%，而能力最强的客服专员的工作效率几乎没有变化。
It would be reasonable to assume that the impact on salespeople6 would be fairly similar to the one on customer-service workers.
由此可以合理地假设，人工智能对销售人员的影响与对客服人员的影响会非常相似。
But that is not the case.
但事实并非如此。
Marc Bernstein of Balto, a firm that creates AI software for both sales teams and call centres, notes that “style points” (ie, charisma7 and the ability to develop a relationship) matter much more in sales than in customer service, where the important thing is getting the right answer quickly.
Balto是一家为销售团队和客服中心开发人工智能软件的公司，该公司的马克·伯恩斯坦指出，“风格特点”(即个人魅力和建立关系的能力)在销售中比在客服中更重要，客服看重的是迅速给出正确答案。
AI might even create sales superstars.
人工智能甚至可能创造出销售行业的超级明星。
Skylar Werneth has been in the industry for eight years and is now at Nooks, a startup that automates8 sales.
斯盖拉·沃尼斯已经在销售行业工作了八年，现在在Nooks工作，这是一家将销售自动化的初创公司。
Software analyses his calls, identifying which tactics work best.
软件对他打的电话进行分析，确定哪种策略效果最好。
It also helps him call many people at once.
还能帮助他同时呼叫许多人。
Most customers do not pick up; dialling in parallel ensures Mr Werneth is talking more and listening to dial-tones less.
大多数客户不会接电话，同时拨打电话可以确保沃尼斯多说话，少听拨号等待音。
He reckons the tools Nooks offers makes him three times more productive, earning him a solid amount more than before.
他认为，Nooks提供的工具使他的工作效率提高了三倍，为他带来了比以前更多的可观收入。
What does this mean for labour markets?
这对劳动力市场意味着什么？
Sales representatives are given bonuses based on the number of clients they bring in over a threshold.
销售代表根据他们拉来的超过一定门槛的客户数量而获得奖金。
When productivity grows across a firm, bosses tend to raise the threshold.
当一家公司的工作效率普遍提高时，老板往往会提高这个门槛。
Because not everyone is able to meet it, low performers are pushed out of the workforce, since demand for products does not grow in parallel with sales performance, as would be necessary to justify9 retaining them.
因为不是每个人都能拉到更多客户，所以表现不佳的员工会被挤出行业，因为对产品的需求并不会随着销售业绩的增长而同步增长，而需求的增长才能证明留下销售人员是合理的。
The result is a shrinking set of highly productive salespeople.
其结果是，销售人员减少，以效率高的销售为主。
At least, given high turnover in the industry, the shift to this state of affairs might mean hiring fewer people, not mass firings.
至少，考虑到销售行业的高流动率，这种转变可能意味着雇佣更少的人，而不是大规模裁员。
If AI eventually becomes superhuman, as many attendees at Britain’s recent summit believed possible, all bets are off.
如果人工智能最终成为超人，正如最近的英国峰会上的许多与会者所认为的那样，那么结局非常难以预测。
Even if AI advances in a less epochal fashion, labour markets will see profound change.
即使人工智能的发展不那么惊天动地，劳动力市场也将发生深刻变化。
A study by Xiang Hui and Oren Reshef of Washington University in St Louis and Luofeng Zhou of New York University, published in August, found that earnings10 for writing, proofreading11 and copy-editing on Upwork, a freelancing platform, fell by 5% after ChatGPT was launched last November, compared with roles less affected12 by AI.
圣路易斯华盛顿大学的项辉和奥伦·雷谢夫以及纽约大学的周罗峰在8月份发表的一项研究发现，与受人工智能影响较小的工作相比，去年11月ChatGPT上线后，自由职业平台Upwork上的写作、校对和文案编辑的收入下降了5%。
A survey of 400 call-centre managers by Balto found that the share using at least some AI grew from 59% in April to 90% by October.
Balto对400名客服中心经理进行的一项调查发现，至少使用部分人工智能的客服中心的比例从4月份的59%上升到10月份的90%。
Mr Bernstein thinks that although “today AI is not capable of replacing a human [in call centres]…in ten years, quite possibly five, it will be there.”
伯恩斯坦认为，尽管“现在的人工智能还不能[在客服中心]取代人类......但十年后，很可能是五年后，人工智能就可以做到这一点。”
The flipside of AI disruption is new jobs elsewhere.
人工智能颠覆工作的另一面是其他地方会出现新的就业机会。
Modelling in 2019 by Daron Acemoglu of MIT and Pascual Restrepo of Boston University suggests that the impact of automation is worst for workers when productivity gains are small.
麻省理工学院的达伦·阿斯莫格鲁和波士顿大学的帕斯古尔·雷斯特波在2019年进行的建模表明，当生产率提高较小时，自动化对工作者的负面影响最大。
Such “so-so” automation creates little surplus wealth to increase the demand for workers in other parts of the economy.
这种“一般般”的自动化创造的额外财富很少，无法增加其他经济部门对劳动力的需求。
Our investigation13 of industries at the front line of AI change suggests that the new tech has a shot at leading to much greater efficiency.
本刊对处于人工智能变革前沿的行业进行的调查表明，人工智能有望带来更高的生产率。
The picture on inequality remains14 murkier15.
收入不平等的情况仍然不明朗。
Better to be a superstar than a straggler, then, even if only to be safe.
那么，即使只是为了稳妥起见，努力成为超级明星也比当落后者要好。
收听单词发音 |
1
terrain
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| n.地面，地形，地图 | |
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automate
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| v.自动化；使自动化 | |
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turnover
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| n.人员流动率，人事变动率；营业额，成交量 | |
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consolation
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| n.安慰，慰问 | |
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workforce
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| n.劳动大军，劳动力 | |
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salespeople
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| n.售货员，店员；售货员( salesperson的名词复数 ) | |
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charisma
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| n.(大众爱戴的)领袖气质，魅力 | |
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automates
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| （使）自动化( automate的第三人称单数 ) | |
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justify
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| vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护 | |
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earnings
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| n.工资收人；利润，利益，所得 | |
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proofreading
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| 校对，校勘( proofread的现在分词 )； 做校对工作； 校读 | |
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affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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investigation
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| n.调查，调查研究 | |
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remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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murkier
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| adj.阴暗的( murky的比较级 )；昏暗的；（指水）脏的；混浊的 | |
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