加载中…2016年10月SAT北美考试真题 阅读 第二篇
(2016-11-13 10:24:46)
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2016年10月SAT北美考试
阅读
第二篇 选自 How Technology is
Destroying Jobs:' ©2013 by MIT Technology
Review.
MIT business scholars Erik
Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee have been arguing for the last year
and a half that impressive advances in computer technology—from
improved industrial robotics to automated translation services—are
largely behind the sluggish employment growth of the last 10 to 15
years. Even more ominous for workers, the MIT academics foresee
dismal prospects for many types of jobs as these powerful new
technologies are increasingly adopted not only in manufacturing,
clerical, and retail work but in professions such as law, financial
services, education, and medicine.
That robots, automation, and
software can replace people might seem obvious to anyone who’s
worked in automotive manufacturing or as a travel agent. But
Brynjolfsson and McAfee’s claim is more troubling and
controversial. They believe that rapid technological change has
been destroying jobs faster than it is creating them, contributing
to the stagnation of median income and the growth of inequality in
the United States. And, they suspect, something similar is
happening in other technologically advanced
countries.
Perhaps the most damning
piece of evidence, according to Brynjolfsson, is a chart that only
an economist could love. In economics, productivity—the amount of
economic value created for a given unit of input, such as an hour
of labor—is a crucial indicator of growth and wealth creation. It
is a measure of progress. On the chart Brynjolfsson likes to show,
separate lines represent productivity and total employment in the
United States. For years after World War II, the two lines closely
tracked each other, with increases in jobs corresponding to
increases in productivity. The pattern is clear: as businesses
generated more value from their workers, the country as a whole
became richer, which fueled more economic activity and created even
more jobs. Then, beginning in 2000, the lines diverge; productivity
continues to rise robustly, but employment suddenly wilts. By 2011,
a significant gap appears between the two lines, showing economic
growth with no parallel increase in job creation. Brynjolfsson and
McAfee call it the “great decoupling.” And Brynjolfsson says he is
confident that technology is behind both the healthy growth in
productivity and the weak growth in jobs.
It’s a startling assertion
because it threatens the faith that many economists place in
technological progress. Brynjolfsson and McAfee still believe that
technology boosts productivity and makes societies wealthier, but
they think that it can also have a dark side: technological
progress is eliminating the need for many types of jobs and leaving
the typical worker worse off than before. Brynjolfsson can point
to a second chart indicating that median income is failing to rise
even as the gross domestic product soars. “It’s the great paradox
of our era,” he says. “Productivity is at record levels, innovation
has never been faster, and yet at the same time, we have a falling
median income and we have fewer jobs. People are falling behind
because technology is advancing so fast and our skills and
organizations aren’t keeping up.”
While such changes can be
painful for workers whose skills no longer match the needs of
employers, Lawrence Katz, a Harvard economist, says that no
historical pattern shows these shifts leading to a net decrease in
jobs over an extended period. Katz has done extensive research on
how technological advances have affected jobs over the last few
centuries—describing, for example, how highly skilled artisans in
the mid-19th century were displaced by lower-skilled workers in
factories. While it can take decades for workers to acquire the
expertise needed for new types of employment, he says, “we never
have run out of jobs. There is no long-term trend of eliminating
work for people. Over the long term, employment rates are fairly
stable. People have always been able to create new jobs. People
come up with new things to do.”
Still, Katz doesn’t dismiss
the notion that there is something different about today’s digital
technologies—something that could affect an even broader range of
work. The question, he says, is whether economic history will serve
as a useful guide. Will the job disruptions caused by technology be
temporary as the workforce adapts, or will we see a science-fiction
scenario in which automated processes and robots with superhuman
skills take over a broad swath of human tasks? Though Katz expects
the historical pattern to hold, it is “genuinely a question,” he
says. “If technology disrupts enough, who knows what will
happen?”
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