随着机器人的上升，工人会摔倒吗？

Factory laborers long ago lost their jobs to robots. Warehouse workers could be next in line. Might millions of white-collar workers — paralegals, bank analysts, accountants, even programmers — someday find that they, too, are expendable?

许多经济学家都说技术进步将以我们刚刚开始理解的方式劳动劳动力市场。在一个可怕的预测中，牛津大学的研究人员表示，多达1.4亿的知识工作者可以lose their jobs to computerization在未来的几十年。

As robots and automation software grow cheaper and more sophisticated, many economists fear a future filled with widespread layoffs and wage cuts. In this pessimistic scenario, employers swap human workers for machines that are fast and reliable — and don’t call in sick, check Facebook while they’re on the clock or file workers’ compensation claims.

“在各级 - 零售，热情好客，制造，分销，专业 - 我们正在使用技术和自动化来取代劳动力，”亚特兰大阳光银行的日常信贷风险管理高级副总裁KC Conway说。“我们正在创造这种令人难以置信的技能差距。我们正在消除那些没有接受过新型工作类型的蓝领员工。“

康威points to historically low labor force participation rates — the level stood at 62.6 percent in August — as an early indicator of the toll that automation has taken.

Not everyone sees automation as a dire threat to economic stability. Ever since the Luddites destroyed textile machines in the early 19th century, workers have been afflicted with “automation anxiety,” says Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist David Autor. But in reality, each wave of mechanization has been followed not by poverty but by ever rising prosperity.

“Because machines both substitute for and complement human labor, focusing only on what is lost misses the central economic mechanism through which productivity growth raises the value of the tasks that workers uniquely supply,”Autor wrote in a 2014 paper.

Henrik Christensen, a computing professor and director of the Robotics & Intelligent Machines Center at the Georgia Institute of Technology, is equally optimistic. He sees robots as a way to relieve workers of “dirty, dull and dangerous” tasks — toiling in a 100-degree warehouse, for instance, or heaving back-wrenching loads.

“It’s not about removing the workforce,”Christensen said in a 2013 speech. “It’s about empowering the workforce.”

自动化支持者回声Autor的预测机器人will replace low-skilled jobs but ultimately boost economic productivity and eventually create more opportunities for workers.

Automating not only makes companies more efficient but also lets workers move out of low-paying positions and into better-paying jobs, says Robert Doyle, director of communications for the Association for Advancing Automation in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

“Employees who were doing what we call dull, dirty and dangerous jobs are now doing much more productive jobs, much more fulfilling jobs,” Doyle explains. “We definitely believe that automation creates better jobs, higher-paying jobs, and is better for the economy.”

哥伦比亚大学经济学家Jeffrey Sachs, director of the school’s Earth Institute, sees a very different future. A paper he coauthored this year with Boston University’s Laurence Kotlikoff, Guillermo LaGarda and Seth Benzell predicted painful job losses. Their research shows that robots, or smart machines, will take a larger share of income, leaving a smaller share for workers. That presents politicians with the challenge of imposing a “robot tax” or some other way to make up for tax revenue lost from wage earners. “Absent appropriate fiscal policy that redistributes from winners to losers, smart machines can mean long-term misery for all,” they wrote.

美国工厂已经遭受了遭受，失去了曾经有利可图的工作，并在中国廉价劳动力。雇用数百名员工的美国工厂可以在今天的一小部分上运作。

接下来是仓库工人，他们执行例行，低技能任务。2012年在线零售巨头Amazon.com支付了7.75亿美元的马萨诸塞州基于马萨诸塞州Kiva Systems，为分销中心设计的机器人制造商。典型的亚马逊履行中心仍用数百名低工资拾取器，他巡逻过道的内容，寻找购物者订购的物品，而Autor说他们的工作是安全的。

“目前没有技术上可行或具有成本效益的机器人传真，”他在2014篇论文中写道。“工作的灵活性陡峭要求，对象识别，物理灵活性和精细电机协调太大。”

Driverless cars还没有准备好素质时间，但机器人在没有驱动器的情况下运行的时候预测一个不太遥远的一天。Christensen说，FedEx Corp.和United Parcel Service Trucks可能是自动化的，但人工人员将留下来。

“克里斯滕森在2013年演讲中说：”仍然会成为一名卡车背面的人。““但如果你不必要求他有驾驶执照，但他的薪水明显下降。”

传统的智慧举行了没有大学学位或专业技能的工人是由机器最令人遗造的。例如，保安人员可能会失去工作，因为无人机和其他系统让一个人监控多个位置。

Workers higher on the wage scale have been mostly unscathed, but the pessimists say that their day is coming. SunTrust’s Conway notes that bank stress testing now is done by software rather than by human analysts, and CPAs have already lost clients who prefer to buy tax-preparation software. Even coders could lose their jobs and endure pay cuts as automation improves, Sachs and his co-authors predict.

同时，牛津大学研究员Carl Frey和Michael Osborne表示，保险官员，律师助理，律师助理和税务制作人很可能被计算机取代的白领。“精致的算法可以替代全球约14百万的全日制知识工作者，”他们写在一个2013 paper.

If those dire predictions come true, the effects would ripple through the economy. “All of the implications haven’t really been thought through,” Conway says.