A.It will greatly enrich literary creation. B.It will s……
Amid all the job losses, there’s one category of worker
that the economic disruption has been good for: nonhumans.
From
self-service checkout lines at the supermarket to industrial robots armed with
saws and taught to carve up animal bodies in slaughter-houses, these
ever-more-intelligent machines are now not just assisting workers but actually
kicking them out of their jobs.
Automation isn’t just affecting
factory workers, either. Some law firms now use artificial intelligence software
to scan and read mountains of legal documents, work that previously was
performed by highly-paid human lawyers.
"Robots continue to
have an impact on blue-collar jobs, and white-collar jobs are under attack by
microprocessors," says economics professor Edward Learner. The recession
permanently wiped out 2.5 million jobs. US gross domestic product has climbed
back to pre-recession levels, meaning we’re producing as much as before, only
with 6% fewer workers. To be sure, robotics are not the only job killers out
there, with outsourcing (外包) stealing far more jobs than automation.
Jeff Burnstein, president of the Robotics Industry Association, argues
that robots actually save US jobs. His logic: companies that embrace automation
might use fewer workers, but that’s still better than firing everyone and moving
the work overseas.
It’s not that robots are cheaper than
humans, though often they are. It’s that they’re better. "In some cases the
quality requirements are so exacting that even if you wanted to have a human do
the job, you couldn’t," Burnstein says.
Same goes for surgeons,
who’re using robotic systems to perform an ever-growing list of operations—not
because the machines save money but because, thanks to the greater precision of
robots, the patients recover in less time and have fewer complications, says Dr.
Myriam Curet.
Surgeons may survive the robot invasion, but
others at the hospital might not be so lucky, as iRobot, maker of the Roomba, a
robot vacuum cleaner, has been showing off Ava, which could be used as a
messenger in a hospital. And once you’re home, recovering, Ava could let you
talk to your doctor, so there’s no need to send someone to your house. That
"mobile telepresence" could be useful at the office. If you’re away on a trip,
you can still attend a meeting. Just connect via videoconferencing software, so
your face appears on Ava’s screen.
Is any job safe I was
hoping to say "journalist," but researchers are already developing software that
can gather facts and write a news story. Which means that a few years from now,
a robot could be writing this column. And who will read it Well, there might be
a lot of us hanging around with lots of free time on our hands.What does the author imply about robotics
A.It will greatly enrich literary creation.
B.It will start a new technological revolution.
C.It will revolutionize scientific research.
D.It will be applied in any field imaginable.
