为什么机器人劳动力崛起是件好事

Will robots take over the workforce? And if--or when--they do, what jobs will be left for us humans?

机器人是否会成为主要劳动力？如果会的话，那么等到那一天，人类还剩什么工作可做呢？

These were among the biggest workplace and management questions at South by Southwest Interactive in Austin over the weekend. Several of the panels at the sprawling tech conference focused on our future robot overlords, with many of the discussions taking a rosy view that the workforce will indeed be dominated by robots in the not-too-far future--and why that is a good thing.

上周末在美国得克萨斯州奥斯汀(Austin)举行的西南偏南(South by Southwest Interactive)大会上，上述问题成了工作场所和管理方面讨论最热烈的话题。此次大会的几个座谈小组重点讨论未来机器人独霸劳动力市场的情况，很多参与讨论的人都乐观地认为，在不太遥远的未来，机器人确实会在工作场所占据主导地位，并且讨论了为何说这是件好事。

Carl Bass, the chief executive of Autodesk, acknowledged that workplace automation has eliminated or reduced many manufacturing jobs, and will continue to do so in the future, leading to major shifts in the labor market. Entire industries, such as trucking, will eventually be disrupted by robotic advances like self-driving cars, he said. (Bass cited the book, ' The Second Machine Age,' by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee as a source for this robot-heavy scenario.)

欧特克公司(Autodesk Inc.)的首席执行长巴斯(Carl Bass)承认，工厂自动化已取缔或减少了许多制造业岗位，而且未来这一情况将会继续下去，这将导致劳动力市场发生巨大转变。他说，像货车运输这样的整个行业最终将被无人驾驶汽车等机器人技术进步所颠覆。（巴斯援引布林约尔松(Erik Brynjolfsson)和麦卡菲(Andrew McAfee)共同撰写的《第二个机器时代》(The Second Machine Age)来论证他的这一设想。）

But, Bass asked: 'Are the jobs lost to automation ones that you would want for your children?' Few parents, he said, dreamed their kids would someday become fuel pumpers or elevator operators, jobs already replaced by automation. In the next 30 years, Bass added, smart machines and robots will outnumber humans on the planet.

但巴斯也问道，那些被自动化取代的工作是你想让孩子以后从事的职业吗？他说，几乎没有家长会希望自己的孩子有朝一日成为加油站的加油员或电梯操作员，这种工作已实现自动化。巴斯补充说，未来30年，全球智能机器和机器人的总量将超过全球人口总量。

Bass presented some outlandish ideas to help societies deal with the structural changes generated by a robot-heavy workforce, including taxing economic output rather than income, or implementing a ' negative income tax,' in which governments pay citizens a stipend in order to guarantee a level of income.

为了帮助社会应对机器人主导劳动力市场所引发的结构性变化，巴斯提出了一些奇特的想法，例如对经济产出而非收入征税，或实施“负所得税”――即政府向公民支付津贴以确保某一收入水平。

'With our creativity and imagination, we will find harmony with the robots,' Bass said.

巴斯说，凭借我们的创造力和想象力，我们应该能与机器人和谐相处。

Meanwhile, other discussions focused on identifying jobs were likely to remain safe from robots. Heather Knight, a Carnegie Mellon roboticist who studies social interactions between humans and robots, suggested that hairdressers might be safe. But not because robots can't cut hair--she said the relationship between hairdressers and their clients simply can't be automated. (And, she added, some people might be wary of a robot holding a sharp blade so close to their necks, although plenty of robots already perform delicate surgery.)

与此同时，其他讨论的焦点是确认哪些工作可能不会被机器人所取代。卡内基梅隆大学(Carnegie Mellon)研究人类和机器人之间社会互动的机器人专家奈特(Heather Knight)暗示，美发师这一职业或许不会受到机器人的影响。她说，这并不是因为机器人不能剪头发，而是因为美发师和客户之间的关系无法实现自动化。她还说，虽然有很多机器人已经在为人类进行精微的外科手术，但对于机器人拿着锋利的刀片如此接近他们的脖子，一些人可能会心存戒备。

Another job deemed safe? Roboticist.

另一个不会受机器人影响的工作是什么？是机器人专家。