Transforming Jobs in the Age of AI
人工智能时代的工作变革
By Joe Luc Barnes
文/乔·卢克·巴恩斯
The future of labor in a digital economy has become a heated topic alongside the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI). Will the proliferation of AI and robotics herald human redundancy as a working species?
自人工智能（AI）出现以来, 数字经济时代劳动力的未来已成为一个热门话题。AI和机器人技术的广泛使用，是否预示着作为工作物种的人类将会变得多余？
This prospect has inspired pessimism in many Western countries that is not shared by most Chinese. Indeed, according to a survey compiled by the Dentsu Aegis Network1, just 18 percent of British and German citizens feel that new digital technologies will create job opportunitiesover the next five to ten years. In China, acountry with a labor force of around 800 million, 65 percent of people believe that AI will create even more work.
众多西方国家对此现象忧心忡忡，而大部分中国人却不然。的确，根据电通安吉斯集团的一项调查，只有18%的英国和德国公民认为新数字科技会在今后的5到10年创造出新的工作岗位。在拥有约8亿劳动力人口的中国，则有65%的人相信AI会创造出更多工作机会。
Government backing
政府扶持
A major factor is that few governments are embracing the digital age with as much gusto as China. In July 2017, China’s State Council set a national goal of becoming the world’s primary AI innovation center, aiming to foster an AI industry that produces in excess of one trillion yuan (US$147.7 billion) by 2030.
一个重要原因是，少有他国政府如中国一般热情拥抱数字时代。2017年7月，中国国务院确立了国家发展目标，要争取成为世界主要人工智能创新中心，到2030年形成总值超一万亿元人民币（1477亿美元）的AI产业。
Such enthusiasm has seeped right down to the municipal level, with local governments especially keen to support startups in the sector.
这种热情已渗透至市政层面，地方政府尤其重视扶持AI初创企业。
“The business environment in China and especially Shanghai is very attractive,” says Stéphane Truong, founder of Actionable Data, an AI consultancy service company. “I have seen a lot of initiative from several city districts such as collaboration with incubators2 to propose ancillary services, organizingcompetition for financial subsidies and providing a flexible fiscal policy.”
“中国，尤其是上海的营商环境极具吸引力，”AI咨询服务公司安潮信息科技创始人斯特凡·张说，“上海市几个区政府积极推出了多项举措，比如与创业孵化中心合作提供相关服务，组织企业争取财政补贴，以及提供灵活的财政政策。”
But Beijing has perhaps created the most fertile environment for tech startups. The capital’s Zhongguancun area is known as China’s “Silicon Valley” due to concentration of tech startups based there. Its proximity to China’s two premier academic institutions, Peking and Tsinghua universities, makes it a happy hunting ground for new talent.
不过，为科技初创公司提供最有利环境的城市可能还数北京。北京的中关村集中了大量科创公司总部，因而以“中国硅谷”著称。邻近中国两所顶级学府——北京大学和清华大学，中关村是新秀求职的理想之地。
Disappearing jobs
岗位消失
One startup is Oriental iFly, which aims to use AI to create an automatic grading system for essays that provides instant feedback to teachers on students’ work and saves time spent marking.
东方讯飞教育科技有限公司正是这样一个初创企业。它致力于利用AI技术建构作文自动评分体系，并即时向教师提供反馈，节省教师批改作业的时间。
I asked one of the company’s product designers, Kailin Xie, whether this innovation might put teachers out of work.
我询问该公司的一位产品设计师谢凯琳（音），这种创新是否会使教师失业。
“Teachers aren’t hired to grade,” she asserts. “As long as there are students, teachers will be necessary. Grading is just an extraneous part of the job. Our product enables a teacher to save dozens of hours a week on marking essays.”
“老师的职责不是批改作业，” 她说，“ 只要还有学生，教师就必不可少。批改作业并非一定要由教师来做。我们的产品能使老师每周节约几十小时批改学生作文的时间。”
Is a school likely to pay those teachers the same for less work? Or will it instead use those extra hours to give them more classes, which would reduce personnel requirements?
那么，教师工作时间减少后，学校会支付他们同样的工资吗？会不会要求他们用省下的时间去上更多的课，以减少雇用人数？
Such questions could be some of the defining issues of the digital age. Should companies use AI to increaseproductivity and profits, or do they alsohave a duty to improve the day-to-day routine of their employees?
在数字时代，以上这类问题可能非常关键。公司应否使用AI来提高生产效率和利润？是否也有义务优化员工的日常工作？
Business optimism
商业前景乐观
Much of the tech community has adopted the belief that these problems will simply sort themselves out. This is certainly the attitude of Stuart Leitch, founder of Lollipop.ai, a Seattle and Shanghai-based software company that uses AI to improve customer engagement3 with online products. “Firms have a very bad habit of hiring for unnecessary positions. The employees aren’t bad, but their duties usually involve repetitive, brainless and low-value work.”
大部分科技行业从业人士相信，随着时间推移，这些问题自然会迎刃而解。Lollipop.ai 公司创始人斯图尔特·利奇显然也持这种态度。这是一家总部位于西雅图和上海的软件公司，利用 AI 技术提升在线产品的顾客契合度。“许多公司存在一种积弊，即为不必要的岗位招聘。虽然招来的员工素质并不差，但他们往往从事着 重复性、无须动脑、低价值的工作。”
“We want to release people from those positions and reduce the cost of that kind of work so those people can do more meaningful things. At the end of the day, we expect to create jobs across industries rather than put people out of work,” explains Leitch.
“我们想要将员工从这些岗位中解放，减少这类工作的成本，使他们能做更有意义的事。归根结底，我们期望在各个行业创造就业岗位，而不是使人失业。”利奇解释说。
But what of the manufacturing jobs that have served as the backbone of China’s economic growth? Many are likely to go, admits Denny Xu, vice president of the Shanghai Haihe IT Company, which produces intelligent speech robots.
长期以来，中国经济发展的支柱是制造业，该行业的工作岗位又会怎样变化呢？上海海河信息科技有限公司副总裁徐敏波承认，很多岗位会消失。该公司从事智能语音机器人生产。
“AI will change future employment trends and patterns,” he explains. “Now, the labor force is too costly, so lower-level labor will largely be replaced by AI-related technology. But humans won’t be completely unnecessary – human-machine coupling will become a future trend for enterprises and busi- nesses.”
“AI会改变未来的雇用趋势和模式，”他解释道，“当下劳动力太昂贵，因此低层次劳动力很大程度上会被AI相关技术所取代。不过人类并非完全多余——人机融合将会成为企业的未来趋势。”
Skills gap
技能缺口
To a large extent, the challenge is retraining people. Thousands of brand new jobs are being created. In fact, a growing complaint from business leaders and recruiters is a lack of talent with the necessary skills to fill emerging jobs.
这种挑战很大程度上在于人员再培训。数千个全新工作岗位正在涌现。实际上，企业领导和招聘专员越来越多的抱怨是，难以找到具有所需技能、能填充这些新岗位的人才。
Stuart Leitch notes, “It’s especially difficult to find talent on the development front. Since the skills most indemand for our business are hard data4 science and machine-learning skills, we’re finding that we need PhD-level candidates, which are few and far between. It may become necessary to just hire go-getters who can learn quickly but don’t necessarily have experience.”
斯图尔特·利奇提及：“招聘产品开发领域的人才尤其困难。本公司最需要的技能是硬数据科学和机器学习，我们清楚自己需要博士水平的应聘人，而这类人员十分稀缺。也许有必要聘用上进心强、学习能力出众却不一定有经验的人。”
Stéphane Truong at Actionable Data has similar issues. “My company would ideally employ candidates with at least a master’s degree in computer science. We offer a very competitive package, but the battle for talent is rough because employees are more attracted to mature companies.”
安潮信息科技的斯特凡·张面临同样的问题。他说：“理想情况下，本公司聘用的员工至少应拥有计算机科学硕士学位。我们提供的薪酬福利有竞争力，但争夺人才的竞争很激烈，因为成熟的大型企业更具吸引力。”
Technology education
技术教育
With such a limited talent pool, domestic Chinese tech giants like Alibaba and Tencent usually have first pick of the best talent.
面对如此有限的人才库，中国国内的科技巨头，如阿里巴巴和腾讯，往往能优先挑选到最优秀的人才。
But China’s edge on other countries may be its realization of the role that education plays in digitalizing the economy. Beijing has sunk major investment into computer science programs at its major universities, which is slowly starting to pay off.
不过，相对于其他国家，中国的优势或许在于意识到了教育在经济数字化过程中的重要作用。中国政府对国内重点高校的计算机科学专业投入极大，其成效已逐渐显现。
Tsinghua University produced more of the top one-percent most highly cited papers in math and computing disciplines than any other in the world between 2013 and 2016. Much of the situation is about money: While Chinese professors still don’t earn as much as their American counterparts, many of them are still offered over US$100,000 per year, making China vastly more competitive academically.
2013年至2016年，在数学和计算机领域，被引频次最高（占前1%）的论文中，清华大学所发表的数量超过世界上其他任何大学。主要还是薪酬起作用：尽管中国教授的收入依然比不上他们的美国同行，仍有许多人年收入超过10万美元，使中国在学术研究上极具竞争力。
U.S. News & World Report even ranked the university as the number one computer science institution in the world in 2018. The fact that China is now competing with Western universities in this vital field is an immense achievement and will be key to unlocking AI potential in the country.
《美国新闻与世界报道》在2018年甚至将清华大学的计算机科学专业排在全球第一位。中国高校能与西方大学在这个重要领域分庭抗礼，这是一项巨大的成就，也将成为释放中国AI潜力的关键。
“After all,” says Denny Xu, “AI is a new tech field – millions of young people with dreams will choose to work in this realm.”
“毕竟，”徐敏波说，“AI是一个全新的科技领域，数百万逐梦的年轻人会选择在该领域工作。”
注释：
1. 电通安吉斯集团属于电通集团（Dentsu Group，日本最大的广告与传播集团），提供高水准的媒体、数字和创意传播服务。
2. incubator 企业孵化中心，也称企业孵化器或高新技术创业服务中心，是一种新型的社会经济组织，通过提供研发、生产、经营的场地，通信、网络与办公等方面的共享设施，系统的培训和咨询，政策、融资、法律和市场推广等方面的支持，降低企业的创业风险和创业成本，提高企业的成活率和成功率。
3. customer engagement 顾客契合，是一种心理状态，它是由在核心服务关系中与核心机构/客体（如品牌）互动、共创顾客体验产生的，在共创价值的服务关系中以一种动态的、重复性的过程存在。
4. hard data 硬数据，是对改进情况的主要衡量标准，是一些易于收集的无可争辩的事实，描述的是具体数值，如工业产值、零售数据、进出口数据等。软数据一般指较为主观的调查类的指数，如消费者信心指数、采购经理人指数等。