The launch of ChatGPT in 2022 ignite(点燃，引发)d the artificial-intelligence boom—and elicited a chorus of(一片（共同的声音）) warnings from AI bosses of an impending jobs apocalypse. Never mind that they have reason to talk up the disruptiveness of their products, or that rich-world employment is near all-time highs—the dark message has landed. Seven in ten Americans think AI will make it harder for people to find work; nearly a third fear for their own jobs. A dearth(缺乏，短缺) of openings for college graduates—especially computer programmers—amplifies the dread(恐惧，忧虑).
2022年ChatGPT的发布点燃了人工智能热潮，也引发了AI老板们对即将到来的就业末日的一片警告。他们虽然有理有据地夸大自己产品的颠覆性，而发达世界的就业率接近历史高位，但这一阴暗信息已深入人心。七成美国人认为AI将使人们更难找到工作；近三分之一的人担心自己的饭碗。大学毕业生——尤其是计算机程序员——岗位的稀缺加剧了这种恐惧。
The past offers some solace(安慰，慰藉) for the anxious. Labour markets constantly change. Today’s offices would be unrecognisable to a worker from 50 years ago. Never in modern history has technological progress hurt the overall demand for human labour. Economic historians now play down(淡化，低估) the magnitude(规模，重要性) of “Engels’ pause”, the period during the Industrial Revolution in which working-class wages grew more slowly than the wider economy.
过去给焦虑者提供了一些安慰。劳动力市场不断变化。今天的办公室对于50年前的工人来说会是无法辨认的。现代历史上，技术进步从未损害过对人类劳动力的总体需求。经济史学家如今淡化了“恩格斯停顿”的规模，即工业革命期间工人阶级工资增长慢于整体经济的时期。
Yet history is not always a good guide to the future, as the Industrial Revolution itself showed. The top AI models are awesome(令人惊叹的). They can tackle(处理，应对) much more complex coding tasks than people were predicting a year ago. The number of AI agents has exploded. Spending on AI by businesses is up dramatically. Annualised recurring revenue of Anthropic, a hot model-maker, is set to reach $50bn by the end of June. There is no evidence yet in the labour-market data of AI destroying many jobs. But given how fast it is improving, it would be rash(轻率的) to dismiss fears that it will. Society may be on the verge of(濒临，即将) a profound reallocation of resources, and political upheaval(动荡，剧变).
然而，历史并不总是未来的可靠指南，正如工业革命本身所证明的那样。顶级AI模型令人惊叹。它们能处理一年前人们预测不到的更复杂的编码任务。AI代理的数量激增。企业在AI上的支出大幅上升。热门模型制造商Anthropic的年化经常性收入预计到6月底将达到500亿美元。劳动市场数据中尚无AI摧毁许多工作的证据。但鉴于其改善速度之快，草率地忽略它将带来失业的担忧是不明智的。社会可能正处于资源深刻重新分配和政治动荡的边缘。