Imagine unwinding(放松，解压) after a long day at work by reading about the end of work. A post on Reddit tells you that “The entire point” of artificial intelligence is to “ensure you have zero ability to work for a living”. You visit Blind, an anonymous confessional for anxious tech workers, where employees trade horror stories of two-year job hunts yielding nothing but automated rejections.(你访问Blind——一个供焦虑科技工作者匿名倾诉的平台，员工们在那里交流两年求职只换来自动拒绝的恐怖故事。) The best thing you can do, you decide, is to future-proof yourself(使自己面向未来) by mastering the new tools. But then you read that AI is said to have made short work of the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture(数学千禧年难题之一). Time to change job after all? “At this point, it seems easier to get into Harvard than get a new job,” warns another Redditor. Harvard rejected you, so best to stay put. At least your boss likes you.
想象一下，漫长的一天工作后，你通过阅读关于“工作终结”的内容来放松。Reddit上的一篇帖子告诉你，人工智能的“全部意义”在于“确保你完全无法靠工作谋生”。你访问了Blind——一个供焦虑的科技工作者匿名倾诉的平台，员工们在那里交流着两年求职只换来自动拒绝的恐怖故事。你决定，最好的办法是掌握新工具，让自己面向未来。但随后你又读到，据说AI已经轻松解决了伯奇和斯温纳顿-戴尔猜想。终究还是得换工作？“到了这个地步，进哈佛似乎都比找份新工作容易，”另一位Reddit用户警告说。哈佛拒绝了你，所以最好还是原地不动。至少你的老板喜欢你。
The doomscrollers(刷负面新闻的人) are not alone. Across America, workers increasingly fear that AI will take their jobs. Yet for now, the more immediate threat may be to their pay. Average hourly wages in the private sector have risen by just 3% in the past year. Prices have risen faster still, pushing down real wages. That is all the more surprising given productivity is growing healthily, which ought to support pay rather than squeeze it.(考虑到生产率正在健康增长，这更令人惊讶——生产率增长本应支撑工资，而非挤压工资。) During the dotcom productivity boom(互联网生产率繁荣) of the late 1990s, for instance, real hourly wages grew by more than 2.5% a year. Some Americans were even cheerful.
刷负面新闻的人并不孤单。在美国，越来越多的工人担心AI会抢走他们的工作。然而就目前而言，更直接的威胁可能是他们的工资。过去一年，私营部门的平均时薪仅上涨了3%。物价上涨更快，压低了实际工资。考虑到生产率正在健康增长，这更令人惊讶——生产率增长本应支撑工资，而非挤压工资。例如，在20世纪90年代末的互联网生产率繁荣时期，实际时薪每年增长超过2.5%。一些美国人甚至欢欣鼓舞。
Might AI have something to do with it? As the technology takes over more tasks, firms may need fewer workers, weakening demand for labour and holding down wages. Such fears received fresh fuel on October 26th, when Microsoft offered buy-outs(买断，收购) to 60,000 employees to contain costs(控制成本) while making gargantuan(巨大的，庞大的) investments in AI. But evidence of widespread job losses attributable to(归因于) AI remains thin. Unemployment is low; layoffs are scarce. In a recent survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, just 4% of service firms using AI reported laying off workers in the past six months because of it, while roughly as many reported hiring more workers as hiring less.(在纽约联邦储备银行最近的一项调查中，仅4%使用AI的服务公司报告在过去六个月因AI而裁员，而报告增加招聘和减少招聘的公司数量大致相当。) Researchers at Stanford University(斯坦福大学), studying payroll records for millions of Americans, have likewise found little evidence of widespread AI-driven displacement.
AI是否与此有关？随着技术接管更多任务，企业可能需要的工人更少，从而削弱劳动力需求并压低工资。10月26日，微软向6万名员工提供买断方案以控制成本，同时大举投资AI，这给此类担忧增添了新的燃料。但归因于AI的大规模失业证据仍然薄弱。失业率很低，裁员很少。在纽约联邦储备银行最近的一项调查中，仅4%使用AI的服务公司报告在过去六个月因AI而裁员，而报告增加招聘和减少招聘的公司数量大致相当。斯坦福大学的研究人员研究了数百万美国人的工资记录，同样发现几乎没有证据表明AI导致了大规模失业。
A raise in confidence
信心提升