你的工作終將被機器人取代？

Is a robot going to steal your job? Posed like this, the “fourth industrial revolution” looks relentlessly negative. We are all familiar with the dystopian scenario. Mass unemployment, accelerated inequality, widespread redundancies and workers left without purpose as the machines take over. This bleak picture troubles those who look beyond short-term political cycles at how technological trends will shape our society and our economy in the decades to come.

機器人會偷走你的工作嗎?面對這樣的問題，“第四次工業(yè)革命”看起來百害而無一利。我們熟知反烏托邦的情景。大規(guī)模失業(yè)，不平等加劇，到處裁員，機器接手了工作從而使勞動者變得無所事事。這種黯淡的畫面，讓那些會思考科技發(fā)展趨勢在未來幾十年里將如何塑造我們的社會和經(jīng)濟、而不是只著眼于短期政治周期的人感到擔(dān)憂。

But let me ask a slightly different question. Whatmundanetasks would you willingly pass off to a friendly robot helper? What don’t you like doing at work — organising your calendar? Checking for meeting rooms? Filling out forms? And what would dumping these tasks — on to an artificial intelligence underling — free you to do more of in your work? The stuff you enjoy, probably, and the bits that are actually productive.

但讓我來問一個稍有不同的問題。你愿意將哪些瑣碎小事交給友好的機器人助手去做?你不喜歡工作中的哪些事務(wù)——制定工作日程?檢查會議室?填寫表格?把這些雜事丟給一個人工智能下屬，你能騰出時間更多地做什么事?大概是那些你喜歡做的事，還有確實更有價值的事。

The truth is that automation and AI are coming (indeed, they are here) whether we like it or not. We don’t really have a choice. But that is not to say that we lack all agency about when it comes, how work will change or the impact of the coming revolution. Whether the inevitable robots replace us at work or make our work happier and more rewarding — that is in our hands.

事實是，不管我們喜歡還是不喜歡，自動化和人工智能正在到來(其實它們就在身邊)。我們其實沒有選擇。但這并不是說，我們對它們會在什么時候到來、工作會有什么變化以及這場革命的影響都無能為力。必然到來的機器人是將在工作中取代我們，還是會讓我們的工作變得更愉快和更有意義——這掌握在我們手中。

At the Institute for the Future of Work, we are not very interested in the question of whether new technology is utopian or dystopian — because it tends to be what you do with it that really counts. We are engaged in building the tools and the processes to help employees collaborate in identifying how automation can make work better and more productive, ensuring the jobs we have are good for boss and worker alike.

在未來工作研究所(Institute for the Future of Work)，我們對新技術(shù)是烏托邦還是反烏托邦的問題不是很感興趣——因為往往是你用它來做什么才是真正重要的。我們致力于開發(fā)工具和流程，以協(xié)助員工合作發(fā)掘自動化如何使工作變得更好、更高效，確保我們的工作對老板和雇員都一樣有利。

This means designing the technological augmentation of tasks with the experience of workers as the priority; asking how automation can improve workers’ lives and enhance productivity, not how it can simply replace human work or create new processes that alienatehuman beings from the world of work. We think this will be crucial in helping Britain cope with the double disruption of Brexit and the AI revolution.

這意味著在設(shè)計如何以技術(shù)“強化”(augment)工作的過程中，要優(yōu)先考慮雇員體驗;思考自動化應(yīng)如何改善雇員生活并提高生產(chǎn)力，而非簡單地考慮它將如何取代人類工作，或開啟一個新的過程使人類遠(yuǎn)離職場天地。我們認(rèn)為這對于幫助英國應(yīng)對脫歐和人工智能革命的雙重干擾至關(guān)重要。

Companies that get this right have a huge amount to gain. The Sony UK technology centre in Wales managed to increase productivity by automating some of its production lines and redeploying workers to upskilled roles. Research published last year by a team led by Chris Brauer at Goldsmiths, University of London, showed that organisations augmented by automation technologies are 33 per cent more likely to be human-friendly, and have employees who are 31 per cent more productive. That’s an astonishing double-win: happier employees, assisted by technology to get a third more done with their time.

能處理好這一點的公司將獲得巨大收益。威爾士的索尼英國技術(shù)中心(Sony UK technology centre)就通過將其一部分生產(chǎn)線自動化并把員工轉(zhuǎn)到高技能崗位，而成功地提高了生產(chǎn)力。去年由倫敦大學(xué)金史密斯學(xué)院(Goldsmiths, University of London)的克里斯•布勞爾(Chris Brauer)領(lǐng)導(dǎo)的研究小組發(fā)表了一項研究，表明通過自動化技術(shù)強化自己的組織，成為員工友好(human-friendly)機構(gòu)的可能性會增加33%，員工的工作效率也會提高31%。這是一個了不起的雙贏：更快樂的員工，在技術(shù)的幫助下，在他們的工作時間內(nèi)完成了比以往多三分之一的工作。

All this requires a change of mindset. If we are to harness automation for human ends, and avoid driving people out, we must think in systems from the outset. This means looking at work within organisations from all angles — involving workers, employers and other stakeholders, such as consumers, in designing technological augmentation.

這一切都需要改變思維方式。如果我們想要利用自動化來實現(xiàn)人性化，并避免將人們排除在職場外，則必須從一開始就系統(tǒng)化地思考。這意味著在技術(shù)強化的設(shè)計方面，要站在各方——包括員工、雇主和其他利益相關(guān)者，如消費者——的角度審視組織內(nèi)部的工作。

Recognising the inputs and outputs of a particular job, carving out elements where automation would be welcome, can set workers free to achieve more. Conducting this process in reverse — working out what we can automate quickly and leaving the remainder for humans to do — is a recipe for misery, alienation and social decay.

確定在一項特定工作中需要投入的因素和所能產(chǎn)生的成果，找出在哪些方面自動化會受到歡迎，就能讓員工放開手去實現(xiàn)更大成就。如果將這個過程倒著來——找出我們在哪些方面可以快速自動化，將剩下的留給人類去做——將造成痛苦、不容于職場和社會衰退。

We are focused on building the tools to help employers do this right. Our Good Work Charter helps to define the principles of what a good job looks like. Bodies such as EUnited Robotics — the trade body for the European robotics industry — are adopting the charter to create practical guidance to help engineers think about the impact of their designs on people.

我們專注于開發(fā)工具，以幫助雇主做好這方面的事情。我們的“優(yōu)秀工作章程(Good Work Charter)”有助于確立有關(guān)“什么樣的工作是好工作”的原則。包括歐洲機器人行業(yè)組織EUnited Robotics在內(nèi)的多家機構(gòu)正在采用該章程以制定一個實用指南，來幫助工程師思考其設(shè)計對人的影響。

In the end, the fourth industrial revolution will bring with it massive new automation. It will not drive humans from the labour market entirely. But the choice will be between human workers left to sweep up after robots and robots who are there to boost happiness and productivity for workers. This will not happen organically; it needs us to be vigilant and to design the tools and the processes to tell the difference between these two approaches. But the prize is real and hugely exciting. I, for one, welcome our new robot underlings.

第四次工業(yè)革命最終將帶來大規(guī)模的新式自動化。它不會將人類徹底趕出勞動力市場。但是人們將在兩種情況中做出選擇：是讓人類為機器人灑掃，還是讓機器人的到來增進員工的幸福感和生產(chǎn)力?這不會自然地發(fā)生，而是需要我們保持警醒，并設(shè)計出相應(yīng)的工具和流程來區(qū)分這兩種情況。但其效果將是實實在在的、令人萬分振奮的。就我來說，我歡迎我們新的機器人下屬。