After astonishing breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, many people worry that they will be replaced by AI. Global Google searches for “is my job safe?” have doubled in recent months, as people fear that they will be replaced with large language models (LLMs). In a recent paper Tyna Eloundou of OpenAI and colleagues say that “around 80% of the US workforce could have at least 10% of their work tasks affected by the introduction of LLMs”.
Economists, however, tend to enjoy making predictions about automation more than they enjoy testing them. In the early 2010s many of them loudly predicted that robots would kill jobs by the millions, only to fall silent when employment rates across the rich world rose to all-time highs.
Few of the doom-mongers (末日论者) have a good explanation for why countries with the highest rates of tech usage around the globe, such as Japan, Singapore and the Republic of Korea, consistently have among the lowest rates of unemployment.
Here we introduce our first attempt at tracking AI’s impact on jobs. Using American data on employment by occupation, we single out white-collar workers.
White-collar roles are thought to be especially sensitive to generative AI, which is becoming ever better at logical reasoning and creativity. However, there is as yet little evidence of an AI hit to employment. In the spring of 2020 white-collar jobs rose, as many people in service occupations lost their job at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. And in the past year the white-collar share of employment in professions thought to be at risk from generative AI has risen by 0.5%.
Of course, it’s still early days for generative AI. Few firms yet use generative Al tools at large scale, so the impact on jobs could merely be delayed.
Another possibility, however, is that these new technologies will end up destroying only a small number of roles. While Al may be efficient at some tasks, it may be less good at others, such as management and working out what others need.
AI could even have a positive effect on jobs. If workers using it become more efficient, profits at their company could rise which would then allow bosses to ramp up hiring.
A recent survey by Experis, an IT-recruitment firm, points to this possibility. More than half of Britain’s employers expect AI technologies to have a positive impact on the number of their staff over the next two years, it finds.
To see how it all shakes out, we will publish updates to this analysis every few months. But for now, a job apocalypse seems a long way off.
1. In terms of artificial intelligence, people worry about ______.| A．how to avoid being replaced by machines |
| B．how to keep up with the trend of technology |
| C．how to master new technological skills |
| D．how to earn higher wages by using technology |
| A．machines prove to deal a blow to employment |
| B．technological breakthroughs bring an economic boom |
| C．economic theories don’t work well in practice |
| D．it is difficult to clarify the impact of machines on jobs |
| A．have become more diverse | B．have decreased in number |
| C．have been threatened by service jobs | D．have not suffered noticeable losses |
| A．It may cause mass unemployment. | B．It may create new jobs for people. |
| C．It may enable employers to hire more. | D．It may decrease people’s salaries. |
| A．Boy Cries Wolf: Generative Al is not yet killing jobs |
| B．Batten Down the Hatches: Generative AI will replace most of human jobs |
| C．Generative AI: The greatest threat to white-collar workers. |
| D．Generative AI: The greatest invention of the 20th century |
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【推荐1】Getting a solid night’s rest when you’re sick can seem like an unattainable goal for any number of reasons. It’s difficult to fall asleep and stay asleep when you’re troubled by a stuffy nose, a constant cough, or other unbearable symptoms(症状). Fevers can make quality sleep even harder, thanks in part to fever dreams: especially vivid, unbelievable, or downright disturbing dreams that occur when you have a fever.
As the Sleep Foundation explains, fever dreams sometimes involve spatial distortion, such as moving walls and melting objects; threats or danger, which can be anything from insects to terrorists; and illness. If you were to have a dream fitting this description when you weren’t sick, you might just regard it as a common nightmare(噩梦). But since people seem to experience such strange dreams more often during fevers, it’s given rise to the idea that the two things must be linked.
While there’s a lot about fever dreams we don’t know, there is at least a little evidence supporting the theory that some people’s fever dreams are different from their regular dreams. In one study from 2016, researchers asked 62 people to describe past fever dreams and found them to be more unbelievable, more emotionally intense, and often negatively toned than regular dreams from an age and gender matched sample. Of the 164 people who participated in a 2020 survey, 100 reported fever dreams. The researchers noted that these dreams included more references to health and temperature sensations(感觉)compared to normal most recent dreams.
As for why fevers beget strange nightmares, scientists have some ideas. “One theory is that the brain doesn’t process sensations normally when we have a fever,” Dr Beth Malow, director of Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s sleep division, told Health in 2020. So burning up in your bed might just clearly show itself in a dream full of melting objects and seemingly unrelated dangers.
1. What might not make you fail to attain quality sleep according to the text?| A．Having a blocked nose. | B．Coughing constantly. |
| C．Having dreams. | D．Catching a fever. |
| A．People will certainly dream of some threats or dangers during fevers. |
| B．Fever dreams might make people ill. |
| C．Fever dreams are often viewed as common nightmares. |
| D．People are more likely to have nightmares during fevers. |
| A．Fever dreams are more incredible to young people. |
| B．Fever dreams may bring stronger emotions. |
| C．Fever dreams occur more frequently. |
| D．Fever dreams may result in higher body temperature. |
| A．Cause. | B．Get. | C．Reach. | D．Explain. |
【推荐2】When I stepped out the plane from Miami into Charlotte, North Carolina, airport for a connecting flight home, I immediately knew something was wrong. Lots of desperate people crowded the terminal. I quickly learned that flights headed to the Northeast were called off because of a storm. The earliest they could get us out of Charlotte was Tuesday. It was Friday. A gate agent stood on the counter and shouted, “Don’t ask us for help! We cannot help you!”
I joined a crowd that ran from terminal to terminal in search of a flight out. Eventually, I found six strangers willing to rent a van with me. We drove through the night to Washington, where I took a train the rest of the way to Providence.
The real problem, of course, is that incidents like this happen every day, to everyone who flies, more and more often. It really gets to me, though, because for eight years I was on the other side, as a flight attendant for Trans-World Airlines(TWA).
I know the days are gone when attendants could be written up if we did not put the lines napkins with the TWA logo in the lower right-hand corner of the first-class diners’ trays. As are the days when there were three dinner options on flights from Boston to Los Angeles in economy class. When, once, stuck on a tarmac (机场停机坪) in Newark for four hours, a planeload of passengers got McDonald’s hamburgers and fries by thoughtfulness of the airline.
I have experienced the decline of service along with the rest of the flying public. But I believe everything will change little by little, because I remember the days when to fly was to soar (翱翔). The airlines, and their employees, took pride in how their passengers were treated. And I think the days are sure to come back one day in the near future.
1. Many people crowded the terminal because ________.| A．they were ready to board on the planes |
| B．something was wrong with the terminal |
| C．the flights to the Northeast were canceled |
| D．the gate agent wouldn’t help the passengers |
| A．by air | B．by van | C．by train | D．by underground |
| A．The writer lived in Charlotte, North Carolina. |
| B．The writer thought the service was not as good as it used to be. |
| C．The writer with other passengers waited to be picked up patiently. |
| D．Passengers would feel proud of how they were treated on the plane. |
Henry Metcalf, a 54-year-old journalist, knows it takes money to raise kids. But he’s also worried that his energy will give out first. Sure, he can still ride bikes with his athletic fifth grader, but he’s learned that, young at heart doesn’t mean young. Lately he’s been taking afternoon naps to keep up his energy.” My body is aging,” says Metcalf, “You can’t get away from that.”
Often, older parents hear the ticking of another kind of biological clock. Therapists who work with middle-aged and older parents say fears about aging are nothing to laugh at. “They worry they’ll be mistaken for grandparents, or that they’ll need help getting up out of those little chairs in nursery school.” Says Joann Galst, a New York psychologist. But at the core of those little fears there is often a much bigger one. “that they will not be alive long enough to support and protect their child, ” she says.
Many late-life parents, though, say their children came at just the right time. After marrying late and undergoing years of fertility (受孕) treatment, Marilyn Nolen and her husband, Randy, had twins. “We both wanted children,” says Marilyn, who was 55 when she gave birth. The twins have given the couple what they desired for years, “a sense of family.”
Kids of older dads are often smarter, happier and more sociable because their fathers are more involved in their lives. “The dads are older, more mature,” says Dr. Silber, “and more ready to focus on parenting.”
1. Why do psychiatrists regard maturity as an asset in child raising?| A．Older parents can better balance their resources against children’s demands. |
| B．Older parents are usually more experienced in bringing up their children. |
| C．Older parents are often better prepared financially. |
| D．Older parents can take better care of their children. |
| A．They have to go on working beyond their retirement age. |
| B．They can’t get full pension unless they work some extra years. |
| C．They can’t obtain the retirement benefits they have dreamed of. |
| D．They are unwilling to retire when they reach their retirement age. |
| A．many people are young in spirit despite their advanced age |
| B．taking afternoon naps is a good way to maintain energy |
| C．older parents tend to be concerned about their aging bodies |
| D．older parents should exercise more to keep up with their athletic children |
| A．Being laughed at by other people | B．Slowing down of their pace of life |
| C．Being mistaken for grandparents | D．Approaching of death |
| A．They thought they were an example of successful fertility treatment. |
| B．Not until they had the twins did they feel had formed a family. |
| C．They believe that children born of older parents would be smarter. |
| D．Not until they reached middle age did they think of having children. |
【推荐1】According to cognitive scientist Ben Goertzel, the world is experiencing a historic moment in artificial intelligence (AI) technology. Goertzel acknowledges that there is plenty of hype (炒作) surrounding the technology but believes that the new large language models that power generative AI have the potential to change the world.
Goertzel believes that generative AI models — like the one that powers ChatGPT-have the potential to replace many tasks currently performed by human workers. Fast-food workers and news copy editors, for example, are impacted by AI.
“Tools like Grammarly decrease the need for human editors,” Goertzel said. “They don’t entirely eliminate the job but they decrease that need. Automatic tools can be used for writing journalistic articles. They’ve been writing. . . sports score summaries and weather reports for a long time.”
Despite this, he identifies two main areas AI will not replace: jobs that rely on human interaction and require groundbreaking creativity.
“So one class of things that won’t be eliminated are jobs where the essence is human contact,” like preschool teachers, political strategists, and artists.
Generative AI chatbots are so powerful that it’s difficult to avoid wondering whether the system is conscious.
Goertzel says it doesn’t matter.
“I don’t think we need to resolve the open questions in the philosophy of consciousness to build human-level or even superhuman thinking machines,” he said. “But I think we can make these questions feel irrelevant.”
Goertzel’s insights open a door to understanding the future of AI, and his optimism about the potential of AI to revolutionize the world serves as a powerful reminder of the impact AI may have on society. Whether viewed with excitement or caution, the advancements in AI will surely cause deep thought and discussion for years to come.
1. What does the underlined word “eliminate” in paragraph 3 mean?| A．Remove. | B．Repeat. | C．Improve. | D．Solve. |
| A．Artists. | B．Fast-food workers. |
| C．Preschool teachers. | D．Political strategists. |
| A．He likes it. | B．He thinks it puzzling. |
| C．He doesn’t accept it as part of his life. | D．He suggests putting its philosophical questions aside. |
| A．A World-Changing Breakthrough in AI | B．The Potential of AI in Fast-food Industry |
| C．Ben Goertzel’s Opinions on the Impact of AI | D．The Advancements in Generative AI |
【推荐2】Austrian painter Gustav Klimt created some of his best-known masterpieces during the first decade of the 20th century.
To study these paintings, art historians have long had to make do with black-and-white photographs. Thanks to machine learning, however, researchers have now restored (恢复) historical images of the Faculty Paintings to almost their original colors.
To create the images, Google Arts and Culture and the Belvedere Museum in Vienna developed a tool that selected information about Klimt’s use of color from different sources. The data set included newspaper descriptions of the Faculty Paintings and 80 full-color reproductions of Klimt paintings from the same period.
Google engineer Emil Wallner spent nearly six months coding the AI algorithm (编写人工智能算法) to create color predictions.
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Art lovers can explore these colorful recreations online. The restored paintings are paired with an online exhibition, “Klimt vs. Klimt: The Man of Contradictions”, which explores the painter’s life and works.
| A．It was stored with other precious artworks |
| B．But not all of Klimt’s paintings survive today |
| C．It also included 1 million pictures of the real world |
| D．That suggests that these three Klimt paintings were not saved |
| E．He says some parts of the final paintings surprised the researchers |
| F．With machine learning, we can predict that Klimt used certain colors |
| G．That offers viewers a sense of what Klimt’s works looked like before their destruction |
【推荐3】Using the power of artificial intelligence (AI), scientists have revealed new insights into the creation and destruction of mass extinction. Contrary to conventional knowledge, their study suggests that larger extinctions are not always a form of “creative destruction” that allows new organisms (生物体) to radiate and evolve. Instead, it suggests that mass extinction is rarely associated with new species of radiation.
Dr. Hoyal Cuthill, the lead study author from the University of Essex in the UK and the Tokyo Institute of Technology, said in a statement, “Some of the most challenging things to understand the history of life are the vast timelines involved and the number of species. New machine learning applications can help us understand this information in human-readable form. This means that we can, so to speak, hold the evolution of half a billion years in the palm of our hand and gain new insights from what we see.”
They concluded that mass extinction and later radiation were not connected as previously thought. Within 5 percent of the most significant periods of disruption (中断), AI detected “big five” mass extinctions, seven more mass extinctions, two mass extinction-radiation events, and 15 mass radiations. Most importantly, it discovers that massive radiation and extinction rarely occurred with each other, changing the view that greater extinction leads to a kind of deep cycle-like species radiation of nature. It appears that larger extinctions are certainly not the engine of evolutionary radiation. Take the Cambrian eruption for example and it was about 41 million years ago when a large group of animals first appeared on the record of the first fossil record and the dawn of a high mobile animal equipped with modern physical features.
This new study found that a handful of other notable explosions of biodiversity, including the Cambrian eruption, usually occurred at a time when they were largely isolated (隔离) from extinction. Dr. Nicholas Guttenberg, a study co-author from the Tokyo Institute of Technology explained, “Ecosystems are dynamic and you don’t need anything to exist to allow something new to appear.”
1. What does the first paragraph serve as?| A．An explanation of artificial intelligence. | B．A background of researchers’ study. |
| C．The reasons for creative destruction. | D．The result of researchers’ new study. |
| A．AI contributes a lot to the study of evolution. | B．Understanding the history of life is very difficult. |
| C．New AI machines learn applications better. | D．Biological evolution can be controlled easily. |
| A．Mass extinction is unlikely to cause evolutionary radiation. |
| B．The first animal with modern features occurred during eruption. |
| C．The volcanic eruption led to a mass extinction and radiation. |
| D．The idea of deep cycle-like species radiation has turned out true. |
| A．New processes of biological evolution. | B．New view of radiation from natural species. |
| C．New understanding of mass extinction. | D．New outbreaks of biological populations. |
The book—a bestseller in the US—is being used by men and women to deal with changes in their lives and work. Some large organizations, including Coca-Cola, Kodak and General Motors, ask their employees to read it in order to encourage them to be active towards changes.
Cheese is something related to everyone’s livelihood-Our jobs, the industries we work in, relationships and love as well.
With China’s official entry into the WTO, the whole nation will face up to more changes and challenges. So what we should do once this “cheese” on which we are so dependent is moved?
“Whatever challenges and changes we meet, we should face up to them bravely,” Jiang Hengwei, a civil servant said after reading the book.
Professor Zhang Yang in Renmin University of China agrees. “We should change our way of thinking. The coming competitive foreign companies and products provide us with great chances to learn from them and improve our own products to meet international standards and be more competitive.”
“With hard work and wisdom, we will create a much larger and better piece of cheese.” Zhang smiled confidently.
1. . The whole passage is about_________.
| A．a bestseller in the US |
| B．what people think about China’s entry into the WTO |
| C．the change in people’s attitude towards changes and challenges |
| D．how a book influences the Chinese workers |
| A．be more competitive with foreign firms |
| B．find an excuse for their job cuts |
| C．let the workers make a living on their own |
| D．encourage the fired workers |
| A．something we depend on |
| B．a most important kind of food |
| C．change or challenge |
| D．way of life |
| A．they have different opinions on changes and challenges |
| B．people are not afraid of competition from foreign companies |
| C．the Chinese people are ready to face any changes and challenges |
| D．they are both greatly encouraged by the book |
【推荐2】Ideally, childhood is a time of growth and learning. But for many children around the world, this time is cut short when they are forced to work, sometimes in dangerous conditions. As a result, June 12 is recognized as the annual World Day Against Child Labor.
As of 2020, around 160 million children worked as child laborers, which means that one child in 10 was a child laborer. Overall, child labor has decreased over the past 20 years, but in recent years, this progress has stalled. Child labor is distinguished from ordinary housework, helping with a family business or working to earn pocket money after school. Work done by children is classified as child labor when it harms the child physically, mentally, socially or morally, or when it hinders(阻碍) the child’s education.
About 79 million children are engaged in hazardous child labor. Sometimes this means the work is extremely dangerous because of heavy machinery or exposure to chemicals. Hazardous child labor can also involve harsh conditions, long hours, or exposure to various kinds of abuse.
The primary goal of the World Day Against Child Labor is raising awareness of the issue and encouraging individuals, organizations and governments to take action. Fighting child labor is a complex task. It involves social workers who identify child laborers and take action to provide these children and their families with other options. But it also involves change in communities as a whole, challenging the social norms(行为准则) that can lead adults to make their children work.
Child labor and poverty often go hand in hand as parents feel that removing their children from school is necessary to earn money so the family can survive. So, measures or policies meant to fight poverty are also tied to preventing child labor. Being harmful to children and to communities, child labor hinders children from growing into healthy, educated citizens who could make a difference in society. By highlighting the problem and offering a variety of solutions, the World Day Against Child Labor can make the situation a bit better.
1. What does the underlined word “stalled” in the second paragraph mean?| A．Slowed | B．Speeded | C．Stopped | D．Disappeared |
| A．Helping parents with the daily housework. |
| B．Assisting family business during the holidays. |
| C．Earning money for one’s camp trip after school. |
| D．Working in a shoe store every weekday afternoon. |
| A．The consequences of child labor. | B．The main types of child labor. |
| C．The seriousness of child labor. | D．The reasons against child labor. |
| A．Social workers. | B．Parents. | C．Governments. | D．Communities. |
【推荐3】When Kim Chil-doo was young, he says, he wanted to be a model. But he gave up that idea to make money. Now, at age 65, he appears in television advertisements and fashion magazines. With his gray beard and long hair, he is South Korea’s first senior model.
Kim is one of many older people in South Korea the country has the world’s fastest growing ageing population. Almost half of the country’s older people live in poverty. Some take low-paying jobs to support themselves after retiring. But Kim and some other seniors have shown how older South Koreans can find unusual job opportunities later in life.
You Sung-lae is 59. When she was a child, she wanted to be an actress. But instead, she says, she got married and had children. Now she is training to appear on a catwalk to show clothes. She was wearing a bright blue jacket, orange high heeled shoes and designer sunglasses.
You is also helping the fashion business by attracting older buyers. Older buyers have become big players. While many older people do not have much money, others have bought their homes and built savings. Now, those seniors are ready to spend some of their money on themselves.
Some businesses are also trying to use older people’s skills and experiences. For example, Cho Young-min started a company using Skype to connect older instructors in Korea with students around the world. The students are interested in learning Korean, and the instructors are interested in sharing their knowledge.
Another man, Ji Byung-soo found success by performing a dance song on a televised singing contest. He is 77. Now he earns enough money to donate to a local support center. Last month, he danced nonstop at a youth festival in Seoul while young people called his name. “Life begins in your 70s,” Ji said. “Let’s be happy and have fun.”
1. What do Kim and You Sung-lae have in common?| A．They had to make money as a young person. |
| B．They are living in poverty like other old people. |
| C．They realized their childhood dreams in old age. |
| D．They take low-paying jobs to support themselves. |
| A．Poverty. | B．Laziness. |
| C．Mistake. | D．Marriage. |
| A．To show respect to the old. | B．To attract students overseas. |
| C．To help the fashion business. | D．To guide the old to spend their savings. |
| A．Ji Byung-soo. | B．You Sung-lae. |
| C．Kim Chil-doo. | D．Cho Young-min. |
