2 . “We have Dante, Shakespeare and Du Fu. These poets create the very values by which poetry is judged,” remarked Harvard professor Stephen Owen. Even though scholars studying Chinese history and culture often compare Du Fu to Dante and Shakespeare, this famous Chinese poet and thinker, who is also greatly respected in East Asian cultures, is still not very well-known in the West.

However, with the screening of Du Fu, China’s Greatest Poet, the first English-language documentary feature about the poet, the days of Du Fu as China’s best-kept literary secret seem to come to an end.

From the Yellow River to the Yangtze Gorges and down to the forested hills of Hunan Province, Michael Wood, the documentary presenter, traveled to various places, including the poet’s birthplace in Gongyi, Henan Province, the Tang Dynasty capital Chang’an (now Xi’an), and the Du Fu Thatched Cottage in Chengdu, Southwest China.

Along the way, he met and talked to ordinary people, dancers and musicians. They helped to tell the interesting story of the poet whose writings have been heard for many centuries, speaking for the pain of ordinary people caught in war, starvation (饥饿), and natural disasters.

“Chinese people really value the recording of history, and Du Fu is better than anyone at reflecting history in his poetry. That’s because historical events are reflected in his own life and spiritual journey,” noted Zeng Xiangbo, a professor of ancient Chinese literature at Renmin University of China.

“Du’s poetry reflects the experience and transforms it, so it becomes a part of the emotional vocabulary of the Chinese culture,” said Stephen Owen, who in 2016 completed an eight-year-long project to translate Du Fu’s 1,400 poems into English.

3 . Recent developments in robotics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning have brought us in the eye of the storm of a new automation age. About half of the work carried out by people was likely to be automated by 2055 with adaption to technology, a McKinsey Global Institute report predicted.

Automation can enable businesses to improve performance by reducing errors and improving quality and speed, and in some cases achieving outcomes that go beyond human capabilities. At a time of weak productivity growth worldwide, automation technologies can provide the much-needed promotion of economic growth, according to the report. Automation could raise productivity growth globally by 0.8 percent to 1.4 percent. At a global level, technically automated activities involved 1.1 billion employees and 11.9 trillion U.S. dollars in wages, the report said.

The report also showed that activities most influenced by automation were physical ones in highly structured and predictable environments, as well as data collection and processing. In the United States, these activities make up 51 percent of activities in the economy, accounting for almost 2.7 trillion dollars in wages. They are most common in production, accommodation and food service, and the retail (零售) trade. And it’s not just low-skill, low-wage work that is likely to be influenced by automation; middle-skill and high-paying, high-skill occupations, too, have a degree of automation potential.

The robots and computers not only can perform a range of routine physical work activities better and more cheaply than humans, but are also increasingly capable of accomplishing activities that require cognitive (认知的) capabilities, such as feeling emotions or driving.

While much of the current debate about automation has focused on the potential that many people may be replaced and therefore lose their financial resources, the analysis shows that humans will still be needed: The total productivity gains will only come about if people work alongside machines.