正文
Fears about the impact of technology on jobs have resurfaced periodically ever since. The latest bout of anxiety concerns the arrival of artificial intelligence (AI). Once again, however, technology is creating demand for work. To take one example, more and more people are supplying digital services online via what is sometimes dubbed the “human cloud”. Counter-intuitively, many are doing so in response to AI.
自那以后，人们对于科技进步会造成失业的担忧呈周期性地不断出现。最近一次就在人工智能出世之际。但是，我们再一次发现，科技进步非但不会造成失业，甚至会创造新的工作机会。例如，通过所谓的“人力云”（human cloud），越来越多的人正开始从事线上数字信息服务。许多数字信息工作都是由于人工智能才应运而生的。这与我们认为科技进步会造成失业的直觉恰恰相反。
According to the World Bank, more than 5m people already offer to work remotely on online marketplaces such as Freelancer.com and UpWork. Jobs range from designing websites to writing legal briefs, and typically bring in at least a few dollars an hour. In 2016 such firms earned about $6bn in revenue, according to Staffing Industry Analysts, a market researcher. Those who prefer work in smaller bites can use “micro-work” sites such as Mechanical Turk, a service operated by Amazon. About 500,000 “Turkers” perform tasks such as transcribing bits of audio, often earning no more than a few cents for each “human-intelligence task”.
根据世界银行提供的数据显示，已有超过五百万人通过“Freelancer.com”和“UpWork”这类线上自由职业平台从事远程工作。自由职业包括网页设计和撰写诉讼案情摘要这类的工作，大部分的工资最少也有一小时几美元。据市场调查公司Staffing Industry Analysts 透露，这类公司2016年的年收入为大约60亿美元。那些倾向于从事小额收入工作的人会用“微工作”网站，例如由亚马逊运营的Mechanical Turk。大约有五百万的Mechanical Turk使用者在从事类似转录音频这样的工作，每份任务的工资则基本不超过几美分。
Many big tech companies employ, mostly through outsourcing firms, thousands of people who police the firms’ own services and control quality. Google is said to have an army of 10,000 “raters” who, among other things, look at YouTube videos or test new services. Microsoft operates something called a Universal Human Relevance System, which handles millions of micro-tasks each month, such as checking the results of its search algorithms.
许多大型科技公司雇佣成千上万人来监督自己公司的服务，从而进行质量监控。它们大多通过外包公司来雇佣这些人。据说谷歌就拥有一支一万人的质量检测部队，专门负责浏览YouTube和测试谷歌的新服务。微软（Microsoft）则运营着一个名为“Universal Human Relevance System”的平台，每月上面都会有成千上万的“微工作”，例如测试搜索程序的结果等等。
These numbers are likely to rise. One reason is increasing demand for “content moderation”. A new law in Germany will require social media to remove any content that is illegal in the country, such as Holocaust denial, within 24 hours or face hefty fines. Facebook has announced that it will increase the number of its moderators globally, from 4,500 to 7,500.
上面提到的这些数字很可能会在未来有所上升。首先是由于网上内容审核的需求正在不断增加。德国颁布了一项新的法条：社交媒体上不得出现不合法的内容，例如大屠杀。社交媒体需要在24小时内清除非法内容，否则将会面临巨额罚金。脸书（Facebook）宣布，公司将会增加线上审核人员，将从目前的4500人增加到7500人。
