will robot replace humanbeings?
In much of the world, people whose livelihoods depend on paychecks are increasingly anxious about a potential wave of unemployment threatened by automation. As the frightening tale goes, globalization forced people in wealthier lands like North America and Europe to compete directly with cheaper laborers in Asia and Latin America, sowing joblessness. Now, the robots are coming to finish off the humans.
paycheck 工薪
·livelihood：['laɪvlɪhʊd] n. the way you earn money in order to live 生计
·sow：[səʊ] vt. to do something that will cause a bad situation in the future
·threaten：['θret(ə)n] to be likely to happen or be in a bad situation
·finish off：If someone finishes off a person or thing that is already badly injured or damaged, they kill or destroy them.
在世界上很多地方/ 国家，工薪族越来越担心自动化会导致失业潮的出现。有种危言耸听/ 谈及令人色变的说法认为，全球化迫使北美和欧洲等富裕地区的人不得不与亚洲和拉丁美洲的廉价劳动力直接竞争，因而埋下了失业的隐患。如今，机器人就要来取代人类了。
But such talk has little currency in Sweden or its Scandinavian neighbors, where unions are powerful, government support is abundant, and trust between employers and employees runs deep. Here, robots are just another way to make companies more efficient. As employers prosper, workers have consistently gained a proportionate slice of the spoils — a stark contrast to the United States and Britain, where wages have stagnated even while corporate profits have soared.
·currency：['kʌr(ə)nsɪ] n. the state of being accepted or used by a lot of people
·Scandinavian ：[,skændi'neiviən; -vjən] adj. someone from the area of northern Europe that consists of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and usually Finland and Iceland
·union：['juːnjən; -ɪən] n. an organization formed by workers to protect their rights
·run deep：深沉，才思深奥；（根）扎得深
·spoil：[spɒɪl] n. the things that someone gets by being successful
·stagnate：[stæg'neɪt; 'stægneɪt] vi. to stop developing or making progress
但在瑞典或其它斯堪的纳维亚/ 北欧国家，这种言论几乎没有什么市场。这些国家的工会影响力强大，政府保障充分，劳资双方信任度高。在这些国家，机器人只是提高企业效率的一种方式。随着企业的蓬勃发展，员工也不断获得了相应的好处。这与美国和英国形成了鲜明的对比。在英美两国，尽管企业利润飙升，但工资水平却停滞不前。
“In Sweden, if you ask a union leader, ‘Are you afraid of new technology?’ they will answer, ‘No, I’m afraid of old technology,'” says the Swedish minister for employment and integration, Ylva Johansson. “The jobs disappear, and then we train people for new jobs. We won’t protect jobs. But we will protect workers.”
瑞典负责就业和一体化的大臣于尔娃·约翰松(Ylva Johansson)说：“在瑞典，如果你问工会的领导，‘你害怕新技术的出现吗?’他们会回答，‘不，我害怕传统技术’。有些工作岗位消失后，我们会培训劳动者从事新的工作。我们不会保护工作，但我们会保护劳动者。”
閱讀更多 小皇皇的教育故事 的文章
