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 生計
·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/ 國家，工薪族越來越擔心自動化會導致失業潮的出現。有種危言聳聽/ 談及令人色變的說法認為，全球化迫使北美和歐洲等富裕地區的人不得不與亞洲和拉丁美洲的廉價勞動力直接競爭，因而埋下了失業的隱患。如今，機器人就要來取代人類了。
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，才思深奧；（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納維亞/ 北歐國家，這種言論幾乎沒有什麼市場。這些國家的工會影響力強大，政府保障充分，勞資雙方信任度高。在這些國家，機器人只是提高企業效率的一種方式。隨著企業的蓬勃發展，員工也不斷獲得了相應的好處。這與美國和英國形成了鮮明的對比。在英美兩國，儘管企業利潤飆升，但工資水平卻停滯不前。
“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.”
瑞典負責就業和一體化的大臣於爾娃·約翰松(Ylva Johansson)說：“在瑞典，如果你問工會的領導，‘你害怕新技術的出現嗎?’他們會回答，‘不，我害怕傳統技術’。有些工作崗位消失後，我們會培訓勞動者從事新的工作。我們不會保護工作，但我們會保護勞動者。”
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