白领也危险了——5个正在被机器人夺走的“高大上”职业

5 jobs that robots already are taking 白领也危险了：5个正在被机器人夺走的“高大上”职业 Erik Sherman 2015年03月06日 一直到不久以前，受到机器人冲击的还主要是蓝领工作，尤其是装配线上的蓝领工人。但现在，人工智能、机器人和其它颠覆性的新技术正在挑战以前貌似不容易被取代的白领工作，比如：金融和体育记者、麻醉师、外科医生、律师助理、金融分析师等。 Automation: Most White-Collar Jobs Aren't As Safe As You Think It's long been assumed that automation will lay waste to blue-collar jobs across the world. The corollary to that assumption is that while robots will be able to surpass the physical abilities of a human workforce, their cognitive and intellectual power would be no match for white-collar work. Well, that's not the case. Not anymore and not by a long shot, as Big Think expert Andrew McAfee notes in the video below. And as Erik Sherman writes over at Fortune, automation is already at work disrupting traditionally white-collar jobs: "Researchers are beginning to see that artificial intelligence, robotics, and new disruptive technology are challenging white-collar professions that previously seemed invulnerable. Look at FedEx. 'They hope that by 2020 they will have a pilot center with three or four pilots that fly the FedEx fleet [of hundreds of planes] around the country,' said Frank Tobe, editor and publisher of The Robot Report, a publication that tracks and analyzes the robot industry. Or there’s education. 'I invested in one company that uses robots to teach mathematics in schools,' said Dmitry Grishin, CEO of Russian tech giant Mail.Ru Group and head of robotics VC firm Grishin Robots." Sherman's piece focuses on five career industries currently in the process of an automation switch. They are: financial and sports reporters, online marketers, anesthesiologists and surgeons, and financial advisors/analysts. Check out the link to the article below to read his case for each.     多年以来，研究人员一直预测称，机器人将会抢走人类的工作。在英国，德勤公司和牛津大学估算说，未来将有1000万个非技术类工作岗位将被机器人取代。牛津大学研究人员卡尔•贝内迪克特•弗瑞和迈克尔•奥斯本在2013年声称，到2033年，美国将有47%的工作岗位实现自动化，并被电脑所取代。     有些专家则示人类无需过分担心，因为科技在吞噬一批旧职业的同时，总会创造一批新职业，从而使工人换岗而非失业。不过近年来，随着科技变得愈加复杂，人们的担忧与日俱增。市场研究机构Outsell公司的首席分析师利•沃森•希利表示：“究竟是哪里不同了？如今，科技进步的速度加上大数据现象，导致更高水平的机器已经可以从事更高级的认知型任务。”言下之意就是，以前有些高要求的工作需要一些受到高级培训的人才，但以后未必如此。操作，乃至制造机器所需要人数非常有限，那么那些被机器抢走了工作的人又应该上哪去呢？     麻省理工学院研究人员马特•毕尼表示：“我不认为我们对这个问题已经有了很好的应对方法。这个‘末日场景’看起来还是挺严峻的。从现在开始，形势的确会发生变化，而且它的变化速度会超过我们能够应对的速度。”     一直到不久以前，受到机器人冲击的还主要是蓝领工作，尤其是装配线上的蓝领工人。但现在，人工智能、机器人和其它颠覆性的新技术正在挑战以前貌似不容易被取代的白领工作。     以联邦快递为例。《机器人报告》杂志编辑兼发行人弗兰克•托比表示：“该公司希望在2020年建成一个飞行员中心，靠三四名飞行员就能飞全美的整支机队（几百架飞机）。”俄罗斯科技巨头Mail.Ru集团CEO兼风投机构Grishin Robots公司的机器人总监迪米特里•格里辛表示：“我投资的一家公司能利用机器人在学校里教数学。”     这也带来了下面这个问题：把这么多工作推给机器，究竟是会给人类带来光明的未来，还是会演变成《终结者》那样的结局：人类成为机器人统治下的羔羊？     以下是已经被计算机、机器人和人工智能取代了的五个专业性工作。     For years now, some researchers have been anticipating that robots would take away jobs from humans. In the UK, Deloitte and the University of Oxford predicted that 10 million unskilled jobs could be taken over by robots. University of Oxford researchers Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne estimated in 2013 that 47 percent of total U.S. jobs could be automated and taken over by computers by 2033.     Some experts say not to worry because technology has always created new jobs while eliminating old ones ones,displacing but not replacing workers. But lately, as technology has become more sophisticated, the drumbeat of worry has intensified. “What’s different now?” asked Leigh Watson Healy, chief analyst at market research firm Outsell. “The pace of technology advancements plus the big data phenomenon lead to a whole new level of machines to perform higher level cognitive tasks.” Translated: the old formula of creating more demanding jobs that need advanced training may no longer hold true. The number of people needed to oversee the machines, and to create them, is limited. Where do the many whose occupations have become obsolete go?     “I don’t think we have a good handle on this,” said MIT researcher Matt Beane. “The end game scenarios seem kind of severe. From here on in, it’s really, really, really going to change and it’s going to change faster than we can handle.”     Until recently, it was largely blue collar jobs that have felt the brunt, as technologies automated assembly-line work. Now, researchers are beginning to see that artificial intelligence, robotics and new disruptive technology are challenging white-collar professions that previously seemed invulnerable.     Look at FedEx. “They hope that by 2020 they will have a pilot center with three or four pilots that fly the FedEx fleet [of hundreds of planes] around the country,” said Frank Tobe, editor and publisher of The Robot Report, a publication that tracks and analyzes the robot industry. Or there’s education. “I invested in one company that uses robots to teach mathematics in schools,” said Dmitry Grishin, CEO of Russian tech giant Mail.Ru Group and head of robotics VC firm Grishin Robots.     Which raises the question: Will pushing labor onto machines open a new bright future for humanity, or a new variation on the Terminator series: Rule of the Robot Overlords?     Here are five professional jobs already being replaced by computers, robots, and AI.     金融分析师与顾问     预测系统、大数据和越来越强大的计算能力合在一起，为分析和预测投资行为提供了理想工具。由于计算机在处理企业和行业数据上几乎没有上限，有些金融专业人士发现他们与机器的差距越来越大了。市场研究机构Outsell公司的首席分析师雷•沃森•希利指出：“现在随着机器算法和大数据的搅局，股市分析师必须搞清楚他们自身的价值在哪里。”     金融顾问也同样会感到压力。财富管理公司Howe & Rusling的战略副总裁史蒂芬•基普•阿斯特海默指出：“近几年来，投资行业的一个趋势就是‘机器人顾问’的到来。不少年轻人和没有复杂投资需求的人开始用自动化服务取代个人金融顾问、理财师和股票经纪人。”     SigFig系统就是其中一例，它会考虑到客户的风险容忍度，然后通过计算机算法选择一系列低成本的基金，对投资账户进行多样化投资与管理。（财富中文网）     Financial Analysts and Advisors     Predictive systems, big data, and computing power combine to provide an idea tool for analyzing and predicting the behavior of investments. With no practical limit to the amount of company and industry data that can be considered, some financial professionals will find it difficult to keep up. "Now with machine algorithms and big data disrupting, stock and equity analysts will have to figure out what their value ad is going to be," said Leigh Watson Healy, chief analyst at market research firm Outsell.     There will be pressure on those who advise individuals, as well. "One trend in the investment industry over the last few years has been the advent of 'robo-advisers,'" said Stefan Kip Astheimer, vice president for strategy at wealth management firm Howe & Rusling. "These are automated services that are replacing personal financial advisers, financial planners and stockbrokers for younger individuals and individuals who don't have complex investment needs."     An example is SigFig, which takes into account a client's risk tolerance and then uses algorithms to diversity and manage investment accounts using a variety of low-cost funds.     金融和体育记者     收集信息，采访当事人，问问何人在何时何地发生了何事，原因为何，然后写出结果，这就是记者的日常工作。但是只要把信息变成机器可读的格式，你就具有了颠覆记者这个行业的可能性。     自2014年6月起，美联社就开始利用Automated Insights公司的软件和扎克斯投资研究公司的数据，试验由计算机自动创建企业收益报道的可能性。在排除了试验初期出现的一些问题后，整个生成报告的过程基本上不会出现差错，甚至可能还要超过人工报告的水平。     目前，美联社（AP）的体育部门正在利用自动化技术，生成一些小型体育赛事的报道。美联社表示，这种做法可以解放员工，让他们去做更重要的事情，同时也缓解了媒体预算。软件科学家、《机器人崛起：科技与未来失业的威胁》一书的作者马丁•福特表示：“美联社称，该技术可以根据数据撰写出一份颇有吸引力的文章，水平不亚于一名经验丰富的作家。”考虑到有些大学毕业生的写作水平确实不怎么样，加上“机器要想超越一名大学生，需要克服的障碍并不那么高”，记者这个行当的前景的确令人堪忧。曾几何时，刚入行的菜鸟们也要干些低难度的活，学学基本的手艺。这才不到一年，记者的潜在生存空间已经变小了。     Financial and Sports Reporters     Gathering information; interviewing people; answering who, what when, where, why, and how; and writing the results. It's the daily grind for journalists. But make the information machine readable and you have the potential for disruption.     Associated Press has run an experiment of automatically creating corporate earnings reports since June 2014 with software from Automated Insights and data from Zacks Investment Research. After working through problems at the outset, the process is virtually error-free, which likely beats what humans would do.     AP's sports department is using automation to generate reports for events with small audiences. The organization says it frees up staff to do more important things, helping stretch media budgets. "The company claims it can weave that data into a compelling narrative that on a skill level an experienced writer can do," said Martin Ford, a software entrepreneur and author of Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future. Given the sometimes questionable level of writing demonstrated by college graduates and "the hurdle machines have to cross to out-perform humans with college degrees isn't that high." But at one time junior reporters would have done the duller work and learned basics of their craft. In less than a year, the potential pool has become smaller.     在线营销人员     要撰写一条让人就算不买东西至少也要打开邮件的营销信息，是否非得靠一个文化人才行？显然不是。借助计算机自动化的力量，自然语言软件公司Persado可以通过语义学算法完成同样的任务，比如确定采用什么样的电子邮件标题可以达到最好的反馈效果等等。     该公司的客户包括花旗集团（Citi）和内曼马库斯公司（Neiman Marcus）等大企业，它的系统可以调取评分语言数据库，分析一条特定信息的所有变化形式，系统地创建具备必要情感吸引力的措辞，能够测试数千种语言排列，找到最佳的表现版本。机器生成的电子邮件标题所吸引的点击率，有时能达到人工撰写的标题的一倍。     此外还有目前正在快速发展的广告购买规划领域。它无需用人工在杂志上寻找理想的广告位，而是通过软件分析网络上的数十亿关于同类产品和定位广告的信息，实时确定最佳的广告词。     Online Marketers     Does it take a human to understand how to craft a message that will motivate someone to make a purchase or even open an email? Apparently not. In an automated tour de brute force, natural language software firm Persado analyzes data with semantic algorithms to determine what email subject lines, for example, will get the best response.     Working for clients like Citi and Neiman Marcus, the company's systems can reach into its database of scored language, analyze all the variations of a particular message, and systematically create wording that will have the necessary emotional pull, with the ability to test thousands of permutations to find the best performing versions. Machine-generated email subject lines can sometimes double the number of messages opened compared to human-written ones.     There's also the rapidly-developing field of programmatic ad buying. Instead of having people choose where to place ads in magazines, software focuses online, using billions of pieces of information about potential subjects and targeting ads on the best prospects in real time.     麻醉师、外科医生、诊断医师     你可能觉得，医生是一门需要实际操作经验的职业，因此医生是不可能被机器人取代的，但事实也并非如此。强生公司的Sedasys系统目前已经通过了FDA认证，可以在结肠镜检查等手术中实施低层次的麻醉术，它的成本还不到专业麻醉师的零头。一名医生在发挥人力因素的同时，还可以同时管理多台机器。     IBM的Watson系统由于在电视真人秀上大放异彩而广为人知。不过很多人可能不知道，它在肺癌的诊断上拥有远远高于人类医生的诊断准确率——在某些测试中，Watson系统与人类医师的诊断准确率为90%对50%。原因是数据。要想读完最新发布的医疗数据，人类医师每周至少要花费160小时的时间，因此人类医生不可能掌握全部的新见解甚至临床证据，因此面对计算机时也就丧失了诊断方面的优势。     外科医生已经在使用自动化系统辅助进行一些低侵入性的手术。目前虽然还是医生负责手术的全过程，但终有一日，机器有可能独立完成一些难度较低的手术。事实已经证明，机器人系统具有将肿瘤从人体组织剥离的能力。另外目前市面上已经有了至少一款用于进行毛发移植的机器人，使一名医生在进行手术的同时可以监控多个。     亨特登医疗中心（Hunterdon Medical Center）的机器人手术服务医学总监普罗帕•高希表示：“我们以前用手工完成的很多事，现在已经通过机器人实现了自动化。比如现在我们不再手工缝合刀口，而是使用机器人缝合。”高希表示，由于解剖结构的变异，加上目前电脑在归纳模式上还存在一定难度，她目前还无法预测机器能够如何充分完成自动化的手术。不过她补充道：“十年以前，我也绝对不会预见到这些东西发挥作用，所以很多说未来会发展成什么样。”     Anesthesiologists, Surgeons, and Diagnosticians     You might think that doctors represented the ultimate in hands-on expertise that had to be local, but that isn't the case. Johnson & Johnson's Sedasys system, already FDA approved, can automate delivery of low-level anesthesiain applications like colonoscopies at the fraction of the cost of a dedicated anesthesiologist. A doctor can supervise multiple machines at the same time to keep the human element.     IBM's Watson, well known for its stellar performance in the TV game show Jeopardy!, has already demonstrated a far more accurate diagnosis rate for lung cancers than humans -- 90 percent versus 50 percent in some tests. The reason is data. Keeping pace with the release of medical data could take doctors 160 hours a week, so doctors can't possibly review the amount of new insights or even bodies of clinical evidence that can give an edge in making a diagnosis.     Surgeons already use automated systems to aid in low-invasive procedures. Right now, the doctor is in charge, but eventually machines might do simpler procedures themselves. According to Beane, there have already been demonstrations -- on Silly Putty -- of how a robotic system could potentially remove tumors from tissue. There is also at least one hair transplant robot on the market, allowing one surgeon to oversee multiple procedures at the same time.     "A lot of things we do manually we have automated through robotics," said Dr. Propa Ghosh, medical director of robotics surgical services at Hunterdon Medical Center. "Instead of using sutures, now we're using robotic staplers." She finds it hard to see how machines could do fully automated surgeries because of anatomical variations and the current difficulty computers have in generalizing patterns. However, Ghosh added, "I never could have predicted have the things that have come to play ten years ago, so it's hard to say where the future will be."     电子取证律师和律师助理     在一些大型诉讼中，取证环节可能要涉及几百万页的材料卷宗。审核这些材料历来是律师或律师助理们必须从事的低端工作之一，但现在，已经有新型的软件系统可以从事这项工作了。     这些系统使用了语法分析和关键词识别技术，在电子邮件、短信、数据库和扫描文件中筛选那些在法庭举证过程中必须提交的证据资料。可以相象，在不久的未来，一台经过法学训练的Watson计算机将有可能构建一套储存了大量案例和判例的系统，它甚至可能会写案情摘要——这种搜索和写作工作一般是由法律事务所的助理等工作人员完成的。     马丁•福特表示，法律定量分析则是计算机自动化的另一个热点。如今很多律师之所以身价很高，就是因为他们知道采取哪种辩论策略更容易打赢官司，他们也更擅长预测法庭裁决，甚至是一名法官的独特风格。不过密歇根州立大学和南德克萨斯州法学院的研究人员建立的一个统计模型已经能够成功预测美国最高法院71%的判决结果。马丁表示：“这种预测法律后果的能力，可能就是律师最有价值的能力了。”     E-Discovery Lawyers and Law Firm Associates     In large lawsuits, the discovery process can involve literally millions of documents. Reviewing such materials was traditionally one of the lower-level tasks lawyers or paralegals could face. But now, new software systems can do the job.     These systems use syntactic analysis and keyword recognition to comb through emails, texts, databases, and scanned documents to find those that one party in a lawsuit would be obliged to turn over to the other through the legal discovery process. It's also conceivable in the near future that a legally-trained Watson might be able to construct a system with a vast store of cases and precedent and create drafts of briefs -- the sort of research and writing work generally handled by associates in law firms.     Quantitative legal prediction is another hot point, according to Ford. Lawyers now are highly paid for knowing which arguments are most likely to win a case, assessing past court rulings and even the idiosyncracies of a judge. But researchers at Michigan State University and South Texas College of Law constructed a statistical model that was able to predict the outcome of almost 71 percent of U.S. Supreme Court cases. "That ability to make those predictions [of legal outcomes] is probably the most valuable ones lawyers can do," Martin said.     金融分析师与顾问     预测系统、大数据和越来越强大的计算能力合在一起，为分析和预测投资行为提供了理想工具。由于计算机在处理企业和行业数据上几乎没有上限，有些金融专业人士发现他们与机器的差距越来越大了。市场研究机构Outsell公司的首席分析师雷•沃森•希利指出：“现在随着机器算法和大数据的搅局，股市分析师必须搞清楚他们自身的价值在哪里。”     金融顾问也同样会感到压力。财富管理公司Howe & Rusling的战略副总裁史蒂芬•基普•阿斯特海默指出：“近几年来，投资行业的一个趋势就是‘机器人顾问’的到来。不少年轻人和没有复杂投资需求的人开始用自动化服务取代个人金融顾问、理财规划师和股票经纪人。”     SigFig系统就是其中一例，它会考虑到客户的风险容忍度，然后通过计算机算法选择一系列低成本的基金，对投资账户进行多样化投资与管理。（财富中文网）     Financial Analysts and Advisors     Predictive systems, big data, and computing power combine to provide an idea tool for analyzing and predicting the behavior of investments. With no practical limit to the amount of company and industry data that can be considered, some financial professionals will find it difficult to keep up. "Now with machine algorithms and big data disrupting, stock and equity analysts will have to figure out what their value ad is going to be," said Leigh Watson Healy, chief analyst at market research firm Outsell.     There will be pressure on those who advise individuals, as well. "One trend in the investment industry over the last few years has been the advent of 'robo-advisers,'" said Stefan Kip Astheimer, vice president for strategy at wealth management firm Howe & Rusling. "These are automated services that are replacing personal financial advisers, financial planners and stockbrokers for younger individuals and individuals who don't have complex investment needs."     An example is SigFig, which takes into account a client's risk tolerance and then uses algorithms to diversity and manage investment accounts using a variety of low-cost funds.