Almost every week the world takes another step in the direction of artificial general intelligence. The most powerful AI models can do an astonishing array of tasks from writing detailed reports to creating video on demand. Hallucinations are becoming less of a problem.

几乎每周，世界都会朝着人工通用智能的方向迈出一步。 最强大的人工智能模型可以完成一系列令人惊叹的任务，从编写详细的报告到创建点播视频。 AI幻觉效应也不再是一个问题了。

Small wonder, then, that so many people worry they will soon be surplus to requirements. Earlier this year global Google searches for "AI unemployment" hit an all-time high. In cities such as London and San Francisco, "How long do you reckon you have left in your job?" is a common topic of conversation. But is ChatGPT actually putting anyone out of work?

因此，难怪这么多人担心他们很快就会成为过剩劳动力。 今年初，全球“AI失业”的谷歌搜索量创下历史新高。 在伦敦和旧金山等城市，“你觉得自己这份工作还能保多久？”已成为人们经常谈论的话题。 但ChatGPT真的会让大家都失业吗？

Lots of pundits claim that it is. Many point to a recent paper by Carl Benedikt Frey and Pedro Llanos-Paredes, both of the University of Oxford, which suggests a link between automation and declining demand for translators. At the same time, however, official American data suggest that the number of people employed in interpretation, translation and the like is 7% higher than a year ago. Others point to Klarna, a fintech firm, which had boasted about using the tech to automate customer service. But the company is now undertaking an about-turn. "There will always be a human if you want," Sebastian Siemiatkowski, its boss, has recently said.

很多专家都说是这样的。 他们常拿牛津大学的卡尔·贝内迪克特·弗雷与佩德罗·利亚诺斯-帕雷德斯的的最新研究举例，指出自动化与翻译需求下降存在关联。 然而，与此同时，美国官方数据表明，口译、笔译等相关岗位的就业人数较去年增长了7%。 其他人则指出金融科技公司Klarna，该公司曾吹嘘使用AI来自动化客户服务。 但该公司现在正在发生转变。 公司老板塞巴斯蒂安·西米亚特科夫斯基近期表示：“如果你需要，永远都会有人工服务。”

Others still scour the macroeconomic data for signs of the forthcoming AI jobs-pocalypse. One popular measure is the ratio of the unemployment rate between recent college graduates and the overall American average. Young graduates are now more likely than the average worker to be jobless. The explanation runs that they typically do entry-level jobs in knowledge-intensive industries—such as paralegal work or making slides in a management consultancy. It is exactly this sort of task that AI can do well. So maybe the technology has eliminated these jobs?

还有人在宏观经济数据中寻找即将到来的AI导致失业的末日迹象。 一个流行的衡量标准是应届大学毕业生失业率与美国整体平均失业率的比率。 现在，年轻毕业生比普通工人更有可能失业。 有一种解释认为，他们通常在知识密集型行业从事入门级工作，例如律师助理或在管理咨询公司制作PPT。 而AI恰恰擅长这类任务。 那么也许是AI技术淘汰了这些工作岗位？

Well, no. The data simply do not line up with any conceivable mechanism. Young graduates' "relative unemployment" started to rise in 2009, long before generative AI came along. And their actual unemployment rate, at around 6%, remains low.

实际上并没有。 这些数据根本不符合任何可能作用的机制。 应届毕业生的“相对失业率”早在2009年就开始上升，远早于生成式AI的出现。 而他们的实际失业率约为6%，仍然很低。

Returning to a measure we introduced in 2023, we examine American data on employment by occupation, singling out workers that are believed to be vulnerable to AI. These are white-collar employees, including people in back-office support, financial operations, sales and much more besides. There is a similar pattern here: we find no evidence of an AI hit (see chart 2). Quite the opposite, in fact. Over the past year the share of employment in white-collar work has risen very slightly.

回到我们2023年提出的衡量标准，我们分析了美国按职业划分的就业数据， 特别关注了被认为易受AI影响的群体。 这类群体包括白领员工，如后勤部门、金融业务、销售等诸多岗位。 结果呈现相似趋势：我们没有发现AI导致失业的的证据。 事实上，恰恰相反。 过去一年，白领的就业比例略有上升。

Across the board, American unemployment remains low, at 4.2%. Wage growth is still reasonably strong, which is difficult to square with the notion that AI is causing demand for labour to fall. Trends outside America point in a similar direction. Earnings growth in much of the rich world, including Britain, the euro area and Japan, is strong. In 2024 the employment rate of the OECD club of rich countries, describing the share of working-age people who are actually in a job, hit an all-time high.

总体而言，美国的失业率仍然很低，仅为4.2%。 工资增长仍然相当强劲，这很难与“AI导致劳动力需求下降”的观点相吻合。 美国以外的趋势也指向类似的方向。 英国、欧元区和日本等大部分富裕国家的收入增长强劲。 2024年经合组织成员国的就业率，（即实际就业的劳动适龄人口比例）创下历史新高。

There are two competing explanations for these trends. The first is that, despite the endless announcements about how firms are ushering AI into their operations, few make much use of the technology for serious work. An official measure suggests that less than 10% of American companies employ it to produce goods and services. The second is that even when companies do adopt the tech, they do not let people go. AI may simply help workers do their jobs faster, rather than making them redundant. Whatever the explanation, for now there is no need to panic.

对这些趋势有两种相互矛盾的解释。 第一种是，尽管许多企业不断宣称把AI引入运营， 但很少有公司将AI技术大量用于核心业务。 一项官方数据显示，仅有不到10%的美国企业利用AI生产商品或提供服务。 第二种是，即使公司采用了AI技术，他们也没有因此而裁员。 AI或许只是帮助员工提升工作效率，而不会使让他们成为多余的人。 无论何种解释，目前无需恐慌。