会失业吗?

^①Chris Duddridge, managing director at UiPath, whose AI platforms help automate call centres in the UK, India and other countries, echoes this sentiment. ^②“The pandemic was indeed an accelerator for the adoption of automation,” he says. ^③Software robots have been instrumental in helping his firm’s clients deal with the “huge backlogs and unprecedented volumes of requests” during the crisis, he says.

① echo             v. 重复；附和

  sentiment        n. 情绪；观点

Tips: whose AI platforms help … countries为定语从句，修饰UiPath。

② accelerator    n. 加速器；油门

③ be instrumental in sth./doing sth.      对某事物/对做某事起重要

  backlog           n. 积压

①UiPath的董事总经理克里斯·杜德里奇（Chris Duddridge）也认同这一观点。UiPath的人工智能平台帮助英国、印度和其他国家的呼叫中心实现自动化。②他说：“疫情确实加速了自动化的广泛运用。”③他说，在疫情期间，软件机器人在帮助公司处理“大量积压的和前所未有的客户请求量”方面发挥了重要作用。

^①Anxiety about automation seems to be increasing in lockstep. ^②As part of a recent survey conducted by the Center for the Governance of Change at IE University in Segovia, Spain, almost 2900 people from 11 countries were asked whether their governments should limit automation by law in order to save jobs and prevent technological unemployment. ^③In January, 42 per cent of respondents in Spain and 27 per cent in China—two countries that bore the initial brunt of the pandemic—said “yes”. ^④Three months later, as covid-19 worsened, those figures jumped to 55 and 54 per cent, respectively.      

① in lockstep    保持一致

③ brunt      n. 最糟糕的部分

  bear / take the brunt of      在…中首当其冲

④ worsen    v. 变得更糟

①对自动化的担忧似乎在与日俱增。②在西班牙塞戈维亚IE大学变革治理中心（Center for the Governance of Change）最近进行的一项调查中，来自11个国家的近2900人被问及本国政府是否应该依法限制自动化，以挽救就业机会和防止技术性失业。③今年1月，42%的西班牙受访者和27%的中国受访者表示“肯定”——这两个国家是疫情最初的主要受害国。④三个月后，随着新冠病毒的恶化，这两个数字分别跃升至55%和54%。