A reality check on the AI jobs hysteria

关于人工智能就业恐慌的现实核查

Haven’t you heard? White-collar jobs are going away, decimated by AI. Waves of layoffs in the tech sector (most recently at Coinbase and Meta and Cisco) are said to presage what will soon come for all of us knowledge workers. But before you quit your job as a software developer or financial analyst—or tech journalist—and look to join the plumbers’ union, it’s worth considering today’s economic research on whether artificial intelligence has actually begun to devour white-collar work.

你听说了吗？白领工作正在消失，被人工智能摧毁了。科技行业的裁员潮（最近发生在 Coinbase、Meta 和思科）被认为是所有知识工作者即将面临的预兆。但在你辞去软件开发人员、金融分析师或科技记者的工作，转而去加入管道工工会之前，值得先看看当前的经济研究，了解人工智能是否真的已经开始吞噬白领工作。

The short answer is: No. Despite the warning by some of an imminent jobs apocalypse that will destroy much of if not most such work, or the rumblings about a “permanent underclass,” there’s scant evidence that AI has yet had any large-scale impact on the US labor market. Analysis of the data gathered for the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) shows that the unemployment rate for the jobs potentially most affected by AI is actually lower than that for occupations less exposed to the technology.

简短的回答是：没有。尽管有些人警告称一场迫在眉睫的就业末日将摧毁大部分甚至绝大多数此类工作，或者关于“永久性下层阶级”的传言四起，但几乎没有证据表明人工智能目前对美国劳动力市场产生了大规模影响。对美国劳工统计局（BLS）收集的数据分析显示，受人工智能潜在影响最大的工作岗位的失业率，实际上低于那些受该技术影响较小的职业。

And, critically in the mind of economists, there are no signs that large numbers of people are shifting from jobs threatened by AI to supposedly safer ones, such as those involving mostly manual labor. While the current labor statistics don’t preclude a sudden job upheaval in the coming years, they do throw doubt on the inevitability of the doomsday scenarios and the pace at which they’d unfold.

而且，在经济学家看来至关重要的一点是，没有任何迹象表明大量人员正从受人工智能威胁的岗位转向所谓的更安全岗位（例如主要涉及体力劳动的工作）。虽然当前的劳动力统计数据并不排除未来几年出现突发性就业动荡的可能性，但它们确实对末日场景的必然性及其演变速度提出了质疑。

Everyone in the AI community, it seems, is predicting that the technology will soon wipe out jobs, and everyone, it also seems, knows some young wannabe workers who can’t find one. Perhaps we haven’t seen any major disruption in the labor market statistics yet, people often say, but just wait. But maybe we should pay attention to what the data is showing us. And right now, the numbers paint a picture of a relatively stable labor market in which AI disruptions remain largely speculative.

人工智能圈里的每个人似乎都在预测这项技术很快会消灭工作岗位，而且每个人似乎也都认识一些找不到工作的年轻人。人们常说，也许我们还没在劳动力市场统计数据中看到任何重大干扰，但等着瞧吧。但也许我们应该关注数据向我们展示的内容。目前，这些数字描绘了一个相对稳定的劳动力市场，其中人工智能带来的干扰在很大程度上仍处于推测阶段。

“All of the available evidence to date suggests that AI’s impact on current labor market conditions is likely small right now,” says Erika McEntarfer, a labor economist who headed the BLS until President Trump fired her last fall after a jobs report that displeased the administration. (Not surprisingly, BLS reports of sluggish job growth have continued since her dismissal.)

“迄今为止所有可用的证据都表明，人工智能对当前劳动力市场状况的影响目前可能很小，”劳工经济学家埃里卡·麦肯塔弗（Erika McEntarfer）表示。她曾领导美国劳工统计局，直到去年秋天因一份令政府不满的就业报告而被特朗普总统解雇。（不出所料，自她被解雇以来，劳工统计局关于就业增长缓慢的报告仍在继续。）

McEntarfer, who is now a fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, says the relatively small impact that AI is having so far on today’s labor market “surprises many people, but it shouldn’t. What we know from history is that it takes time for innovations to work their way through changes in industries and changes in occupations. AI is unlikely to transform labor markets until it first transforms businesses.”

目前担任斯坦福大学经济政策研究所研究员的麦肯塔弗表示，人工智能迄今为止对当今劳动力市场产生的相对较小的影响“让许多人感到惊讶，但其实不应如此。从历史中我们知道，创新需要时间才能在行业变革和职业变迁中发挥作用。在人工智能首先改变企业之前，它不太可能改变劳动力市场。”

McEntarfer points to US Census data showing that only one in five companies are using AI in any business function. “The data are a great reality check on the fear that AI will be enormously disruptive,” she says. “It could be. It likely will be disruptive, but the data is telling us right now that disruption is not yet here, and that we have time to plan.”

麦肯塔弗指出，美国人口普查局的数据显示，只有五分之一的公司在任何业务职能中使用人工智能。“这些数据是对‘人工智能将产生巨大破坏性’这一恐惧的极好现实核查，”她说。“它可能会产生破坏性。它很可能会产生破坏性，但数据现在告诉我们，这种破坏尚未到来，我们还有时间进行规划。”

Things ain’t great—but the question is why

情况并不乐观——但问题在于原因

The US job market, to be sure, sucks for many, especially younger would-be workers. Unemployment rates for recent college graduates stand at around 5.6%, well above the level for all workers. It’s a rate not seen since the pandemic and the years immediately after the 2008 recession. Even more troubling is that hiring rates have been particularly dismal during the post-covid economy, a trend that hits hard at young people trying to enter the workforce.

可以肯定的是，对于许多人，尤其是年轻的求职者来说，美国就业市场确实很糟糕。应届大学毕业生的失业率约为 5.6%，远高于所有工人的平均水平。这是自疫情以来以及 2008 年经济衰退后几年内未曾见过的水平。更令人担忧的是，在后疫情时代的经济中，招聘率一直特别低迷，这一趋势对试图进入职场的年轻人造成了沉重打击。

If you’re a recent college graduate and looking for a tech job, no one, it can seem, is hiring. There are signs that AI is contributing to the pain for the 22-to-25-year-olds seeking jobs in software development and other occupations that are feeling a big impact from AI. But these professions represent just a sliver of the overall labor market. What’s more, it’s uncertain how much blame AI should get for the job woes.

如果你是一名应届大学毕业生，正在寻找一份科技工作，看起来似乎没有人正在招聘。有迹象表明，人工智能正在加剧 22 至 25 岁人群的痛苦，他们正在软件开发和其他受人工智能影响较大的职业中寻找工作。但这些职业仅占整个劳动力市场的一小部分。此外，人工智能在多大程度上应为就业困境负责尚不确定。

Similarly unknown is whether the loss of entry-level jobs in AI-exposed occupations is a harbinger of what’s coming for others or simply an isolated symptom of what economists refer to as a “low-fire, low-hire” labor market caused by a variety of macroeconomic forces. Insights into these uncertainties will tell us much about our working fates in the transition to an AI economy.

同样未知的是，受人工智能影响的职业中入门级职位的流失，是其他人即将面临的预兆，还是仅仅是经济学家所称的由各种宏观经济力量导致的“低解雇、低招聘”劳动力市场的孤立症状。对这些不确定性的洞察将告诉我们很多关于在向人工智能经济转型过程中我们的工作命运。

There are no shortage of confident assertions and predictions about what is about to happen; while some people forecast the end of work, others say economic history teaches us that technology advances always lead to more and better jobs eventually. The honest answer is that no one knows for sure what AI will bring and whether this time will be different.

关于即将发生的事情，不乏自信的断言和预测；虽然有些人预言工作的终结，但另一些人则表示，经济史告诉我们，技术进步最终总是会带来更多更好的工作。诚实的回答是，没有人能确定人工智能会带来什么，以及这一次是否会有所不同。

To help figure it out, we need better and far more comprehensive data. The statistics gleaned from the federal government’s monthly survey of 60,000 households for the BLS provide a broad overview of the changes to the labor market, while academics and even some AI companies have begun trying to gain a more granular view of specific jobs that are being affected. But the existing data-gathering tools don’t adequately explain how AI is affecting the huge and diverse US labor market.

为了弄清楚这一点，我们需要更好、更全面的数据。从联邦政府每月对 60,000 个家庭进行的劳工统计局调查中收集的统计数据提供了劳动力市场变化的概览，而学术界甚至一些人工智能公司也已开始尝试更细致地观察受影响的具体工作。但现有的数据收集工具并不能充分解释人工智能如何影响庞大且多样化的美国劳动力市场。

There’s a long list of questions that we don’t have the data to fully answer. How is AI being used in the workplace? Does the increased use of AI mean the technology will replace workers, or will it make them more productive and valuable? Which occupations and skills are most affected? Who is in most peril from the changes? As David Deming, a professor of economics at Harvard University, puts it: “We’re sort of flying blind.” To gather more insight into some of these questions, Deming and his colleagues have been surveying several thousand people every three months since 2024, asking them basic questions: Do you use generative AI, and how often? Does it save you time at work?

我们有一长串问题，但缺乏数据来完全回答。人工智能在工作场所是如何使用的？人工智能使用量的增加是否意味着该技术将取代工人，还是会使他们更具生产力和价值？哪些职业和技能受到的影响最大？谁在这些变化中处于最危险的境地？正如哈佛大学经济学教授大卫·戴明（David Deming）所言：“我们有点像是在盲目飞行。”为了收集关于其中一些问题的更多见解，戴明和他的同事自 2024 年以来每三个月对数千人进行一次调查，询问他们基本问题：你使用生成式人工智能吗？频率如何？它能节省你的工作时间吗？