《经济学人》｜Tech-economic (2): Rage against the machine

💡 白宫顾问说“没有数据表明AI导致任何人失业”，但2026届的毕业生们不这么看。我们的分析显示：过去三年，AI高风险专业的毕业生全职就业率从近70%暴跌到了55%。

Is AI putting graduates out of work already?

“THERE'S NO SIGN in the data that AI is costing anybody their job right now,” Kevin Hassett, a White House adviser, said on May 11th. Someone should tell America's class of 2026. “It's grim,” one professor says of the market for graduate jobs. Artificial intelligence is the popular villain. At a recent commencement ceremony in Florida a speaker was booed for mentioning it. And not without reason: our analysis suggests AI may indeed be harming some graduates' job prospects.

白宫顾问凯文·哈塞特5月11日表示：“目前没有任何数据表明AI正在导致任何人失业。”这话应该跟2026届的美国毕业生说说。一位教授在谈到毕业生就业市场时表示：“情况很严峻。”人工智能成了流行的“反派”。在佛罗里达最近的一场毕业典礼上，一位演讲者因为提到AI而被嘘下了台。而且并非没有道理：我们的分析表明，AI可能确实正在损害一些毕业生的就业前景。

grim /ɡrɪm/ adj. 严峻的、令人沮丧的We face the grim prospect of still higher unemployment. 我们面临着失业率进一步上升的暗淡前景。

villain /ˈvɪlən/ n. 反派、坏人He often plays the part of the villain. 他经常扮演反面人物。

commencement /kəˈmensmənt/ n. 毕业典礼President Bush gave the commencement address today at the University of Notre Dame. 布什总统今天在巴黎圣母院大学发表了毕业典礼演说。

boo /buː/ v. 喝倒彩、发出嘘声People were booing and throwing things at them. 人们发出嘘声，并朝他们扔东西。

A university degree no longer seems to offer much protection from joblessness: recent graduates are likelier to be unemployed than the average American. The current cohort feels particularly gloomy. Less than a fifth of them think this is a good time to find a good job—the lowest share in over a decade, and well below the figure for Americans overall, at more than a quarter. A slump in on-campus recruiting is not helping. Job postings on Handshake, a search platform for university students, are 50% below their peak of 2022.

大学学位似乎不再能提供多少防止失业的保护：近年毕业的大学生比普通美国人更可能失业。当前的这一届毕业生尤其感到悲观。只有不到五分之一的人认为现在是找到好工作的好时机——这是十多年来的最低比例，远低于全体美国人的水平（超过四分之一）。校园招聘的低迷更是雪上加霜。大学生求职平台Handshake上的职位发布数量比2022年的峰值低了50%。

cohort /ˈkəʊhɔːt/ n. 同代人、同龄群体Drake and his cohorts were not pleased with my appointment. 德雷克和他的朋友们对我的任命不满。

gloomy /ˈɡluːmi/ adj. 悲观的、阴郁的...a gloomy picture of an economy sliding into recession. …经济陷入衰退的一幅暗淡景象。

slump /slʌmp/ n. 骤降、低迷Net profits slumped by 41%. 净利润暴跌了41%。

Many suspect AI is to blame. More than half of employers say they have considered replacing entry-level workers with the technology. A recent poll by the Institute of Politics at Harvard University's Kennedy School found that, similarly, more than half of young Americans see AI as a threat to their job prospects.

许多人怀疑AI是罪魁祸首。超过一半的雇主表示，他们曾考虑用AI技术取代初级员工。哈佛大学肯尼迪学院政治研究所最近的一项民调发现，同样有超过一半的美国年轻人认为AI对他们的就业前景构成了威胁。

poll /pəʊl/ n. 民意调查Polls show that the European treaty has gained support in Denmark. 民意测验显示，欧洲条约已经在丹麦获得支持。

Economists are more divided. A paper by Erik Brynjolfsson of Stanford University and colleagues, published in 2025, examined employment among young workers in AI-exposed jobs, such as software development. The authors found it had fallen by 16% relative to less-exposed fields.

经济学家们则分歧更大。斯坦福大学的埃里克·布林约尔松及其同事在2025年发表的一篇论文，研究了AI风险高的岗位（如软件开发）中年轻员工的就业情况。作者发现，与低风险领域相比，这类岗位的就业率下降了16%。

But a paper published this year by Zanna Iscenko and Fabien Curto Millett, two economists at Google, casts doubt on the idea that young workers in particular are being displaced by AI. They found that job postings in AI-exposed occupations have declined just as sharply for senior workers as for junior ones, and that this trend predated the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022. Another study, by Morgan Frank of the University of Pittsburgh and colleagues, showed that labour-market outcomes have deteriorated for AI-exposed employees, but that this trend also began before ChatGPT was released.

但谷歌的两名经济学家今年发表的一篇论文，对“年轻工人尤其正在被AI取代”这一观点提出了质疑。他们发现，AI风险职业的职位发布数量在资深员工和初级员工中同样大幅下降，而且这一趋势早在2022年底ChatGPT推出之前就已存在。匹兹堡大学的摩根·弗兰克及其同事的另一项研究表明，AI风险员工的劳动力市场结果已经恶化，但这一趋势同样在ChatGPT发布之前就开始了。

cast doubt onphr. 对…提出质疑The incident cast doubt on her motives and reliability. 这件事使人怀疑她有何动机，以及她是否可靠。

predate /priːˈdeɪt/ v. 早于、先于…发生His troubles predated the recession. 他的麻烦早在经济衰退前就出现了。

deteriorate /dɪˈtɪəriəreɪt/ v. 恶化、变糟There are fears that the situation might deteriorate into full-scale war. 人们担心局势会恶化为全面战争。

The Economist has conducted its own analysis, using a largely overlooked source of data: ten years' worth of surveys of recent college graduates from the National Association of Colleges and Employers. Each year American universities ask new alumni whether they are working, unemployed or in graduate school. Using their responses, we compared labour-market outcomes in fields with differing levels of exposure to AI before and after the arrival of large language models.

《经济学人》进行了自己的分析，使用了一个很大程度上被忽视的数据来源：全美大学与雇主协会对近十年应届大学毕业生的调查。每年，美国大学都会询问新校友他们是在工作、失业还是在读研。利用这些回复，我们比较了大语言模型出现前后、AI暴露程度不同的专业领域的劳动力市场结果。

overlooked /ˌəʊvəˈlʊkt/ adj. 被忽视的We overlook all sorts of warning signals about our own health. 我们会忽视关于我们健康的各种警报信号。

alumni /əˈlʌmnaɪ/ n. 校友（复数）Harvard Alumni Association 哈佛大学校友会

We found that graduates in fields more exposed to AI have suffered markedly worse outcomes. Between 2022 and 2024, graduates in the least-exposed quintile—studying subjects such as education, philosophy and civil engineering—saw their average full-time employment rate fall by just 1.5 percentage points. Those in the most exposed quintile—including computer science, computer engineering and information science—suffered a 6.6 percentage-point drop (see chart).

我们发现，AI风险程度更高专业的毕业生，其就业结果明显更差。2022年至2024年间，最低风险五分位组（学习教育、哲学、土木工程等专业）的毕业生，平均全职就业率仅下降了1.5个百分点。而最高风险五分位组（包括计算机科学、计算机工程、信息科学等专业）的毕业生，则下降了6.6个百分点（见图表）。

markedly /ˈmɑːkɪdli/ adv. 明显地、显著地This year's sales have risen markedly. 今年的销售额明显提高了。

quintile /ˈkwɪntaɪl/ n. 五分位组men in the first quintile of weight (= the heaviest 20% of men) 体重在第一个五分位组的男性（即最重的20%男性）

percentage pointphr. 百分点

We updated these figures for the most exposed fields, using data from 13 universities, and found that the trend continued for the class of 2025. The rate of full-time employment fell from nearly 70% to 55% in three years—notably, the three years following ChatGPT's release in 2022. Prior to that, it had been stable.

我们使用13所大学的数据更新了最高风险专业的数据，并发现这一趋势在2025届毕业生中仍在持续。全职就业率在三年内从近70%降到了55%——值得注意的是，这正是在2022年ChatGPT发布之后的三年。在此之前，这一比例一直保持稳定。

notably /ˈnəʊtəbli/ adv. 尤其、值得注意的是The house had many drawbacks, most notably its price. 这房子有很多缺陷，尤其是它的价格。

prior tophr. 在…之前A death prior to 65 is considered to be a premature death. 65岁以前的死亡被认为是过早死亡。

Students are already changing course. Data from the National Student Clearinghouse, a research group, show that undergraduate enrolment in computer science fell by 11% in 2025. Enrolment in computer programming, which focuses on coding skills rather than theory, dropped by 26%.

学生们已经在改变方向了。研究机构国家学生信息交换所的数据显示，2025年计算机科学的本科生入学人数下降了11%。侧重于编码技能而非理论的计算机编程专业的入学人数则下降了26%。

enrolment /ɪnˈrəʊlmənt/ n. 注册人数、入学人数Enrolment is the first week of September. 九月份的第一周注册。

The work done by computer-science graduates is changing, too. Less time is spent writing code; more is devoted to designing and organising software systems at a higher level. Lana Yarosh, director of undergraduate studies in computer science at the University of Minnesota, says she understands students' anxieties. “It's always hard when things change. But computer science is a field where everything changes all the time.”

计算机科学毕业生所做的工作也在发生变化。花在写代码上的时间更少了；更多的时间投入到更高层次的软件系统设计和组织上。明尼苏达大学计算机科学本科研究主任拉娜·亚罗什表示，她理解学生们的焦虑。“当事情发生变化时，总是很难的。但计算机科学就是一个一切都在不断变化的领域。”

Forget Python, study Plato

忘掉Python，去学柏拉图吧

United States, recent university graduates in full-time employmentCircle size = number of graduates | % change, 2022–24

哲学、心理学、新闻学、会计学、土木工程、电气工程、通信、计算机科学等专业，AI暴露程度从低到高，变化率从正值到负值

Surveyed six months after graduation · 毕业后六个月调查

Sources: Anthropic; National Association of Colleges and Employers; The Economist

✍️ 互动话题

🔹 学计算机的朋友，就业情况是否变难了？🔹 你觉得AI是“抢饭碗”还是“换工种”？

欢迎在评论区聊聊你的观察和经历。

本文原文选自 The Economist，由公众号「Ojalala」精读编译，小海排版。

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