Soon you could be competing with a robot for a job.
人們可能很快會跟機器人搶飯碗了。

Economists are sharply divided over the exact timing of the threat from robots and other forms of futuristic technology. Some see an imminent threat, others believe it won't happen until later this century -- if at all.
機器人和其他形式的未來技術可能對人類產生威脅，而對于這個威脅來臨的確切時間，經濟學們家站成兩派，各執一詞。一派認為威脅迫在眉睫，另一派認為如果威脅真的存在，那最早也將在本世紀晚些時候發生。

Yet Amy Webb, a digital media futurist and founder of Webbmedia Group, predicts at least eight career fields are "ripe for disruption" very soon -- like in the next 10 to 20 years.
然而，網絡媒體集團創始人、數字媒體未來主義者艾米·韋伯預測，在約10到20年后，至少八種職業將很快“面臨洗牌”。

"You should be quite worried," Webb said at the Milken Global Conference in Los Angeles last month. She points to these eight careers, in particular:
“你們應該有危機感。”韋伯上個月在洛杉磯米爾肯會議上說。她指出了將要受到機器人威脅的八種職業：

1) Toll booth operators and cashiers: People who work in the transactional space shouldn't be big fans of the Apple Watch or Apple Pay.
1）收費站工作人員和收銀員：在交易領域工作的人們可不該迷戀蘋果手表和蘋果支付。

That's because the rise of wearable technology and mobile payment systems may make jobs like toll booth operator and grocery store cashier virtually obsolete.
因為可穿戴技術和移動支付系統的普及可能會使收費站工作人員和雜貨店收銀員再無用武之地。

"There is no real need for a person to be there every step of the way," Webb said.
“沒必要有人時時刻刻守在那里收費了。”韋伯說。

2) Marketers: Powerful advertising tools of the future may allow brands to fashion their messages to customers with precision accuracy.
2）營銷人員：未來的廣告工具會將品牌信息精準地傳遞給消費者。

Webb pointed to new experiments with technologies that study customer behavior to identify what kind of ads will be most effective.
韋伯指出，新的技術實驗通過研究消費者行為，能夠確定哪種廣告是最為有效的。

"This is pretty much unlike anything we've seen before," she said.
她說：“這是我們之前見所未見，聞所未聞的。”

If these tools work, they may translate to smaller creative and strategic teams at marketing and ad firms.
如果這些工具確實有效，它們將變身為未來市場營銷和廣告公司的小型創造性和戰略性團隊。

3) Customer service: Many customer service jobs have been shipped overseas to India and other lower-paying countries. New technologies like predictive analytics could kill off more of these jobs.
3）客戶服務：很多公司都將客戶服務工作設在印度和其他勞動力成本較低的國家。預測分析等新技術將會使這些工作的工人需求量大大減小。

Look no further than Watson, the friendly IBM supercomputer that won millions of fans by defeating former Jeopardy champions.
在美國著名智力競賽節目《危險邊緣》（Jeopardy）中，IBM公司的超級計算機沃森（Watson）擊敗了之前的冠軍選手，贏得了相當的人氣。這就是眼前的例子。

Webb warns that one of the things Watson can do, though it's not positioned that way right now, is to replace everybody in the customer service department of a company.
韋伯警告稱，沃森能夠取代公司客戶服務部的任何一名員工，雖然現在我們并沒有利用其這一功能。

4) Factory workers: Get ready for robots to steal more manufacturing jobs from humans -- at a cheaper price and without taking breaks to text their friends.
4）工廠工人：做好準備，機器人們馬上就要來搶工人們的飯碗了。機器人們在工資上與人類相比有優勢，其次，這些機器人不會在工作期間休息，用手機和朋友閑聊。

The next wave of disruption is likely to be led by haptics, a sensor-based technology that allows people to virtually feel what they are working on even when the actual task is taking place far away.
下一次大洗牌則可能是由觸覺學引發的，觸覺學是一個以傳感器為基礎的技術，利用此技術，即便真正的工作在千里之外，人們也可以真實感覺到他們的工作。

5) Financial middle men: Don't knock Bitcoin -- Its underlying technology may steal your job.
5）金融中介：別再詬病比特幣了，比特幣背后的技術或許就會成為導致你失業的罪魁禍首。

Blockchain, Bitcoin's computer program, is able to automatically process transactions and create a perfect, reliable digital record.
比特幣的計算機程序“區塊鏈”（blockchain）能自動處理交易，并創建出一份完美可靠的數字記錄。

Webb believes blockchain will disrupt the middle men in the banking, escrow, insurance and mortgage sectors.
韋伯認為“區塊鏈”技術可以取代銀行業，委托付款，保險和抵押領域的中介。

"Whether or not Bitcoin ever takes off is beside the point. It's the underlying infrastructure that will dramatically change the work that's being done," Webb said.
韋伯說：“比特幣今后是否有著光明的前景，這并不是我們討論的重點。其背后的技術足以使我們現在的工作發生天翻地覆的變化。”

We may have received a sneak preview of that this week when Nasdaq said it will use blockchain to keep transaction records in its pre-IPO market.
當納斯達克表示將要將“區塊鏈”技術應用于其首次公開籌股前市場交易記錄時，我們就可見一斑了。

6) Journalists: The Internet wiped out countless newspapers, and new technology could kill even more journalism positions.
6）記者：網絡的出現已經使不少紙媒受到沖擊，而新技術將可能使更多記者失業。

Webb, a former journalist at Newsweek and The Wall Street Journal, said the next culprit will be algorithms that allow news outlets to automatically create stories and place them on websites without human interaction. Robot journalists (fedora optional) are already writing thousands of articles a quarter at The Associated Press.
韋伯過去也是名記者，她曾供職于美國《新聞周刊》和《華爾街日報》。她說，未來新聞媒體可利用算法自動撰寫新聞，并可在無人工干預的情況下發布到網絡上。美聯社的機器人記者已經在一個季度內撰寫了數千篇稿件了。

7) Lawyers: If you're going into the legal world, veer toward litigation.
7）律師：如果你還有志從事法律工作，那就去做訴訟吧。

Webb believes non-litigation lawyers could soon be replaced by online form-based services like LegalZoom that can carry out simple tasks like trademark applications, wills and even divorce.
韋伯相信，LegalZoom等基于表單的服務將會替代非訴訟律師完成簡單的任務，諸如商標申請，遺囑，甚至離婚。

It's all been made easier by the trend to make records more open and easily accessible, lessening the need for high-priced lawyers.
目前的趨勢是備案更公開，更易于獲取，因此簡化了程序，人們對花費高昂的律師的需求也減少了。

8) Phone workers: Many millennials don't have landline phones. That trend is only likely to continue with the advances of digital communication.
8）電話工人：千禧一代（指1985-1995年出生的人）中的很多人都沒有固定電話。隨著數字通訊的發展，這種趨勢只有繼續下去的可能。

That means telecom companies like AT&Tand Verizon could eliminate billing, operator and other positions on the telephone side of the business.
這就意味著像美國電話電報公司和威瑞森這樣的電話公司可能會淘汰開賬單的員工、接線員和電話業務等其他職位。

"There are a bunch of jobs that don't really need to exit," Webb said.
韋伯說：“有很多工作崗位都沒有存在的必要了。”

Fearing the future? These predictions will make people who work in these fields understandably cringe. But Webb isn't pessimistic about what lies ahead.
對未來感到擔憂嗎？以上的這些預測會理所當然地使在這些領域工作的人感到擔心。但韋伯并不對前景感到擔心。

"I don't see our technological future as a dystopian one. I just see it as different. For many people different is dystopian, which is something you need to get over," she said.
她說：“我并不認為技術的未來是反烏托邦的，我只覺得它將會有所改變。而對一些人來說，這些改變就是反烏托邦的，是我們需要克服的。”

One outcome may be that tomorrow's employers will value very different skillsets than today's.
結果之一就是，與今日相比，未來的雇主們將會看重不同的技能。

"We need highly-skilled plumbers and highly-skilled people in all types of fields we no longer venerate," Webb said.
韋伯說：“我們需要高水平的水管工，在其他我們不再崇拜的行業里，我們也需要高水平的員工。”

Vocabulary:

imminent: 臨近的

disruption: 瓦解

obsolete: 過時的，淘汰的

underlying: 潛在的

cringe: 尷尬

（翻譯：Jasmine-BTBU 編輯：齊磊 Helen）