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  3. In 19th-century England, craftsmen donned masks and rioted lo force the destruction of textile machines that were stealing their

In 19th-century England, craftsmen donned masks and rioted lo force the destruction of textile machines that were stealing their

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问题     In 19th-century England, craftsmen donned masks and rioted lo force the destruction of textile machines that were stealing their jobs. The rebellion was crushed and the followers of Luddites have come to be viewed as hapless rubes standing in the way of progress. But they had a point: automation causes unemployment.
    The wave of automation now crashing onto the economy looks especially broad and powerful. Although its full impact is unclear, it could cause worker dislocation on a scale not seen since the Industrial Revolution, experts say. Eventually, technology creates more jobs than it takes away, they add.
(41)______
    Take industrial robots. Over the past 10 years, companies have spent some $ 100 billion installing them. Nearly 1 million are nowr on the job. The investment has proven spectacularly effective. The productivity of these machines has risen about 7 percent a year for the past decade.
(42)______
    These havens aren’t safe anymore. "Smart systems" , computers that can do relatively routine tasks well, are beginning to gobble up jobs ranging from check-out clerks at Home Depot to airline ticket a-gents and hotel desk clerks—even to insurance underwriters and software customer support staff.
(43)______ When the seven "Baby Rells" emerged from the_1984 breakup of AT&T, the companies embarked on a crash course of modernization from analog to digital technology. Over the past two decades, they also shed about half of their jobs. Today’s phone companies use computer-controlled, highly automated systems that often diagnose and even repair themselves. One could argue that 300,000 to 400,000 jobs, some of the best the country has ever created, have disappeared from the telecommunications sector.
(44)______With the advent of e-mail, the letter-delivery business is going to disappear. We’ll see kiosks replacing people, whether it’s at airline counters or anything else. We already have gasoline pumps that take credit cards. You’ll see some replacement in grocery stores, travel agents, tellers in banks, people who do accounting services.
(45)______Three or four years ago, those people were extremely well paid. Now there are fewer jobs in that space, and they’re not quite as well paid as they used to be.
    Policymakers must focus on this shift and its impact on society. They have to figure out what steps are needed to mitigate its ill effects. There’s going to have to be a multifaceted approach to this problem , and it’ s not going to be easy to get a bead on it.
[A] High-value jobs are also being cut. As corporations try to consolidate their computer systems; they’ve winnowed out some highly paid positions.
[B] Although there are no exact data yet on how automation will affect the job market over the next decade, a look at the recent past suggests a not-too-rosy future.
[C] Even a creative field like journalism, job-stealing technology has crept in an automated system could follow set formulas and write routine articles, such as traffic reports and obituaries.
[D] But the human cost has been immense. Automation has eliminated some 10 million jobs, mostly in manufacturing, over the same time period. And the traditional advice to workers— join the computer based "knowledge economy" or move to the service sector—looks suspect.
[E] So far, though, automation doesn’t appear to have had a deep impact on job loss. For exam-pie, despite its airline kiosks and a tough travel economy, Continental says it has seen only a 4 percent decrease in ticket agents since "9. 11".
[F] Similar trends are showing up in the service sector. Businesses have found "you can shift many things to the customer. You can shift many things to a computer".
[G] But in the short term, its effect on job loss is very significant, affecting more sectors of the labor market than in past eras of rapid technological change.
选项
答案F
解析 本题可以根据与上文的衔接和与下文的一致来判断。此处应是统领下文的主题句。从上题的分析可知，上文主要讲了自动化对电信业的影响。F开头的Similar trends是对上文的有机衔接。根据下文所讲，e—mail的出现使得传统的邮政业即将消失；在机场售票柜台或其他任何地方，我们都将看到取代工人的小亭子.我们已经有了接受信用卡的汽油泵，我们还将看到在杂货店里、旅行社里工人被取代，银行出纳员及提供会计服务的人员被取代。由此可知：本题是在讲在服务行业，自动化对工人的影响。F意为：同样的趋势也在服务行业内部出现了。企业已经发现“你可以将许多事情交由顾客来做，交由计算机来做”。
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