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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G
解析 此处要根据上文的意思及与前一句的衔接关系来判断。首先，文章第一段讲在19世纪的英国，手工艺人戴上面罩进行起义，迫使工厂摧毁剥夺了他们工作的纺织机器。起义被镇压，那些反对引进机器的人的跟随者也被认为是阻碍进步的倒霉乡巴佬。但他们提出了一个观点：自动化导致失业。由此可知：本文旨在讲机器对工人的冲击。第二段开头先说：现在涌入经济中的自动化浪潮看起来尤其广泛和强大。专家们说尽管它的全面冲击还不清楚，但可以在很大规模上引起一种自工业革命以来未曾发生过的工人大变位。专家们补充说：最终，技术创造的工作机会要比它剥夺走的工作机会多很多。此处用but转折，引出in the short term“但从短期来看”，技术对工作损失的影响是非常巨大的，比以往任何时代技术变革所影响的部门都要多。然后下一段开始用工业机器人的例子来说明这一点。
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