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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D
解析 此处主要从意思的连贯和段落间的衔接来考虑。由上一题的分析可知，第三段以工业机器人为例，目的是说明技术对岗位减少的巨大影响，即引起失业。第三段以工业机器人为例，讲在过去10年间，公司花费了约1000亿美元安装工业机器人。现在有将近100万台机器人在工作。这种投资被证明是极其有效的。在过去10年间，这些机器的生产力每年上升约7％。由此可知：这一段是先讲机器人带来的好处，而此题所空的这一段与前段应是转折关系，着重讲机器人对工人工作的影响。因此D正符合这一点，意为：但是，工人的代价却是巨大的。自动化在同一时期内削减了约1000万个工作机会，大多体现在制造业领域。而且对工人的传统建议——加入基于计算机的“知识经济”，或进入服务行业一一看起来也令人怀疑。
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