考研英语阅读理解中的文章，很多来自一些外刊杂志方面的题材。接下来，北京文都考研网为扩宽2020考研学子的知识面，整理了考研英语经济学人外刊:奶奶的小帮手,老龄化与机器人，供考生参考。
2020考研英语经济学人外刊:奶奶的小帮手,老龄化与机器人
An ageing world needs more resourceful robots
老龄化的世界需要更多神通广大的机器人
Rather than take people’s jobs, machines will help care for them in their old age
机器人不会取代人们的工作，而是在人们年老时照顾他们
When gill pratt sat down to discuss the job of running the Toyota Research Institute, the carmaker’s new research division, his Japanese interviewers wrote one word on a piece of paper and asked him to talk about it. The word was dementia.
当吉尔·普拉特坐下来与日本面试官讨论如何运作丰田研究所(丰田汽车新设立的研究部门)时，对方在纸上写下了一个词并让他说说想法。这个词是“痴呆症”。
That might seem a strange topic to put to one of the most respected figures in the world of robotics, a man who had previously run a competition to find artificially intelligent, semi-autonomous robots for the Pentagon.
普拉特是机器人领域最受尊敬的人物之一，他曾为五角大楼组织过一场寻找半自动化人工智能机器人的竞赛，让他来聊这个话题似乎有些奇怪。
But, Mr Pratt says, the company’s interest in ageing was a big reason for him to take the job. “The question for all of us”, he says, “is, how can we use technology to make the quality of life better as people get older?”
但普拉特表示，丰田汽车公司对老龄化的关注正是他接受这份工作的一个重要原因。他说：“我们所有人面对的一个问题是如何利用科技来提高晚年的生活质量。”
Ageing and robots are more closely related than you might think. Young countries with many children have few robots. Ageing nations have lots.
老龄化和机器人之间的关系比你想象的更为密切。年轻的国家孩子们多而机器人少，老龄化国家则机器人多。
The countries with the largest number of robots per industrial worker include South Korea, Singapore, Germany and Japan, which have some of the oldest workforces in the world.
每个产业工作对应的机器人数量最多的国家包括韩国、新加坡、德国和日本，这些国家拥有全球最高龄的工人。
The connection does not merely reflect the fact that young countries tend to be poor and cannot afford fancy machines, which they do not need anyway.
老龄化与机器人之间的这种关联性反映了一个事实：年轻的国家往往很贫穷，买不起这些昂贵的机器(它们本来也不需要这些机器)。
It holds good within rich countries, too. Those with relatively few robots compared with the size of their workforce include Britain and France, both of which (by rich-country standards) are ageing slowly.
这个结论也同样适用于发达国家。在同等劳动力规模下比较，机器人数量较少的国家有英国和法国，这两个国家的老龄化速度(按照发达国家的标准)都比较慢。
Two recent studies quantify the connection. Daron Acemoglu of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Pascual Restrepo of Boston University show that, between 1993 and 2014, the countries that invested the most in robotics were those that were ageing the fastest—measured as a rise in the ratio of people over 56 compared with those aged 26-55.
最近的两项研究量化了这种关系。麻省理工大学的达龙·阿赛莫格卢和波士顿大学的帕斯卡·雷斯特罗表示，从1993年至2014年，对机器人投资最多的正是那些老龄化进程(以56岁以上人口与26-55岁人口之比的增幅来计)最快的国家。
The authors posit a rule of thumb: a ten-point rise in their ageing ratio is associated with 0.9 extra robots per thousand workers.
他们提出了一项经验法则：一个国家的老龄化速率每增加10个百分点，每千名工人对应的机器人数量就会增加0.9个。
A study from Germany used different measures but reached the same conclusion.
德国的一项研究使用了不同的衡量方法，但得出了相同的结论。
Ana Abeliansky of the University of Göttingen and Klaus Prettner of the University of Hohenheim found that the growth in the number of robots per thousand workers rises twice as fast as the fall in the growth rate of the population (ie, if population growth falls by 1%, the growth in robot density rises by 2%). Population growth is closely related to age structure.
哥廷根大学的安娜·阿贝兰斯基和霍恩海姆大学的克劳斯·普雷特纳发现，每千名工人对应机器人数量的增长速度是人口增长率下降速度的两倍(即人口增长率每下降1%，机器人密度上升2%)。人口增长与年龄结构密切相关。
These findings should not be surprising. Robots typically substitute for labour. That is why many people fear that they will destroy jobs.
这些发现不足为奇。机器人通常会替代劳动力，所以才有许多人担心它们会破坏工作岗位。
Countries with plenty of young workers do not need labour substitutes. Wages there also tend to be low, making automation unprofitable. But ageing creates demand for automation in two ways.
拥有大量年轻工人的国家不需要劳动力替代品。那里的工资水平也往往很低，自动化因此无利可图。但老龄化从两个方面刺激了人们对自动化的需求。
First, to prevent output falling as more people retire, machines are necessary to substitute for those who have left the workforce or to enable ageing workers to continue to do physical labour.
首先，随着退休的人越来越多，为了防止产出下降，必须以机器替代那些减少了的劳动力或协助老龄工人继续从事体力劳动。
Second, once people have retired they create markets for new kinds of automation, including robots that help with the medical and other requirements of caring for people who can no longer look after themselves.
其次，退休的人为新型自动化创造了市场，其中就包括为那些无法自理的人提供医疗和其他护理需求的机器人。
[重难点词汇]
resourceful [rɪ'sɔrsfl] adj. 资源丰富的;足智多谋的;机智的
dementia [dɪ'mɛnʃə] n. [内科] 痴呆
以上是北京文都考研网给出的“2020考研英语经济学人外刊:奶奶的小帮手,老龄化与机器人”，希望对备考2020考研英语的考生有所帮助!祝2020考研顺利!
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