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Many people thought that the epidemic could finally prove the prediction that robots are”job killers”right.In mid-2020,a widely cited paper by The National Bureau of Economic Research argued that the COVID-19 pandemic“may accelerate the automation of jobs”;another asserted that the pandemic“has strengthened the trend towards automation and influences”.A paper published by the International Monetary Fund(IMF)also questioned whether jobs lost during the pandemic could”return”.Part of these arguments are based on the logic that since robots don’t take sick leave,bosses will naturally choose them over workers—something that seemed to be the case during several previous pandemics.Prophets stress that intermittent bursts of automation tend to occur during recessions.

许多人曾以为，这场疫情终于可以证明机器人是“就业杀手”的预言是对的。2020年年中，美国国家经济研究局（TheNationalBureauofEconomicResearch）发表的一篇被广为引用的论文认为新冠肺炎疫情“可能会加速工作自动化进程”；另一篇论文则断言疫情“强化了自动化的趋势及影响”。国际货币基金组织（IMF）发表的一篇论文也质疑疫情期间失去的工作岗位能否“回归”。这些观点有一部分基于这样的逻辑：既然机器人不会生病请假，老板们自然会选择它们而非工人——之前有几次疫病大流行期间的情况似乎就是这样。预言家们强调，自动化的间歇性爆发往往发生在经济衰退时期。