对于政治、经济、科技、文史哲等方面的背景知识，很多同学是比较欠缺的。而这些背景知识在考试中却至关重要。同学们平时可以通过外刊精读，有意识得选择不同题材的文章，补齐背景知识的短板哦。
外刊精读的好处：
上外高翻MTI考研真题中，翻译基础和翻硕英语两门科目的很多试题都是选自外刊，尤其是一些西方传统大刊，如经济学人、纽约时报、金融时报等。
同学们平时的备考中，通过对外刊的阅读和解析，可以帮助提高阅读速度、积累词汇和表达(包括缩略语)、增强语句理解力，了解中英思维差异，培养英语思维，掌握分析文章逻辑的能力，提高总结能力。
学习英文表达和句型，为汉译英和作文积累地道表达、写作素材、扩展思路，提高写作能力。
下面是高译老师从本周的外刊中选取的一些题材，同学们在备考中要多多涉猎哦：
Boy cries wolf狼来了
AI is not yet killing jobs
人工智能还没有消灭工作岗位
White-collar workers are ever more numerous
白领工人越来越多
【外刊选材一】
AFTER ASTONISHING breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, many people worry that they will end up on the economic scrapheap. Global Google searches for "is my job safe?' have doubled in recent months, as people fear that they will be replaced with large language models (LLMs). Some evidence suggests that widespread disruption is coming. In a recent paper Tyna Eloundou of OpenAI and colleagues say that around 80% of the US workforce could have at least 10% of their work tasks affected by the introduction of LLMs”. Another paper suggests that legal services, accountancy and travel agencies will face unprecedented upheaval.
在人工智能 (AI)取得惊人突破之后，许多人担心自己会失业。近几个月，谷歌上“我的工作安全吗?”的搜索量翻番，因为人们担心自己会被大语言模型 (LLM) 取代。有迹象显示大范围的颠覆即将到来。在近的一篇论文中，OpenAI的泰纳·埃伦杜(Tyna Eloundou)及其同事认为，“美国大约80%的劳动力可能有至少10%的工作量会受到引入LLM的影响”。另一篇论文指出，法律服务、会计和旅行社将面临前所未有的剧变。
语言点
end up
to find yourself in a place or situation that you did not intend or expect to be in 终成为;后处于
end up doing sth
I ended up doing all the work myself. 结果所有的活儿都是我一个人干了。
+ adv./prep.
If you go on like this you'll end up in prison. 如果你继续这样，早晚得进监狱。
scrapheap
遭解雇;失业If you say that someone has been thrown on the scrapheap, you mean that they have been forced to leave their job by an uncaring employer and are unlikely to get other work.
Miners have been thrown on the scrapheap with no prospects.
大批矿工被解雇，工作没着落。
知识补充
大语言模型 (LLM)
大语言模型是深度学习的分支。被训练来解决通用(常见)的语言问题，如文本分类、问答、文档总结和文本生成等。
在"大语言模型"的上下文中，"大"主要有两层含义。一方面，它指的是模型的参数数量。在这些模型中，参数的数量通常会非常大，达到数十亿甚至数百亿。这使得模型能够学习和表示非常复杂的模式。另一方面，"大"也指的是训练数据的规模。大语言模型通常在大规模的文本数据上进行训练，这种数据可以来自互联网、书籍、新闻等各种来源。
OpenAI
OpenAI是一个美国人工智能研究实验室，进行 AI 研究的目的是促进和发展友好的人工智能，使人类整体受益。 OpenAI 系统运行在微软基于 Azure 的超级计算平台上。
【外刊选材二】
Economists, however, tend to enjoy making predictions about automation more than the enjoy testing them. In the early 2010s many of them loudly predicted that robots would kill jobs by the millions, only to fall silent when employment rates across the rich world rose to all-time highs. Few of the doom-mongers have a good explanation for why countries with the highest rates of tech usage around the globe, such as Japan, Singapore and South Korea, consistently have among the lowest rates of unemployment.
不过，经济学家往往更喜欢对自动化做预测，而不喜欢测试自动化。在2010年代初，许多经济学家大声预测机器人将夺走数百万人的工作，但当发达国家的就业率升至历史水平时，他们就哑口无言了。对于日本、新加坡和韩国等全球科技使用率的国家为何失业率一直处于水平，未世论者拿不出什么好的解释。
语言点
-monger
a person who encourages a particular activity, especially one which causes trouble
专门制造(或散布)…的人;(尤指)专门惹麻烦的人
They're nothing but a bunch of war-mongers. 他们完全是一群战争贩子。
因此本文的doom-monger也就是散布末日论的人，简称末日论者
【外刊选材三】
Here we introduce our first attempt at tracking AI's impact on jobs. Using American data on employment by occupation, we single out white-collar workers.These include people working in everything from back-office support and financial operations to copy-writers. White-collar roles are thought to be especially vulnerable to generative AI, which is becoming ever better at logical reasoning and creativity.
在此，我们启动对AI如何影响就业的追踪。在美国各种职业的就业数据中，我们把白领工人单抄出来。其中包括后台支持、财务运营以及文案撰写等各种岗位人员。生成式AI在逻辑推理和创造力方面的表现越来越好，通常认为白领职位特别容易受其影响。
语言点
single out
single sb/sth↔ˈout (for sth/as sb/sth)to choose sb/sth from a group for special attention 单独挑出
She was singled out for criticism.
她被单挑出来进行批评。
He was singled out as the outstanding performer of the games.
他被评选为这次运动会表现出色的运动员。
知识补充
generative AI
生成式 AI(生成式人工智能)是指使用 AI 来创作新内容，例如文本、图片、音乐、音频和视频。生成式 AI 的工作原理是利用机器学习模型，学习人工创建的内容数据集中的模式和关系。然后，它会利用学习的模式生成新内容。
【外刊选材四】
However, there is as yet little evidence of an AI hit to employment. In the spring of 202o white collar jobs rose as a share of the total, as many people in service occupations lost their job at the start of the covid-19 pandemic (see chart). The white-collar share is lower today, as leisure and hospitality have recovered. Yet in the past year the share of employment in professions supposedly at risk from generative AI has risen by half a percentage point.
不过，目前还没有什么证据表明AI对就业造成了冲击。2020年春季，白领岗位占全部工作岗位的比例上升，因为许多服务业从业者在疫情开始时失业了 (见图表)。现在随着休闲和接待业的复苏，白领岗位的比例有所下降。但是在过去一年里，那些被认为受生成式AI威胁的职业占总就业的