The Internet has completely changed the workplace over the past three decades. Artificial Intelligence is now all set to do the same, and businesses that don’t take advantage of the technology risk being left behind.

Global tech giants like Amazon have been leading the change, and businesses of all sizes are now using the technology for employing and managing their staff.

Among them is L’Oreal. With about a million applicants for roughly 15,000 new positions each year, the company is using AI to hire.

“We really wanted to save time and focus more on quality, diversity and candidate experience. And AI solutions were the best way to go faster on these challenges,” said Eva Azoulay, global vice-president of L’Oreal’s Human Resources Department.

The company uses Mya, a chatbot, to save employers’ time during the first stage of the process. It handles routine questions from candidates, and checks details such as availability and visa requirements. Should candidates make it to the next round, they’ll run into Seedlink, an AI software that scores applicants based on their answers to open-ended interview questions. These scores don’t replace human judgment, said Azoulay, but they do exclude candidates who might not seem like obvious choices.

Early results have been promising. For one internship program, where 12,000 people apply for about 80 spots, employers claim they saved 200 hours of time while hiring the most diverse group to date.

Other businesses have gone beyond employment and are using AI to help manage employees. Some UK firms have started using Isaak, a system designed by the London-based company StatusToday, to track how many hours staff spend online and the number of emails they receive. London real estate agent JBrown has been using this system since March. CEO James Brown said it helps the firm understand employees’ habits and prevent them from overworking. “It enables us to solve bottleneck problems and relieve overburdened employees,” he said.

Despite these examples of good practice, there is still a long way for AI to reach its full potential, and the technology comes with risks. Another AI danger could be its impact on jobs through automation.

McKinsey predicts AI could add $13 trillion to the global economy by 2030, with early adopters doubling their cash flow over that period. But the demand for repetitive (重复的) or digitally-unskilled jobs could drop by around 10%, the consulting firm said in a 2018 report.

As for the choice of jobs, girls and boys as young as seven have preference with gender ( 性 别 ) differences in a new study. Girls choose jobs based on care and love, while boys choose jobs based on money and power.

Professor Laura Scholes and Dr Sarah McDonald surveyed 332 Year 3 students from 14 Australian schools. They found that the top professions for boys included sports and STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) related jobs, while girls, on the other hand, wanted to be teachers or nurses.

Professor Scholes said the influence of gender stereotypes (刻板印象) on such choices begins in early childhood. “Bright pink toys for girls and blue toys for boys are sold on store shelves around the world. ” she said, “In the boys’ section, you’ll find science, construction and warfare toys — perhaps a robot or a telescope. In the girls’ section, you’ll see toys related to cleaning, dolls, kitchens, makeup, jewellery and crafts. ”

“This results in lower numbers of girls taking STEM subjects at school. In turn, this means fewer women are going to work in the sciences. ” Professor Scholes’s comments came as women make up only 2 percent of the STEM workforce, with the biggest gap in the highest-paid jobs of computer science and engineering.

In Australia, some brands (品牌) are no longer targeting boys or girls with their toys. Danish toy giant Lego last week announced that they would remove gender stereotypes from their toys, after a global study found that 71 percent of boys feared being made fun of for playing with toys marketed at girls. Lego said its products were mainly used by boys, but it promised to work to remove gender preference from its toys and instead market them for both genders.

“We are becoming the people we wanted to be,” Gloria Steinem, a journalist and social activist, declared in the 1970s. So have women really become the people they wanted to be? Yes. 【小题1】 And they are nurses, clerks, doctors, scientists and so on. For a better understanding, here are some true data about women at work.

【小题2】

One of the great changes in gender equality is taking place in education. More women graduate from high school, attend and graduate from college. In 1994, 63 percent of female high school graduates and 61 percent of male high school graduates were enrolled in college the following fall, according to the Pew Research Center. By 2012, that number for women jumped to 71 percent, but remained unchanged for males, at 61 percent.

The wage gap between males and females is still existing.

Even as more women are flooding onto college campuses, here’s a disappointing trend. 【小题3】 But there still is a gap between their earnings and men’s earnings. Women in professional specialty occupations earn 72.7 percent of what men in the same position earn.

Is there any place women earn the same as men?

No. Unfortunately, there is no such place. But it can be to a woman’s advantage to work in a labor union. 【小题4】 So, while there is a gap, it’s much less than in professions without unions, where women make 72 percent of men’s incomes.

Women bring home more income.

【小题5】 Over 40 percent of moms are now the sole or primary source of income in U.S. households. Women are now the primary or co-money-maker in nearly two-thirds of American families and working married women bring home 44 percent of their family income.