许多人担心人工智能会削弱我们的写作能力，但澳大利亚口述历史学家Shirleene Robinson认为，更大的损失可能是我们的倾听能力。她在《卫报》的一篇评论文章中提出了这一观点。
Much of the worry about AI is that it will erode how well we write. Australian oral historian Shirleene Robinson thinks the bigger loss may be our ability to listen. She made the case in an opinion column for The Guardian.
‘倾听不同的观点并进入不同的世界是我们人性的重要组成部分，’她写道。
“Listening to different views and entering into different worlds is integral to our humanity,” she wrote.
Robinson指出，尽管人工智能聊天机器人承诺提供更快的回复和所谓的‘同理心倾听’，但人们的日常对话量却在逐年减少。
Fewer words every year Robinson argues that people are already talking less, even as AI chatbots promise faster replies and so-called empathetic listening.
根据密苏里-堪萨斯城大学和亚利桑那大学心理学家的研究，2005年至2019年间，人们的日均说话量减少了338个单词，其中25岁以下人群的下降幅度最为明显。这些数据主要来自美国和欧洲，截至2019年。这还是在当今聊天机器人尚未广泛使用之前。
She points to research by psychologists at the University of Missouri–Kansas City and the University of Arizona. They found people spoke about 338 fewer words a day for each year between 2005 and 2019, the University of Arizona said. Daily speech fell from about 16,000 words to around 12,700. Those under 25 saw the steepest drop. The data comes mostly from the US and Europe, and ends in 2019.
Robinson曾领导澳大利亚国家图书馆的口述历史项目团队（2018年至2024年初），该项目收集了超过58,000小时的录音，时间跨度从1957年开始。
That is before today’s chatbots became widely used. Voices from the archive Robinson led the team behind the oral history collection at the National Library of Australia from 2018 to early 2024.
她听过原住民讲述深远的历史，也听过‘被剥夺的一代’成员的证词，还听过一位从越南乘船逃难的难民以及一位在特雷西飓风中幸存的达尔文医生。
It holds more than 58,000 hours of recordings, dating back to 1957. She has heard First Nations Australians describe deep history, and members of the Stolen Generations give testimony.
她认为，倾听与我们不同的人能够培养同理心，而这正是她所担忧会失去的东西。
She has also heard a refugee who fled Vietnam by sea, and a Darwin doctor who survived Cyclone Tracy. Hearing people unlike us builds empathy, she argues.
‘同理心是倾听带来的最宝贵的礼物，如果我们说话和倾听都减少了，那将是我们最大的损失，’她写道。随着越来越多的人转向聊天机器人，这种担忧日益加剧。
That is what she fears will be lost. “Empathy is the richest gift listening offers. That will be our greatest loss if we speak and hear less,” she wrote. The concern comes as more people turn to chatbots each year.