Many people think that the world is about to step into the fourth industrial revolution. This time, machines can do a lot of work in the charge of human beings, even better than human beings. In the future, the world can be more efficient and enjoy cheaper services, but unemployment will become more common.
It raises a troubling question for all of us—when will a machine be able to do my job? Katja Grace, a research associate at the University of Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute, and her colleagues from the AI Impacts project and the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, have surveyed 352 scientists and compiled (汇集) their answers into predictions about how long it may take for machines to outperform humans on various tasks.
The good news is that many of us will probably be safe in our jobs for some time to come. The researchers predict there is a 50% chance that machines will be capable of taking over all human jobs in 120 years.
"One of the biggest surprises was the overall lateness of the predictions," says Grace. "I expected the amazing progress in machine learning in recent years, plus the fact that we were only talking to machine learning researchers, to make the estimates earlier."
"I am a bit sceptical of some of the timelines given for tasks that involve physical manipulation (操纵)," says Jeremy Wyatt, professor of robotics and artificial intelligence at the University of Birmingham. "It is one thing doing it in the lab, and quite another having a robot that can do a job reliably in the real world better than a human."
Manipulating physical objects in the real world—figuring out what to manipulate, and how, in a random, changing environment—is an incredibly complex job for a machine. Tasks that don't involve physical manipulation are easier to teach.
Perhaps the hardest jobs for machines to perform are those that take years of training for humans to excel at. These often involve intuitive (直觉的) decision making, complex physical environments or abstract thinking—all things computers struggle with.
12. Why do the researchers conduct the survey on the future role of machines?
A.To make it clear how machines can replace humans. |
B.To find why machines can take the place of humans. |
C.To explain humans will be substituted by machines. |
D.To learn when machines may be superior to humans. |
13. What did Grace think of the time for machine to replace human on tasks?
A.She thought the time would be uncertain before the survey. |
B.She thought the time would be later than the predictions. |
C.She thought the time would be earlier than the predictions. |
D.She thought machines would take over all the jobs in 120 years. |
14. What can we infer from the opinion of Jeremy Wyatt?
A.A robot can do a job reliably in the real world better than a human. |
B.Tasks that don't involve physical manipulation are quite complicated. |
C.It is difficult for robots to finish the jobs related to physical manipulation. |
D.He is sure of the timeline given to tasks that involve physical manipulation. |
15. What is the best title for the text?
A.How will a machine work in the future? |
B.Why will a machine be the most powerful? |
C.What functions will a machine have in the future? |
D.How long will your job be replaced by a machine? |