Face up to Reality
Calls to stop the use of face recognition technology are growing louder, but it is already too late. Given its widespread use by tech companies and the police, a permanent roll back is impossible.
The European Commission is considering temporarily banning the use of the technology in public spaces, giving politicians in Europe time to develop measures to reduce the potential risks of face recognition systems. Some US cities, such as San Francisco, have already implemented bans.
Most of us now associate face recognition with CCTV cameras（闭路电视摄像机）.
Other concerns relate to the fact that the technology is imperfect. An independent analysis of a face recognition trial by London’s Metropolitan Police found that 81 per cent of matches the system flagged to a watch list of suspects were incorrect.
So what is the possible solution? When we consider both the rate at which the technology is developing and its widespread use nowadays, it is crystal-clear that a ban on its use in public spaces would be too little, too late.
| A．This applies to face recognition, as is often the case. |
| B．As a matter of fact, it is advancing in the online field, too. |
| C．What face recognition needs is strict and urgent regulation. |
| D．But the prohibitions are so limited that they are hardly bans at all. |
| E．And it’s even less accurate for some minorities, which risks worsening racial issues. |
| F．Companies cannot let market make a final decision on the future of new technology. |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】A recent report from UNESCO warns that using technology in classes may not help as much as many people believe. The report suggests that technology should be used less in schools, and that smartphones should be barred from classrooms.
The goal of the new report was to improve how technology is applied to education. “Instead of being the focus, technology should support learning. Too much attention on technology in education usually comes at a high cost,” the report says.
Over the last 20 years, technology has been used more and more in schools. These days, it’s normal for students in many places to look up information on the internet rather than using books. But the report points out that around 500 million students from poor areas were unable to take part in online classes. That’s one example of what UNESCO says is a larger problem — the advantages of technology aren’t evenly shared. People and countries with less money are often left out.
UNESCO admits that technology can help in many ways. It can allow students to learn in more interesting ways; it can help teachers explain difficult ideas; it can also help students who have special needs. But UNESCO says technology can also take the students’ attention away from what they’re doing. When students use phones in class, it can interfere with their learning. One study that was carried out in 14 countries showed that even just having a smartphone nearby can be distracting. Even so, UNESCO says that less than 25% of the world’s countries bar the use of phones in schools.
The report suggests that the best way to learn is still to work closely with teachers. Working with other classmates also helps students learn. UNESCO says that most schools should spend more money on things like books, classrooms and teachers.
1. What does the text intend to tell us?| A．Technologies can be double-edged. |
| B．Education holds the key to development. |
| C．The role of technologies is irreplaceable. |
| D．School education encounters much resistance. |
| A．Safety concern. | B．Wide application. |
| C．Unreasonable management. | D．Unbalanced availability. |
| A．Monitor. | B．Disturb. | C．Contribute to. | D．Keep up. |
| A．A business report. | B．A research plan. |
| C．A project handbook. | D．A science magazine. |
【推荐2】For astronomers who are sighted, the Universe is full of visual wonders. From shimmering planets to shinning galaxies(星系), the universe is impressively beautiful. But those who are visually impaired cannot share that experience. So astronomers have been developing alternative ways to convey(传递)scientific information.
Recently, the journal Nature Astronomy published the latest in a series of articles on the use of sonification in astronomy. Sonification describes the change of data into digital audio(声音)files, which allows them to be heard, as well as read and seen.
In August, Kimberly Arcand, a data-visualization expert and science communicator at the Center for Astrophysics and others transformed some of the first images of the black hole at the centre of the Perseus cluster from the James Webb Space Telescope into sound. They worked under the guidance of people who are blind to map the intensity and colours of light in the headline-grabbing pictures into audio. The sonification of an image of gas and dust in a distant nebula(星云), for instance, uses loud high-frequency sounds to represent bright light near the top of the image, but lower-frequency loud sounds to represent bright light near the image’s centre. The black hole sonification translates data on sound waves travelling through space-created by the black hole’s impact on the hot gas that surrounds it-into the range of human hearing.
Scientists in other fields have also experimented with data sonification. Some have explored whether it can help with discovering Alzheimer’s disease from brain scans. Sound has even been used to describe ecological shifts caused by climate change in an Alaskan forest, with researchers assigning various musical instruments to different tree species.
In the long run, such approaches need to be strictly evaluated to determine what they can offer that other techniques cannot. For all the technical accuracy displayed in individual projects, the Nature Astronomy series points out that there are no universally accepted standards for sonifying scientific data, and little published work that evaluates its effectiveness.
1. What does the underlined word “impaired” in Paragraph 1 most probably mean?| A．Appealing. | B．Damaged. | C．Directed. | D．Impressive. |
| A．show the widespread use of sonification |
| B．introduce the common process of sonification |
| C．provide people with the cure for particular diseases |
| D．improve the application of sonification to more fields |
| A．The use of sonification helps to analyze data effectively. |
| B．The standardization of sonification has yet to be achieved. |
| C．Sonification can transform some data that other techniques cannot. |
| D．Lower-frequency sounds show bright light near the top of the image. |
【推荐3】Have you ever wanted to see your dreams after you woke up? Artificial intelligence (AI) technology may help you do this in the near future!
Researchers from Osaka University in Japan have trained an AI system to recreate images in people’s heads. The pictures AI has created include a teddy bear, an airplane and a clock tower. The technology is 80 percent accurate, reported Science magazine.
Previously there have been AI models that can turn a word or phrase into images. The AI has studied lots of images and their text descriptions. Over time, the AI can find patterns and recreate pictures if you first input text.
This time, the researchers took a step further. They trained the AI to link people’s brain scan data with images. They asked four people to look at 10, 000 different images, and let the AI find patterns of blood flow in the brain. Then the patterns can be related to the images.
If people looked at an airplane, the AI would use the brain scan data to create an image of a very cloudy airplane. Then, it would turn on the previous “text - to - image” model. By feeding the keyword “airplane”, the AI would improve the image and make it more real.
“It’s a new method that combines textual and visual information to ‘decipher the brain’”, Ariel Goldstein from Princeton University told Science magazine.
Researchers said the technology could someday help people with paralysis to communicate. It might also help scientists understand dreams or even how other animals see the world.
1. What do we know about the AI system mentioned in Paragraph 2?| A．It can help train people’s minds. | B．It can fully present people’s dreams. |
| C．It was created for drawing people’s heads. | D．It can recreate pictures in people’s heads. |
| A．By understanding the meaning of the words. |
| B．By finding patterns in images and their text descriptions. |
| C．By drawing pictures according to users’ orders. |
| D．By finding different photos from the internet. |
| A．relate with image→scan blood flow→improve the text→turn into the image |
| B．relate with image→turn into text→scan blood flow→improve the image |
| C．scan blood flow→relate with image→turn into text→improve the image |
| D．scan blood flow→turn into text→relate with image→improve the image |
| A．How to know the way animals see the world. |
| B．How people with paralysis talk with others. |
| C．What the new AI technology could be used for. |
| D．How AI technology affects people’s dreams, |
| A．Entertainment. | B．Health. |
| C．Education. | D．Science. |
