Robots in the art world are nothing new. In fact, for centuries, people have built robots as art objects. However, what’s different now is that artists and engineers are building robots that actually create art.
In 1973, British-born painter Harold Cohen wrote a computer program and called it AARON. At first, AARON only made simple outlines whose color and details Cohen would later add. Fifty years later, AARON is able to paint anything a human could paint. So can AARON be called an artist or creative? In 2010, Cohen explained, “Although he wrote the initial computer code that AARON follows, AARON can generate unlimited numbers of images.” So according to Cohen, the simple answer is yes-AARON is creative.
It’s not just paintings that robots are creating, though. Last year, a robot called Shimon released is first album (唱片) on Spotify. Shimon began life as a simple robot marimba (木琴) player. Over the years, however, it’s learned how to perform with other musicians, write original songs. Shimon does this by analyzing huge amounts of music—roughly 50,000 rock, jazz and hip-hop songs-to identify patterns and then uses that information to create original works.
It may be cool to hear a song created by a robot, but is there any other reason to build robots that can play music? According to Gil Weinberg, one of Shimon’s creators, because the robot is capable of doing things that a real musician might not think of, he and his team “hope and believe that these new abilities would lead to new directions that could not be achieved in human-to-human cooperation.”
While questions about robots creating art are fun to think about, there are many other ways that robots can help artists in the way they create their works. For example, advancements in 3D-printing technology will allow artists to build more complex pieces for their sculptures. Therefore, robots in the art world are here to stay.
1. What was AARON able to do at first?| A．Paint people and landscapes. | B．Prepare basic outlines for Cohen. |
| C．Draw pictures of itself and Cohen. | D．Color paintings under Cohen’s instructions. |
| A．It is both a marimba and guitar player. |
| B．It has created about 50,000 original songs. |
| C．It is expected to push humans to achieve more. |
| D．Its creators hope that it can outperform humans. |
| A．Positive. | B．Worried. | C．Neutral. | D．Doubtful. |
| A．AARON and Shimon | B．Robots in the Real World |
| C．Programmed Creativity | D．Advancements in Technology |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】Let’s learn about ancient technology
Where we live is surrounded by technology.
All of our modern things, however, are based on older technologies. And those were based on still older ones. Ancient people didn’t have large machinery and equipment.
Not all of these technologies were limited to modern people. The first “kitchen” flames are older still. Ancient human relatives were cooking food over fires in Europe 800,000 years ago. The first spear throwers (掷矛者) threw their weapons 279,000 years ago before modern humans existed.
Scientists have been trying to figure out how ancient people developed their tools and built their cities and monuments.
| A．Ancient people are really clever. |
| B．Not all of these technologies are useful. |
| C．Yet they built monuments even bigger than Stonehenge. |
| D．They use modern technologies to search for Mayan cities. |
| E．For example, we are surrounded by skyscrapers and the Internet. |
| F．Scientists believed the ancient living 80,000 years ago began to throw stone spears. |
| G．They have made great discoveries, but there is still a lot waiting to be discovered. |
【推荐2】In recent years, Boston Dynamics has become known for two things. One, creating robots whose movements mimic(模仿) humans and animals. Many find their accuracy surprising and concerning. The second reason is posting mysterious videos of these robots online without warning. The videos quickly go popular and spread a mixture of excitement and terror over the rapid rise of self-operating machines.
The company has made four-legged robots in recent years, with names like Spot, Wildcat and BigDog. These robots can do tasks such as opening doors, carrying heavy loads and running nearly 20 miles per hour. The company’s most popular product appears to be Atlas, the robotic athlete. It calls Atlas “the world’s most dynamic humanlike robot”.
The robot is guided by 3D vision. It also uses LiDAR, short for Light Detection And Ranging, a sensor(传感器) that uses a laser(激光)to measure the distance between objects. With this technology, the small robot can pull nearly 25 pounds. The company says Atlas can also handle objects in its environment, cross rough land, keep its balance when pushed and get back up when knocked down.
Three years ago, Atlas was recorded clumsily walking through the snow at a slow speed. Curiosity about Atlas increased last year when Boston Dynamics posted a video clip on YouTube. In it, the previously awkward robot goes for a jog in a grassy area. The video seemed to surprise many viewers, including the newspaper called Daily Mail. The newspaper was reporting on Atlas’s physical accomplishment at the time.
The paper wrote, “If you thought you’d be able to run away from the terrifying new robots, bad news.”
1. What is the main idea of the passage?| A．Robots mimicking humans and animals go popular. |
| B．Boston Dynamics is likely to create more new robots. |
| C．Humanlike robots are developing at a surprising speed. |
| D．A new video of the latest robots makes people amused. |
| A．Dangerous. | B．Unskillful. |
| C．Graceful. | D．Convenient. |
| A．A science magazine. |
| B．An advertisement. |
| C．Children’s literature. |
| D．A fantasy novel. |
【推荐3】As many as 3.9 per cent of people have aphantasia (心盲症), the inability to picture images in their heads. But formally diagnosing (诊断) the condition is difficult. A simple physiological test involving a webcam could one day offer a solution.
Rebecca Keogh at Macquarie University in Australia and her colleagues have studied the effectiveness of a test they have developed for aphantasia by recruiting 56 people without the condition and 18 people who said they have it.
The test is based on changes to pupil (瞳孔) size. Looking at a bright object causes a person’s pupils to constrict while dim objects cause the pupils to dilate (扩大). The researchers guessed that a similar effect could be observed if people were told to imagine a bright or dark object.
In their tests, the researchers tracked each person’s pupil size using an infrared (红外的) camera. They showed a participant a bright image of an object on a screen for 5 seconds, and told him/her to memorize it. After the image disappeared, the participant’s pupils returned to their original size. He/She was asked to imagine the object in his/her head. This task was repeated until he/she had looked at 16 bright images and 16 dark images. The pupils of all participants changed in response to seeing bright and dark images on the screen. About 90 per cent of those without aphantasia also showed pupil size changes when told to imagine those images. However, the same was true of just 39 per cent of people who said they had aphantasia.
Thomas Andrillon at the Paris Brain Institute suggests the test could one day be used to check if someone has aphantasia. But Keogh says the test still needs to be refined before it can be used widely. “We cannot run this study without access to infrared glasses that can measure pupil size,” she says. This is because the pupil size changes seen in those without aphantasia are still very small—a change in diameter (直径) of about 0.2 to 0.4 millimetres. The team wants to gather more data with larger sample sizes and hopes to develop a test that can be done at home via a laptop webcam.
1. What can we do to diagnose aphantasia?| A．Changing the pupil size. | B．Imagining images in the head. |
| C．Tracking a similar effect via a laptop. | D．Doing a physiological test with a webcam. |
| A．By analyzing data. | B．By classifying facts. |
| C．By making comparisons. | D．By giving detailed examples. |
| A．The infrared camera interrupts participants’ behaviors. |
| B．Images on the screen changed in response to pupil movements. |
| C．All participants’ pupils change according to imagined images. |
| D．An infrared camera can detect aphantasia by tracking pupil changes. |
| A．Diagnosing aphantasia still has a long way to go. |
| B．Access to infrared glasses is not a necessity in the test. |
| C．A laptop webcam can be widely used to cure aphantasia. |
| D．Data with sample sizes are quite enough to confirm the result. |
【推荐1】People’s likelihood of being vegetarian seems to be influenced by several genetic variants, and two of the three most important genes found so far appear to be involved in fat metabolism (新陈代谢).
Genetic factors are known to influence aspects of diet, such as whether people like coffee or alcohol. To see if genes also affect vegetarianism, Nabeel Yaseen at Northwestern University in Chicago and his team turned to data on about 5300 strict vegetarians and 330,000 meat eaters. They found that three gene variants were more common in vegetarians. Two, called NPC1 and RMC1, are involved in the transport and metabolism of cholesterol and other fatty molecules. The third gene, called RIOK3, has various functions, including affecting the immune system.
It isn’t known how these genes may relate to vegetarianism. But one of the chief differences between animal-based foods and plant-based ones is the chemical make-up of their fats or oils, collectively known as lipids (油脂). Yaseen conclude that some people may function better on a vegetarian diet because they are more able to synthesize (合成) certain lipid molecules that are present in meat.
Some people who try vegetarianism but give up may be doing so because their body becomes deficient in the essential lipids, says Yaseen. “They decide that this diet is not for them or gradually go back into an omnivore (杂食) diet. Some people might think they just don’t have the willpower.”
Another possibility is that the apparently vegetarianism-promoting gene variants affect people’s taste. “Alot of information about genes is yet to be known,” Yaseen says.
Richard McIlwain at the UK Vegetarian Society says the number of vegetarians has almost doubled in the UK between 2012 and 2019. “That would seem to suggest something other than potential genetic factors are at play,” he says. “People go vegetarian because, more and more, they are concerned about climate, about animal welfare or about their health,” he says, which are more important determinants than physiological factors.
1. What’s the effect of RIOK3?| A．To affect the metabolism of cholesterol. | B．To influence the immune system. |
| C．To shift cholesterol and fatty molecules. | D．To affect the diet of vegetarianism. |
| A．Omnivores. | B．Meat-eaters. | C．Vegetarians. | D．Weight-losers. |
| A．lacking. | B．limited. | C．rich. | D．enough. |
| A．Genetic factors are the decisive reasons for being a vegetarian. |
| B．The popularity of vegetarianism has been on a sharp increase globally. |
| C．People choose to be a vegetarian mainly for ethical and health concerns. |
| D．Some people fail to be a vegetarian because they tend to give up halfway. |
【推荐2】Li Ziqi, a vlogger who enjoys a fan base of more than 21 million people on Sina Weibo and 7 million strong followers on YouTube, has made a name for herself in her videos that highlight a traditional Chinese way of life in the rural areas of Sichuan Province. Her videos cover a wide variety of crafts related to traditional Chinese culture. From making paper and ink to weaving cloth, from making a silk quilt comforter for her grandmother to building her own bread kiln with blocks, nothing seems impossible with Li’s crafty hands as they work their magic to bring these things into existence. But Li’s most eye-catching, and mouth-watering craft is cooking.
Li scarcely speaks in her videos. When she does open her mouth, the most common phrase that comes out is her calling her grandmother to come and eat. Instead of dialogue, Li focuses on how she works with her hands. Watching her videos, it is difficult not to appreciate their beauty and hold back that sense of nostalgia (怀旧) and longing for home. But it is even harder not to want to take a bite of her succulent dishes, which really remind viewers of taste of our childhood and home.
Glamorous as her present life may seem, life was difficult for her during her youth as she and her grandparents had little to live on. Li herself revealed that she was “economically supported” to continue schooling. She started to work in the city at 14 and would not have returned to her childhood home if not for her grandmother falling ill in 2012. After returning home, Li opened an online shop, Li Ziqi, to sell mostly edible products. To boost sales, she began making short films in 2016 about how these products were created, while covering her life in the rural area, all against the backdrop of traditional Chinese aesthetics (审美). “I started it because I wanted to create something for people to watch and relax. We are all under a lot of stress. I hoped that after a long and busy day, they could click on my videos and relieve some of their anxiety and pressure,” Li said.
However, Li is not without criticism, such as remarks about her “beautifying” life in the country and her use of a professional production crew to help her film. Others have expressed skepticism about how “real” her videos are, and how “amazing it is that she looks so picture perfect after a long day of work in the fields.”
1. According to the passage, we can know the following EXCEPT .| A．it was her grandmother‟ falling ill that made her return to her hometown |
| B．masses of viewers from both home and abroad are hooked by her videos |
| C．she never opens her mouth in her videos because she has difficulty in speaking |
| D．many viewers speak highly of her videos while some of them throw doubt on her |
| A．Aggressive and strong-willed. | B．Crafty and considerate. |
| C．Humorous and stubborn. | D．Ambitious and severe. |
| A．Many hands make light work | B．An idle youth, a needy age |
| C．Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful | D．God helps those who help themselves |
| A．Young vlogger tells story of China in picturesque videos |
| B．An Internet celebrity makes delicious dishes |
| C．Relaxing videos are made with passion |
| D．The more traditional, the more popular |
【推荐3】Lens fogging (镜片起雾) has been troubling glasses wearers for as long as glasses have existed; it happens more often to those needing to wear masks (口罩). Researchers from ETH Zurich in Switzerland may have finally come up with a lasting solution to the problem that works whether someone is wearing a mask, or they’ve just come inside from the cold.
There’s no real mystery as to the foggy lenses. It happens when moisture (水分) in wet air, or from someone’s breath, hits a glasses lens that’s colder than said moisture, which then becomes obvious drops. It happens a lot in the winter, when people are coming in from the outside to warm places, or when people breathe out with masks, the warm, wet air goes upwards.
It’s also a problem that plagues car windows, making it hard for a driver to see. The simple solution here is to heat the windows. But adding electric heaters to glasses, which are designed to be lightweight and comfortable to wear, isn’t really a choice. So ETH Zurich researchers came up with another way to heat glasses lenses. They rely on a new type of glass coating that effectively does the same thing.
The coating is made from very thin gold in such small amounts that the added cost would be very small. The gold takes in a kind of light from the sun, causing glasses lenses to heat up to eight degrees. By doing this, it can prevent moisture in the air from forming on the glasses. The coating also cannot be seen by human eyes, not influencing people’s views. Because it’s so thin, the coating can even be applied to surfaces that are not flat.
But this method isn’t perfect. As the gold draws the energy it needs to heat lenses from the sun, the coating won’t do much good in the winter months, when it starts to get dark by late afternoon. But the researchers believe that even a small amount of electricity, like from a battery hidden away in the arms of a pair of glasses, would be enough. And with gold being one of the most valuable metals on earth and still in high demand, the researchers are looking for other metals to replace it.
1. What has annoyed glasses wearers for long?| A．The need to wear masks. | B．Lenses being broken easily. |
| C．Lenses often getting foggy. | D．Discomfort of wearing glasses. |
| A．How to keep your glasses clear. | B．When moisture becomes drops. |
| C．What weakness glasses have. | D．Why glasses get foggy. |
| A．Changes. | B．Controls. | C．Troubles. | D．Measures. |
| A．making the glasses reflective | B．using sunlight to heat the glasses |
| C．smoothing the surface of the glasses | D．taking in the moisture on the glasses |
| A．It’s limited by temperature. | B．It’s used on few surfaces. |
| C．It’s not thin enough. | D．It’s energy-wasting. |
