Below are several things that will have happened by the mid-point of this century both for the good and bad.
Right now, people are focused on AI potentially causing job losses but the reality could be far worse. George Stakhov said, “By 2050, AI will have profoundly(深刻地) reshaped the world. There is a dark AI future where those who control AI will gain huge power, while 99 percent of the population will be disenfranchised(剥夺权利) .The AI lords will control the world’s data and turn the rest of us into their serfs. The alternative is a bright AI scenario, where everyone benefits from AI through better healthcare, faster transport and less pollution.”
Futurist and former Google engineer Ray Kurzweil says that people will merge with machines by 2025. In an event he describes as the “Singularity”, Kurzweil predicts that by 2045, people will connect their brains to machines. “I have set a date for the Singularity in 2045, which is when we will increase our effective intelligence a billionfold by merging with the intelligence we have created.”
Alien-hunting astronomer Seth Shostak bet fellow astronomers that we should find aliens within two dozen years. That means we could be in contact with ET by 2036. Shostak has since doubled down on his prediction, saying that newer measurements suggest there could be billions of Earth-like worlds. That means if the Earth is the only place with life, it’s like a winner in a lottery where the odds are a billion to one. That may be the strongest argument for life in space.
Soaring humidity (湿度) and heat will lead to heatwaves where it is almost impossible for humans to survive outdoors in areas including South Asia, the Persian Gulf, and the Red Sea. By 2070, this will also be true in areas of Brazil and China. “Wet bulb” temperatures refer to conditions where temperature and humidity are high, making it hard to survive outdoors. Humans can survive temperatures of up to 50℃ when humidity is low, but in high humidity, humans cannot survive because there is no way to cool down by sweating. Even extremely strong and fit people die within hours. Large areas of the Earth might be uninhabitable.
1. What is the dark AI future according to George Stakhov?A.AI will hold power over humans. |
B.Humans will earn a basic low wage. |
C.Humans will have to serve as AI’s masters. |
D.AI will become the owner of the Earth. |
A.Doubtful. | B.Approving. | C.Cautious. | D.Negative. |
A.Heatwaves occur in most areas in the world. |
B.High humidity causes people to sweat a lot. |
C.Huge areas of the Earth might be uninhabitable. |
D.People can’t live in low humidity for a long time. |
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【推荐1】It’s Friday morning in the year 2050, and you’re running late. You got carried away watching the music video that is playing in the corner of your bathroom mirror while you were brushing your teeth. How will you get to your office at Mega Giga Industries on time?
A quick check of your Internet-connected refrigerator tells you your train is a bit behind schedule, too. So you decide to drive your environmentally hydrogen fuel(环保氢燃料)car instead-or rather, let your car drive you. It’s programmed to know the way and it will get you there without getting lost.
Settling into your office chair, which changes color to match what you’re wearing, you pick up yesterday morning’s newspaper. Printed on reusable electronic paper, it rewrites itself. Now it’s time for your big meeting. Uh-oh! You’ve left your handwritten notes at home. No problem. The smartpen you used has stored an electronic copy of what you wrote.
Your wristwatch videophone(可视电话)suddenly rings. Your best friend’s face pops up on the screen asking what you’re doing this weekend. Will you play virtual soccer with the U.S. Olympic team? No, no. Your friend says, so you have to take the new elevator (made of microscopic fibers many times stronger than steel) 60000 miles into space.
Could this scene really take place in just a couple of decades? The researchers who are now developing all these things think so. These high-tech products(高科技产品)may be as common in 20 years as cell phones today.
1. How many high-tech products are mentioned in the text?A.Four. | B.Six. |
C.Eight. | D.Ten. |
A.drive your smartcar instead |
B.take the spaceship instead |
C.wait for the next train |
D.work at home |
A.Space tourism will be a reality. |
B.Transportation will be trouble-free. |
C.People will have more time to enjoy themselves. |
D.Videophones will replace face-to-face communications. |
A.Great Changes in Future | B.Modern Times |
C.Life in the Future | D.Development in Technology |
【推荐2】It’s possible that interstellar space explorers could come across problems communicating with previous and subsequent arrivals, as their spoken language has changed in isolation along the way.
Regarding the issue, two American scholars, Andrew McKenzie and Jeffrey Punske, co-authored the article “Language Development During Interstellar Travel”. What has been discussed in the article is the concept of language change over time. They wrote that given more time, new grammatical forms can completely replace current ones.
In a recent interview, McKenzie gamed it out.
“If you’re on a spaceship for 10 generations, new concepts will emerge, new social issues will come up, and people will create ways of talking about them,” McKenzie said, “and these will become the vocabulary particular to the spaceship. People on Earth might never know about these words, unless there’s a reason to tell them. And the further away you get, the less you’re going to talk to people back home.”
So if we have Earth English and spaceship English, and they become different over the years, you will have to learn a little Earth English to send messages back, or to read the instruction manuals and information that come with the spaceship.
Also, keep in mind that the language back on Earth is going to change, too, during that time. So they may well be communicating like we’d be using Latin—communicating with this version of the language nobody uses.
The authors concluded that if a study of the linguistic changes aboard a spaceship could be performed, it would “add to its scientific value”.
1. What does paragraph 2 mainly talk about?A.Two American scholars. | B.Interstellar space exploration. |
C.Language evolution on Earth. | D.The article by McKenzie and Punske. |
A.Offered a new concept. | B.Made a further study. |
C.Gave a detailed explanation. | D.Lost the game completely. |
A.They tend to communicate in Latin. |
B.They keep themselves updated on Earth English. |
C.They don’t-feel much like talking to people on Earth. |
D.They switch from spaceship English to Earth English. |
A.Why space travelers change their language. | B.How language is changed in the future time. |
C.The language issue during interstellar travel. | D.New concepts of language created in a spaceship. |
【推荐3】New Scientist magazine’s chief reporter Adam recently published “Net-zero living: how your day will look in a carbon-neutral (碳中和) world”. Here, he imagines what a typical day would be like in the future — through the eyes of Isla, a child in 2050.
Isla lives in the south of the United Kingdom and her life looks pretty much like life does today: she has a house, a car, a job, and a cup of tea in the morning. There are great forests, and giant machines sucking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. It all sounds like a green and pleasant land, but it didn’t sound like the future to me.
It’s an interesting exercise, imagining what it will be like in about 30 years. I thought I would give it a try: here is some speculative fiction about Edie, living in Toronto, Canada in 2050.
Edie lives in the garage in an old house that is her apartment and workshop. She considers herself to be very lucky to have this garage in what was her grandparents’ house. The only people who live in houses these days either get the houses from their parents or are multi-millionaires from all over the world, desperate to move to Canada with its cooler climate and plentiful water and are able to afford the million-dollar immigrant visa fee.
Edie is lucky to be working. There are no office or industrial jobs anymore: Artificial Intelligence and robots took care of that. The few jobs left are in service, culture, craft, health care, or real estate (房地产). In fact, selling real estate has become the nation’s biggest industry.
There may be lots of electricity from wind and solar farms, but even running tiny heat pumps for cooling is really expensive at peak times. The streets are unpleasantly hot, so many people sleep through the midday.
Now Edie is checking the balance in her Personal Carbon Allowance (PCA) account to see if she has enough to buy another imported battery for her e-bike. If she doesn’t have enough then, she will have to buy carbon credits, and they are expensive. She sets her alarm for 6:00 p.m. when the streets of Toronto will come alive again on this hot November day.
1. What does the author think of Isla’s life?A.Desirable. | B.Unappealing. |
C.Unachievable. | D.Exciting. |
A.Many people will immigrate abroad. | B.Its climate will get colder and colder. |
C.Electricity will be very cheap to use. | D.The house prices will be extremely high. |
A.The house problem. | B.Being out of work. |
C.The balance of her bank account. | D.The energy consumption. |
A.To point out Adam’s unreasonable thinking. |
B.To compare the present life and the future life. |
C.To imagine the life after reducing carbon emissions. |
D.To raise people’s awareness of environmental protection. |
【推荐1】Most kids grow up learning they cannot draw on the walls. But it might be time to unlearn that training — this summer, a group of culture addicts, artists and community organizers are inviting New Yorkers to write all over the walls of an old house on Governor’s Island.
The project is called Writing On It All, and it’s a participatory writing project and artistic experiment that has happened on Governor’s Island every summer since 2013.
“Most of the participants are people who are just walking by or are on the island for other reasons, or they just kind of happen to be there,” Alexandra Chasin, artistic director of Writing On It All, tells Smithsonian.com.
The 2016 season runs through June 26 and features sessions facilitated by everyone from dancers to domestic workers. Each session has a theme, and participants are given a variety of materials and prompts and asked to cover surfaces with their thoughts and art. This year, the programs range from one that turns the house into a collaborative essay to one that explores the meaning of exile (流放).
Governor’s Island is a national historic landmark district long used for military purposes. Now known as “New York’s shared space for art and play,” the island, which lies between Manhattan and Brooklyn in Upper New York Bay, is closed to cars but open to summer tourists who flock for festivals, picnics, adventures, as well as these “legal graffiti (涂鸦)” sessions.
The notes and art scribbled (涂画) on the walls are an experiment in self-expression. So far, participants have ranged in age from 2 to 85. Though Chasin says the focus of the work is on the activity of writing, rather than the text that ends up getting written, some of the work that comes out of the sessions has stuck with her.
“One of the sessions that moved me the most was state violence on black women and black girls,” says Chasin, explaining that in one room, people wrote down the names of those killed because of it. “People do beautiful work and leave beautiful messages.”
1. What does the project Writing On It All invite people to do?A.Unlearn their training in drawing. |
B.Participate in a state graffiti show. |
C.Cover the walls of an old house with graffiti. |
D.Exhibit their artistic creations in an old house. |
A.They were free to scribble on the walls whatever came to their mind. |
B.They expressed their thoughts in graffiti on the theme of each session. |
C.They learned the techniques of collaborative writing. |
D.They were required to cooperate with other creators. |
A.It is a historic site that attracts tourists and artists. |
B.It is an area now accessible only to tourist vehicles. |
C.It is a place in Upper New York Bay formerly used for exiles. |
D.It is an open area for tourists to enjoy themselves year round. |
A.It just focused on the sufferings of black females. |
B.It helped expand the influence of graffiti art. |
C.It has started the career of many creative artists. |
D.It has created some meaningful artistic works. |
【推荐2】Sharing E Umbrella, a new umbrella sharing company based in Shenzhen, China, recently announced that it had lost most of the 300, 000 umbrellas since it was set up.
China’s sharing economy has been growing rapidly, with companies offering anything from bicycles and basketballs to phone batteries for people to rent. Customers make a small deposit (押金) and get to use the thing for a daily cost, with a fine put in place for every day if they fail to return the product in time. It’s a simple business model, and market data shows that people see sharing as a cheap and convenient way to cut down waste.
Zhao Shuping founded the Sharing E Umbrella, an umbrella sharing service, in April. By the end of June, he had already started in 11 major Chinese cities, including Shanghai, Nanjing and Guangzhou. While picking up the umbrellas was relatively simple, as they were made available (可得到的) at bus and subway stations, the return system turned out to be a different matter. “Umbrellas are different from bicycles,” Mr. Zhao told Chinese news site ThePaper.cn. “Bikes can be parked anywhere, but with an umbrella you need something to hang it on.”
So instead of bothering to return the umbrellas back to a station, a lot of people just took them home, and Sharing E Umbrella has reportedly lost track of most of the 300,000 umbrellas. Considering that borrowing umbrellas requires a 19 yuan deposit, with a fee of 0.50 yuan per half an hour usage, Zhao says that he suffers a loss of 60 yuan per lost umbrella, so the company is now in the red, but he is not ready to stop it just yet. Zhao announces that Sharing E Umbrella still plans to roll out (推出) 30 million nationwide by the end of the year.
1. What do we know about Sharing E Umbrella?A.It makes people learn to help each other. |
B.It needs people to make a small deposit first. |
C.It developed faster in the western countries. |
D.It produces more waste and causes disorder. |
A.The company had no money to produce umbrellas. |
B.Umbrellas are not allowed to hang anywhere. |
C.Lots of customers didn’t give the umbrellas back. |
D.People refuse to pay deposit for the umbrellas. |
A.0.5 yuan. | B.19 yuan. |
C.60 yuan. | D.120 yuan. |
A.Zhao has found a way to get the umbrellas back |
B.Zhao will continue his umbrella sharing service |
C.Most of Zhao’s companies have been closed |
D.Sharing E Umbrella is a failure for Zhao |
【推荐3】In many of artist Liu Chang's digital art projects, she explores the deeper connections human beings have with nature and technology as a whole, and tries to use technology to remind people of the beauty, love and moment in life that we have and ignore in the digital world.
“When you leave, there will be no photo and no proof, but you were there, no doubt, and you can only embrace this flickering moment,” Liu said while expressing the reason behind not wanting photos taken in front of her interactive video installation, a project she named “Random Walker.”
On the other hand, Liu has truly incorporated the gift that technology has brought her. In “Nature and Algorithm,” she used algorithm in programming images of nature and landscape.
“Whether it’s nature, technology or us as human beings in between, the evolution that nature undergoes revolves around human beings, the two influencing each other symbiotically,” she said.
As her work is juxtaposing, it is also calming and aesthetically challenging, asking us to reexamine our relationships with nature and technology. Liu’s work not only makes us take interest in works that are visually attractive, but also encourages us to enjoy art from more dimensions.
This is perhaps how the era of big data and smartphones has shifted our attention and narrowed our views. For instance, when we go out for dinner but don’t take a picture, post it on Instagram, does it mean that this dinner didn’t happen? This is also why I didn’t like photos to be taken at the exhibition of “Random Walker:” you cannot capture the moment by just taking a photo of it anyway. The best way to interact with the device in this project was to simply look at it. You could just stare and go into a long meditation.
1. What is the purpose of Liu Chang’s project “Random Walker”?A.To help people enjoy the beauty in life. |
B.To remind people of the environmental problems. |
C.To reexamine the relationship between humans and nature. |
D.To show the importance of technology in environmental protection. |
A.That people watched her videos. | B.That visitors took photos of her works. |
C.That her friends brought her birthday gifts. | D.That algorithm was used in digital art projects. |
A.Algorithm in photo making. | B.The evolution of nature. |
C.Digital exhibition. | D.Natural landscape. |
A.Big data and smartphones change people’s view of nature. |
B.We’d better not take photos while having dinner. |
C.One can enjoy Liu’s works by taking photos. |
D.Liu’s works are difficult to understand. |