My daughter and I were fans of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, an educational children’s television series created and hosted by Mister Rogers.

Around my daughter’s second birthday, I had an idea. Why not _______ one key person in my daughter’s world to dinner?

I wanted to start at the top.

“Let’s invite Mister Rogers himself,” I said to my wife. “After all, he lives just a few neighborhoods away. I _______ he’d come.”

She looked at me as if I wanted to invite the President. “You really think Mister Rogers would come to our house for dinner? Fat chance!”

Undeterred (不气馁的), I sent a _______ to Mister Rogers, telling him of my joy in his show, and inviting him and Mrs. Rogers to be our guests. I told my daughter about the invitation. Her face lit up with joy. “Mister Rogers coming? Really? Daddy?”

One month later, no reply. My daughter often asked when Mister Rogers would be visiting. I _______ told her that he hadn’t called yet. I even explained to her that it was a golden chance to learn about _______.

Two months later, no answer. At the three-month mark, my wife simply rolled her eyes when I raised the topic. I was beginning to _______ confidence. Mister Rogers had let me down.

A week later I was _______ to find a letter in our mailbox from Mister Rogers. The one-page typed letter was like something from an old friend. He apologized (道歉) for not _______ sooner. Also, he was glad to know my daughter’s enjoyment of his programme and thanked me for my comment on it.

Mister Rogers never came to dinner, but he shared much more valuable gifts with us: trust others, and sometimes the best presents in life come from a special ________.

The bell for lunch rang at Glendale Primary School. However, instead of moving to the dining hall like all the other children did, Jonah, a new student at the school, went to the library. Other than the noise of the air-conditioner, the library was quiet and not a single student could be seen in sight. Far in a corner, he saw Mrs Lim, the librarian, who was too busy shelving some books to pay any attention to him. The library was near to the dining hall. Jonah could hear children laughing and chatting. He wished he was outside playing with some friends but he told himself not to think about that.

Suddenly, Jonah heard a sound in the corner. He looked around and saw a pair of eyes looking at him from behind the bookshelves. Jonah turned back, eyes as wide as saucers (茶碟). “Oh dear!” he whispered. He peeked (窥视) over his shoulder again and saw a smaller boy walking towards him.

The boy pulled out the chair next to Jonah and sat down. “I’m Henry. Why are you reading here when you could be playing with your friends instead?” asked he.

“Uh ...” Jonah looked around the library, avoiding Henry’s gaze (注视). He did not want Henry to know the real reason why he was in the library. What would Henry think of him if he knew Jonah did not have any friends? It would make Jonah feel more uncomfortable.

As Jonah turned the page, he realized Henry was still sitting there, watching him steadily.

“I know how you feel. Just say hello to someone today,” Henry encouraged Jonah. “I’m sure they’ll react. Once you’ve made the first move, it just gets easier.”

Jonah thanked him for the advice before making his way out of the library. In the hallway outside the library, a boy from Jonah’s class was crouched on the floor, picking up pens and pencils that had dropped out of his pencil case. Jonah remembered what Henry had advised him to do.

“Hello, I’m Jonah. Let me help you,” he offered.

The boy looked up at him. “Thank you! My name is Ruben.”

Victory at last, Jonah thought, feeling proud of himself.

A company called OpenAI has recently announced a new version (版本) of its AI artist, DALL-E 2. Given just a short sentence describing a picture, the tool can create different pictures in many different styles.

The name “DALL-E” mixes the name of the robot in the movie WALL-E, and the name of the famous Spanish artist Salvador Dalí. He painted amazing, but impossible pictures. Like Dalí, DALL-E 2 can create pictures that are unbelievable, for example, Teddy bears doing crazy experiments as scientists.   

OpenAI has already changed the world once with its AI writing tool, GPT-3. GPT-3 was trained on a great deal of writing in many different styles. When it was released (发布) in 2020, it surprised people by quickly creating complete, well-written articles in different styles. It is so powerful that OpenAI has tried to be prudent when it comes to how it allows people to use the tool, to make sure that it isn’t used for harmful purposes.

DALL-E actually grew out of an effort to apply (应用) GPT-3 to pictures. OpenAI released the first version of DALL-E in 2021. DALL-E 2 is even more powerful. DALL-E 2 has been trained on huge numbers of pictures with matching descriptions, which means it “knows” a lot about how different things look, even when they’re shown in different styles, such as a photo, a painting or even a cartoon.

The user can select an area of an image (图像) and ask DALL-E 2 to put something into the picture, or take it out. Some artists are worried that it will take their place if a computer system can create such high-quality pictures so easily. OpenAI says the tool will allow artists to be creative in new ways.

To make sure the tool isn’t misused, OpenAI already has strict rules about the types of pictures that can be created with DALL-E. One of those rules prevents DALL-E from creating realistic pictures of actual (真实的) people. By now, the company hasn’t released DALL-E 2. Instead, it is allowing a small number of people to work with the tool to learn more about what works well, and to discover possible problems.