【推荐1】The new and publicly-available ChatGPT is a type of AI that has been “trained” by looking at over 8 million web pages. When asked a question, ChatGPT uses this training to produce detailed answers that often seem like they were written by a human. You can ask it anything and it will give you answers to not only follow-up questions but also professional questions (although it does sometimes make mistakes). You can also ask it to write text, such as short stories or essays. The technology is so promising (有前途的) that some people believe it will overtake(超过) Google in the near future.

For many years it has been expected that AI will become an important part of our lives, and for just as long there have been concerns of the trouble that AI could cause. In the 20th century, scientists, philosophers and writers sometimes worried that AI would become too powerful. In the short story I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream, a giant supercomputer has killed every human on earth except five people it keeps to torture(折磨). And in the 1984 film The Terminator, a powerful AI called Skynet uses time travel to send a robot into the past to try and kill the mother of a brave and strong fighter. On the other hand, some people were optimistic of advanced technologies’ potential (潜力) to build a better world. In the 1960s TV show Lost in Space, a family of humans were helped by a friendly robot named Robby.

Nowadays, there is less concern of an all-powerful AI trying to destroy the world, and we are not expecting friendly robots just yet. That doesn’t mean there is not a lot of excitement and concern being felt towards new technologies like AI, though. ChatGPT is a great example of a modern technology that is causing mixed feelings.

It’s too soon to say what kind of influence ChatGPT will have on our lives. Let’s hope that, if ChatGPT does become bigger and more popular, its effects are mostly positive. So, what do you think? Will ChatGPT be good, bad, or somewhere in between for humankind?

African penguins stand only 50 centimeters tall. Like people, each penguin has its own voice. They live along the southern coast of Africa. Like all the other penguins, they hunt fish in the ocean and lay eggs on land. But they are smaller than their well-known cousins in Antarctica and larger than little penguins in Australia and blue penguins in New Zealand. But the African penguins have a problem — they are endangered.

The African penguins used to nest (筑巢) underground in the guano, or bird poop (粪便). The guano came from the penguins and other seabirds. Over hundreds of years, it had built up to form a thick layer as deep as 3 meters.

However, in the 1860s, people began collecting the guano to use it on farms. Now there’s no more guano to make nests. The penguins have to lay their eggs in the open. As a result, the penguins often get too hot. When the parents leave the eggs to cool themselves down in the water, other animals can easily find the eggs and eat them.

Some scientists wanted to help. They created artificial (人造的) nests to protect the African penguins. But the penguins didn’t use them. The nests often got too hot.

To solve the problem, the scientists set up an artificial nest project in 2016. They came up with criteria for the nest. It had to protect penguin eggs from being eaten. It couldn’t flood in the rain. And it needed to keep penguin families cool. The scientists built 15 kinds of nests to find the perfect one. Finally two of them stood out. Both of them could let air flow through. The scientists plan to build more than 2,500 nests for the African penguins in the future. They hope the new nests can help increase the number of the endangered birds.

【推荐3】Look around your home. Electricity powers the lights. It makes the TV and refrigerator work.     1    

Lots of the electricity you use is from western China. The place is rich in resources (资源) such as water, wind and coal (煤).     2     Then, the electricity is sent to eastern China through long lines.

China started the west-to-east power transmission program (“西电东送”工程) in 2000. In July last year, an important part of the program began to work—the Baihetan Jiangsu project.     3     Baihetan is the world’s second-largest power station. It makes about 30 billion kWh of electricity every year. It is enough for people in Nanjing to use for half a year! The electricity needs to go about 2, 080 kilometers from Sichuan to Jiangsu. But it only takes about 0.007 seconds.

    4     It helps cut CO₂ emissions (二氧化碳排放) by over 25 million tons every year. That’s about the same amount of CO₂ that 4. 6 million cars make in a year.