2 . My phone was an extension of myself. I couldn’t go anywhere _________ it. I scrolled through my friends’ _________ into late night and turned my phone on before my eyes were fully open. I enjoyed having it until that day when I realized that what had started as a useful tool had turned into a(n) _________. So, I made a _________ decision to turn off that smartphone and _________ my old dumb phone out of hiding.

When I was watching TV shows or movies and there was a boring part, I _________ picking up the phone and checking out “what everyone else was doing.” Now I had to pay attention or find a way to _________ myself with my thoughts instead. When I visited New York City, I had to write out _________ and ask people where an intersection (十字路口) was _________ pulling out my phone.

I have welcomed silence into my life with open arms and am enjoying the increased __________ from not constantly having to fight with the __________ to check my phone while I’m trying to get something done. I am allowing my thoughts to speak to me instead of my phone. I am connecting with others in a __________ way that isn’t all about me. Instead of always posting about what’s going on in my __________ perfect life, I am connecting with my friends one-on-one, talking about the reality of our lives and being there for them from a place of __________.

As much as having a smartphone was __________, not having one is freeing on a much bigger level.

5 . Five years ago, my husband and I bought a farm.

As we restore the land, I feel my well-being _______ . I think the farm is also working its magic on our son. Since he was 20, he has lived with mental illness. Just when it couldn’t get any worse, an unexpected _______ occurred in my life. We _______ the farm.

It has taken a couple of years to _______ the land, seed the lawn and build garden beds. The farm was holding our _______ together. Before my son went to treatment, we planted a “guild” (同一目的协会) in the old farm to support the health of trees by grouping other helpful plants around them. We dug around the _______ trees and placed in garlic, wildflowers, etc and the garden seems to grow well.

We also learned how to _______ others. Our workman worked steadily and helped when I asked. Asking for help is a principle in the recovery community, a lesson my son is _______ . The desire to recover this land has _______ in me. I have seen this ________ towards restoration in my son as well. It truly does take a village to rebuild a farm and a(an) ________ . And my son has found his own kind of guild that ________ him.

Owning a farm was never our ________ , but it came when our family needed a ________ project. Digging is an act of faith, hope and ________ of what will appear next.

6 . History suggests that societies generally overestimate the short-term implications of new technologies while underestimating longer-term ones. Current experience with artificial intelligence — the technology enabled by machine-learning — suggests we are getting it ______ this time. There’s too much talk about the potential “______ risk” to humanity posed by AI, and too little about our experience of it so far and corporate plans for exploiting the technology.

Although AI has been hiding in plain sight for a decade, it took most people by surprise. The appearance of ChatGPT last November signaled that the world had discovered a powerful new technology. Not for nothing is this new “generative AI” called “______”: it provides the base on which the next wave of digital innovation will be built.

It is also transformational in innumerable ways: it weakens centuries-old conceptions of intellectual property, ______, and it has the potential radically to increase productivity, reshape industries, change the nature of some kinds of work and so on. On top of that, though, it also raises troubling questions about the ______ of humans and their capabilities.

The continuing dispute between the Hollywood studios and screenwriters’ and actors’ unions perfectly illustrates the ______ of the challenges posed by AI. Both groups are up in arms about the way online streaming has reduced their earnings. But the writers also fear their role will be ______ simply to rewriting AI-generated scripts; and actors are concerned that detailed digital scanning ______ by new movie contracts will allow studios to create persuasive deepfakes of them that studios will be able to own and use “for the rest of eternity (永久), in any project they want, with no permission and no compensation”.

So the key question for democracies is: how can we ensure AI is used for human flourishing ______ corporate gain? On this question, the news from ______ is not good. A recent study by two renowned economists, Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson, of 1,000 years of technological progress shows that although some benefits have usually trickled (流) down to the ______, the rewards have — with one exception — invariably gone to those who own and control the technology.

The “______” was a period in which democracies fostered countervailing powers (抵消力量) — civil-society organisations, free media, activists, trade unions and other progressive, technically informed institutions that supplied a steady flow of ideas about how technology could be repurposed for ______ rather than exclusively for private profit. This is the lesson from history that societies confronted by the AI challenge need to relearn.

There are some signs that governments may finally have realized the problem. The EU, for example, has an ambitious and far-reaching AI Act that is making its way through the union’s processes. In the US, the Biden administration recently published a “Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights”, which looks impressive but is ______ just a list of aspirations that some of the big tech companies claim to share.

It’s a start — provided governments don’t forget that leaving the implementation of powerful new technologies solely to corporations is always a(n) ______ idea.

7 . One day, Joyce Chancellor purchased an old diary at auction. She was _______ to research the diarist, wondering how important the diary could be to his or her _______.

The inside front cover had the name and address of Mattie Leola. The diary chronicled (按事件发生顺序记载) events in a young professional woman’s life over a five-year period, including her college _______ in 1931, her first teaching position the next year, and her other experiences.

_______ from the diary led Chancellor to documents on websites and Chancellor learned that Mattie was born to a couple who had been enslaved. Years later, she was making _______ .In the 1930s, Mattie became the first African American woman to be principal in the Detroit School District. “Given the fact of the political and general _______ during that time towards people of color, Mattie defied the odds (排除万难),” Chancellor says.

Eventually the diary provided an important clue about Mattie’s possible descendants: an/a _______ that simply read “He asked me to _______ him tonight!” Census (人口普查) records led Chancellor to one son, Robert. Searches on Google and social media _______ his address — in Arizona.

After several ________, Robert finally responded to a private Facebook message from Chancellor and agreed to a ________. “I gave Robert the diary and showed him where his father had proposed to his mother,” Chancellor recalls. “He went on to tell me that Mattie had kept ________, as an adult, but he had never seen one from prior to her getting married. He was ________. Looking at him, one could tell how much it meant to him. ”

“Returning the diary to Mattie’s son was a/an ________ experience,” says Chancellor. “It was an amazing journey getting to know her. Mattie made her ________ in this world, and she will not be forgotten.”

9 . The homelessness epidemic is now going to be solved in a unique way by two Seattle-born non- profit organizations. Through “The BLOCK Project”, tiny_________ homes are being built in the backyards of the volunteers, to be_________ to the homeless of the neighborhood.

Founder of the BLOCK, Rex Hohlbein joined Facing Homelessness, another non-profit organization to_________ the project. The latter one has the_________ of finding lands, on which the BLOCK will be responsible to_________ small, low-emission housing. Meanwhile, thousands of Seattle residents have already offered their backyards for the project. ________, the government also ________ to make the process legally convenient.

Seattle has been facing a dual problem of having ________ housing on one hand, and the country’s 3rd largest homeless community on the other. In such context, Hohlbein ________ that willingness of kind neighbors could_________ a better and quicker solution than a long waiting for state assistance.

The goal of the project is to introduce the globally changing definition of accommodation brought by Airbnb. According to Hohlbein, in his childhood, he thought it ________ to think about ________ strangers in any regular household just in ________ for little money. But Airbnb has made the concept_________. Through the project, Hohlbein aims to_________ the same kind of “cultural shift” with sustainable housing, starting from the grass-root level of local neighborhoods.

10 . In modern cities, it is now time as much as space that separates urban functions, as people’s lives are lived not only to different timetables, but also at wildly different rates. The mass timetable of the industrial city, with 9-5 office hours and silent Sundays, has gone. In its ______ is flexi-time, part-time working, Sunday shopping and the 24-hour city.

European cities are ______ these changes perhaps faster than British cities. In at least half a dozen cities in Italy, ______, you will find the Uffici Tempi--the Offices of Time. What they do is try to reorganise time more flexibly in the city, in order to meet new needs. This is particularly relevant for Italian women, an increasing number of whom have to ______ two timetables: work and home. Usually located in the Mayor’s office, the Uffici Tempi bring together transport providers, shop-owners, employers, trade unions, the police and other services to see how their efforts might be better ______. The main aim in all this is to increase the efficiency and productivity of the city. This can mean delaying the starting tunes in schools, offices and factories to avoid rush hours, or having shops opening later in the day but closing later too. One further ______ is that there can be more police about in the evening, patrolling the streets when people most need them.

In a number of German cities, people have been ______ whether the timetable of the future city should be 6x6 or 4x9--working hours, that is. Apparently male workers favour a four-day week, while women workers, on the other hand, favour ______ shorter working days. This would give employees more time in the afternoon to be with children or to get the shopping.

The ______ for public services to adapt to our changing lifestyles has been quite difficult for some of the staff involved. ______, who likes working evenings or Sundays? Nevertheless, many city centres are now open for shopping seven days a week, and a number of them now promote themselves as ‘24-hour cities’, where those with money can drink, eat, dance and even shop the whole ______.

Time is flexible, but buildings aren’t. The ______ between the structure of the city and its uses, over time, is a serious architectural and planning problem. ______ has become the key skill. We are slowly ______ the terms of dormitory suburbs and industrial districts, in favour of mixed- use areas, out-of-town retailing and working from home. There is no doubt that planning theory is being ______ by the changing nature of time in the modern city.