1 . The development of artificial intelligence (AI，人工智能)is a hot topic these days. AI makes it possible for machines to learn from experience and perform human-like tasks. But what is the future of AI? Will it be a good thing? We asked students what they think.
| I think AI will be more useful in our future lives. It’s now used in many fields like phones and medicine. No one really knows what will happen if machines become smarter than humans. However, I’m sure AI will help us solve problems. Tina |
| I am worried that people create something that can be better than themselves. In the near future, AI will develop at a high speed. Humans may be replaced because AI robots will do lots of human jobs. Bill |
| I really think that AI will change the way we work, the way we live, and the way we think. Imagine if we could. put a CPU (中央处理器)into our brains! Soon we’ll be able to improve our math and memory. How exciting! Mary |
| Think of what’s happening right now. Some robots are used to kill animals under human orders. So I think AI will be very dangerous for humans. We need to be careful about what we ask machines to do. John |
1. Tina thinks that AI will be ______.
| A．exciting | B．dangerous | C．helpful | D．surprising |
| A．Bill. | B．Mary. | C．Tina. | D．John. |
| A．A business magazine. | B．A travel guide. |
| C．A geography magazine. | D．A science magazine. |
2 . Bridging the gap between simple automation(自动化)and robots that can communicate with humans naturally is a big challenge, but major progress has been made in the past few years.
Research into social robots has shown that machines that respond to emotion(情感)can help the elderly and children, and could lead to robots becoming more widely socially acceptable.
Milo is both a robotic teacher and a student. Developers RoboKind created Milo to help children with autism(自闭症)learn more about emotional expression and empathy (共鸣) while collecting data on their progress to target learning and treatment. Milo's friendly face makes himself kind and the children are able to read his expressions.
Robots can also reduce stress in hospital settings. Expper Tech's Robin was designed as a robot to provide emotional support for children with medical treatment. Robin explains medical details to them, plays games and tells stories, and during treatment draws their attention away to reduce their feeling of pain.
Expper's robot uses Artificial Inteligence(AI) to create empathy, remembering expressions and conversations to build conversation for follow-up sessions. In trials at the Wigmore Medical Pediatric Clinic in Yerevan. Armenia, the team found that Robin led to a 34% weakening in stress and improve happiness of 26% in the 120 children who interacted(互动)with him at least once.
Today's simple systems are being trained to meet that demand. This includes ProxEmo, a little wheeled robot that can guess how you are feeling from the way you walk, and ENRICHME who helps older people to stay physically and mentally active. The problem is the fear that human jobs may be lost as robots become better at dealing with social situations.
1. What makes children feel Milo's kindness?| A．Milo's appearance. | B．Milo's speech. |
| C．Milo's hospital settings. | D．Milo's way of walking. |
| A．By listing numbers. | B．By making comments. |
| C．By following the time order. | D．By explaining the process. |
| A．Milo. | B．Robin. |
| C．ProxEmo. | D．ENRICHME. |
| A．Robots can't meet their demand. |
| B．Some people will be out of work. |
| C．A robot isn't widely acceptable. |
| D．Robots can't deal with problems. |
3 . In the Hollywood movie The Martian, actor Matt Damon plays an astronaut who grows food on Mars(火星)to survive alone on the red planet.
After seeing the movie, Washington State University physicist Michael Allen and University of Idaho food scientist Helen Joyner decided to carry out a case study helping students figure out how to farm on Mars. In the case study, students have to imagine they are mining(采矿) on Mars and decide how to feed themselves there before starting on the journey. They get advice from Allen and Joyner on how to select crops and take the challenges of growing crops over long periods on Mars. Students use a scoring system to select three foods to plant on Mars.
Allen found the results impressive: among 30 students, “no two people have ever gotten the same answer”, he said.
Human travelers to Mars will likely have to make use of resources on the planet rather than take everything they need with them on a spaceship. This means farming their own food on another planet, one that has a very different ecosystem (生态系统) from Earth’s.
One challenge for those who would like to live on Mars is the fact that there can be no farming tools. Like real astronauts, students taking part in the study cannot take a lot of farming tools with them. As Joyner put it to his student astronauts, “You are starting with nothing.”
Besides, students also have to deal with a very limited choice of diet. “If I had to eat a single food for the rest of my life, could I do it?” Joyner asked.
But Allen believes the case study is about more than farming and eating on the Red Planet.
“I’m not teaching about growing food on Mars,” Allen said. “I’m teaching about living with choices. I’m teaching about problem solving.”
1. In the case study, students have to __________.| A．watch the movie to know the conditions on Mars |
| B．decide which crop to grow on Mars with the help of the teachers |
| C．design different types of diets on Mars for them to choose |
| D．understand how to farm on Mars with their favorite farming tools |
| A．increases students’ knowledge about farming |
| B．helps student know more about Mars |
| C．develops students’ skills of solving problems |
| D．teaches students how to make proper choices |
| A．to describe a research on how to farm on Mars |
| B．to prepare us to deal with problems on Mars |
| C．to teach us how to survive on Mars alone |
| D．to introduce a Hollywood movie, The Martian |
