1 . When you hear the word “artificial intelligence”, the first thing that comes to mind is robotics, but what truly is artificial intelligence and what does the future hold for it? Artificial intelligence is any device or machine that mimics cognitive (认知的) functions humans associate with the human mind, such as learning and problem solving. Examples of artificial intelligence in our day to day lives include: Siri, Google, advertising and so much more. Every industry is incorporating (吸收/包含) artificial intelligence into its back bone.
Currently, the effects of artificial intelligence seem all positive. Artificial intelligence will lead to more new and important discoveries in the future, through its predictive modelling. In 2017, NASA reported the discovery of an eight-planet solar system with the help of AI. It can also predict the emergence of any new virus, disease or epidemic and discover a corresponding drug to treat it by accessing and analyzing multiple sets of data. This in turn will help the healthcare industry develop Al programs that will improve longevity and predict the time of the first sign of diseases, improve drug research processes and assist doctors in diagnosis.
However, there are still a lot of public concerns. An article titled “The Future of Work” gives a practical view on the influence of artificial intelligence and automation in our job industry. It predicts that by 2030, job losses will reach a rate of twenty nine percent, with an even lesser job creation percentage of thirteen percent. In 2014, a chat bot known as Eugene Goostman passed the Turing test, making judges think it was a human and leading to a lot of raised concerns. Does this mean that with future research, robots can insert themselves smoothly into our environment? It gives people a lot of food for thought.
The future of artificial intelligence is both fascinating and alarming. Privacy laws and security guidelines should be reviewed to protect everyone from vulnerability (脆弱性). Still if researches continue to be done with exposure and responsibility, the balance would not tip in favor of the negative.
1. According to the passage, AI can be used ________.| A．to reduce job creation |
| B．to insert themselves smoothly into our lives |
| C．to make scientific breakthrough |
| D．to prevent the emergence of new virus, disease or epidemic |
| A．to introduce a new way to cure any disease. |
| B．to explain the value of artificial intelligence. |
| C．to show the effectiveness of artificial intelligence treatment. |
| D．to discuss the possibility of artificial intelligence replacing doctors. |
| A．Currently, there are more negative effects caused by AI. |
| B．More researches are needed in order to further develop AI. |
| C．It’s very difficult to balance the exposure and responsibility in researches. |
| D．It's possible to reduce the negative effects of AI in the future. |
| A．Artificial Intelligence will change the future. |
| B．The future needs regulation of Artificial Intelligence. |
| C．Artificial Intelligence has made scientific breakthroughs. |
| D．Artificial Intelligence does more harm than good to humans. |
2 . Salad is good for you, generally speaking, so growing fresh greens in orbit seems like a winning way for space workers to stay healthy. New research suggests that as nutritious as space salad might be, it could pose something of a risk to astronauts.
The problem is growing leafy plants like lettuce (生菜) in space can come with a side dish of bacteria (细菌), according to a new study from a team at the University of Delaware. In tests on plants grown in modeled micro-gravity, they were shown to actually be more sensitive than normal to the Salmonella enterica (SE) (沙门氏菌).
We know that the International Space Station (ISS) is home to a lot of aggressive bacteria, and if these space virus were to cause widespread sickness in an astronaut crew, it would mean lives were at risk. “You don’t want the whole mission to fail just because of a food safety outbreak,” says plant biologist Harsh Bais from the University of Delaware.
Bais and his colleagues used a device to perform some clever rotation tricks in the lab, putting lettuce plants into a similar state as they would be in micro-gravity. They then added SE bacteria to the leaves. What was interesting — and surprising — was that the tiny stomata (气孔) in the lettuce opened up to allow the bacteria to get in. Ordinarily, the job of the stomata is to keep dangerous attackers out, while at the same time helping the plant to breathe.
The researchers then added a more helpful species of bacteria, one that typically protects plants from external stressors. Again, the defense didn’t work in micro-gravity — suggesting there’s something about this state that disables the chemical reactions that the lettuce would normally use to keep itself safe.
Add in what we know about space bacteria being particularly tricky, and this is a potential problem. The team behind the study wants to see a lot more research into making sure our foodstuffs are safe outside of orbit.
1. Why can’t lettuce be grown in ISS?| A．Its leaves takes up too much space. | B．It brings in illness-causing bacteria. |
| C．It is only a side dish to astronauts. | D．It can’t grow well in micro-gravity. |
| A．Negative. | B．Sensitive. | C．Enthusiastic. | D．Unconcerned. |
| A．They kept lettuce from breathing. | B．They ensure the safety of lettuce. |
| C．They failed to function as expected. | D．They stopped all bacteria coming in. |
| A．SE, the Worst Bacteria in Space | B．Greens for Salad, a Risk in Space |
| C．Lettuce, Plant Samples Used in Space | D．Food Safety, a Key Problem in Space |
3 . I’ve spent much of my life dealing with written and spoken words. Now I’m a technologist making use of natural language processing for human good. Given that I work in artificial intelligence (AI), I’m realizing something dangerous happening. Machines are ruining the way we communicate.
AI voices are normalized and yet cold, no matter which accent (口音) you set your Siri or Amazon Alexa into. It’s difficult to normalize language to be inoffensive because sometimes we do make people feel uncomfortable or even make them annoyed. Yet this is exactly what we’re asking artificial intelligence to do for us on a billion - person scale. Once these rules are carried out by machines, they’re unavoidable and create much bigger issues.
We notice that there is an active desire to only include standardized language in AI - powered tools in an attempt to avoid including potentially harmful or offensive language. And these AI-powered tools are exactly what we use to complete our thoughts almost at any given time. They are everywhere — in our emails, word processors, and web pages. The machines are pushing us into a common tongue, and we accept it as a matter of convenience. But what’s the cost? We’re trading uniqueness and accuracy for convenience. We’re also handing the power of acceptable speech to machines not people.
In the real world, people don’t communicate like a Wikipedia (维基百科) article. We use tone (语气), humor and facial expressions. We can tell where people were born based on their accents and wording. Humans are truly unique, and our communication is constantly changing. So we should demand AI systems that promote individuality and uniqueness. We should demand to know how AI is developed and the data used to build it. Because we all deserve this.
1. What is the function of paragraph 1?| A．To illustrate the function of communication. |
| B．To introduce the impact of AI on language. |
| C．To share the author’s working experience. |
| D．To stress the importance of AI on language processing. |
| A．Hateful | B．Valuable | C．Harmless | D．Beneficial |
| A．AI voice should be legalized. | B．AI voice should be modernized. |
| C．AI voice should be standardized. | D．AI voice should be personalized. |
| A．Praising. | B．Humorous. | C．Concerned. | D．Objective. |
4 . An artificial intelligence can decode (解码) words and sentences from brain activity with surprising accuracy. Using only a few seconds of brain activity data, the AI guesses what a person has heard. It lists the correct answer in its top 10 possibilities , researchers found in a primary study.
Developed at the parent company of Facebook, Meta, the AI could eventually be used to help thousands of people around the world who are unable to communicate through speech, typing or gestures.
Most existing technologies to help such patients communicate require risky brain surgeries to put in electrodes (电极). This new approach “could provide a possible path to help patients with communication problems, avoiding the use of surgeries,” says neuroscientist Jean-Rémi King, a Meta AI researcher.
King and his colleagues trained a computational tool, also known as a language model, to detect words and sentences on 56, 000 hours of speech recordings from 53 languages. The team applied an AI with this language model to databases from four institutions that included brain activity from 169 volunteers. In these databases, participants listened to various stories and sentences, while the people’s brains were scanned by magnetoencephalography (MEG) (脑磁图).
Then with the help of a computational method that helps account for physical differences among actual brains, the team tried to decode what participants had heard using just three seconds of brain activity data from each person. The team instructed the AI to match up the speech sounds from the story recordings with patterns of brain activity that the AI computed as corresponding to what people were hearing. It then made predictions about what the person might have been hearing during that short time, given more than 1, 000 possibilities. Using MEG, the correct answer was in the AI’s top 10 guesses, the researchers found.
“The new study is decoding of speech recognition, not production,” King agrees, “Though speech production is the final goal, for now, we’re quite a long way away.”
1. What is the main advantage of the new technology?| A．Avoiding dangerous operations on patients. |
| B．Helping patients with communication problems. |
| C．Providing a path to communicate with others. |
| D．Freeing patients from risky brain operations. |
| A．People unable to communicate normally. | B．People who can’t move around. |
| C．People who are unconscious. | D．People unable to eat. |
| A．Disappointing. | B．Surprising. | C．Promising. | D．Exciting. |
| A．A New Study on Artificial Intelligence | B．The Application of MEG Technology |
| C．A New Way to Decode Speech | D．A Solution to Communication Problems |
5 . Joyce Loaiza lives alone in a community for older people in Florida. When she is home, the retired office worker often talks with a friendly female voice that asks about her day. A few kilometers away, the same voice helped 83-year-old Deanna Dezern when her friend died. In New York state, it plays games and music for 92-year-old Marie Broadbent. And in Washington state, it helps 83-year-old Jan Worrell make new friends.
The women are some of the first in the United States to receive the robot ElliQ made by Intuition Robotics. The company and other officials say it is the only device using AI to help older Americans from loneliness.
“You can actually talk to her,” said Loaiza, who is 81. Her ElliQ calls her “Jellybean” for no clear reason. She said amusingly, “She’ll make comments like, ‘I’d go outside if I had hands, but I can’t hold an umbrella.’”
The device looks like a small table light and it has an eyeless, mouthless head that lights up and turns. It remembers each user’s interests and their talks, helping create a special experience with each new discussion. They can be as deep as the meaning of life or as light as a small joke. ElliQ also plays music and provides creative or spiritual sayings. On a video screen that comes with it, it will show different cities and places of interest. The device leads exercises, asks about the owner’s health, and lets the users know when to take medicines and drink water. Intuition Robotics says none of the conversations are heard by the company, with the information staying on each owner’s device.
Intuition Robotics CEO Dor Skuler said the idea for ElliQ came before he launched his company eight years ago. His grandfather who lost his partner needed a helper, but the first did not work out. Skuler then thought a robot could fill the space of a friend by adapting to each person and their interests. He said, “That just did not exist anywhere.” The average user interacts with ElliQ more than 30 times a day and more than 90 percent report lower levels of loneliness, Skuler said.
1. Why are some women in America mentioned in paragraph 1?| A．To introduce a topic. | B．To explain a concept. |
| C．To make a comment. | D．To make a prediction. |
| A．Powerful. | B．Entertaining. | C．Ignorant. | D．Annoying. |
| A．Act as a table light. | B．Make a short video. |
| C．Remind users to take pills. | D．Hold an umbrella. |
| A．The unique feature of ElliQ. | B．The wide popularity of ElliQ. |
| C．The working principle about ElliQ. | D．The inspiration of inventing ElliQ. |
6 . Those of us making grand travel plans might want to consider the final frontier as a destination. That’s because Orbital Assembly Corporation, a new construction company run by former pilot John Blincow, is planning to open a luxury space hotel by 2027. Voyager Station, as it’s being called, will accommodate 280 guests and 112 crew members, aiming to be the first commercial space hotel upon completion.
“We’re trying to make the public realize that this golden age of space travel is just around the corner. It’s coming. It’s coming fast,” Blincow said in an interview. The golden age of space travel is coming indeed, as space tourism has drawn the attention of Richard Branson and Elon Musk. And it’s the latter that Blincow and his team hope to partner in the near future. “We cannot call Musk’s SpaceX our partner, but in the future we look forward to working with them,” Blincow said.
The physics involved in sleeping within a space hotel is similar to spinning (旋转) water in a bucket (桶). Much in the same way one can spin a bucket in a circle, keeping the water inside it, the space hotel will simulate gravity in a similar manner. This makes comfortable rooms and stylish bar experiences possible.
But for many visitors who venture so far, feeling the weightlessness (失重) of space is a big part of the appeal (吸引力). The team plans to serve traditional space food such as freeze-dried ice cream in the hotel’s restaurant. There are plans for recreational activities such as basketball games where participants can jump higher due to the weightlessness of the environment. The team has already assured the public that they plan to eventually make a stay at the hotel something similar to a cruise.
1. What can we know about Voyager Station?| A．It aims to train pilots. | B．It will be constructed. |
| C．It’s the name of a spaceship. | D．It has been put into use. |
| A．To stress the coming of space travel. | B．To show the popularity of them. |
| C．To list Blincow’s partners at present. | D．To show examples of space companies. |
| A．Stylish bars. | B．Water in a bucket. |
| C．The space travel experience. | D．The physics involved in the space hotel. |
| A．Its room rate. | B．Its faraway location. |
| C．Feeling the weightlessness of space. | D．Playing basketball with famous players. |
1. 分析现状；
2. 垃圾分类的好处；
3. 呼吁大家参与垃圾分类。
注意：
1. 词数80左右；
2. 可适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。
参考词汇：垃圾分类 garbage classification 垃圾填埋厂landfill
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注意：（1）每个选项至多只能使用一次；（2）方框中有一个多余词汇。
| A. functions B. in case of C. are working on D. so that E. wireless F. to entertain G. level H. making up I. retired J. apart K. in preparation for |
A 1.6-metre-tall robot may soon become the best friend for lonely elderly people, as Chinese scientists are making the final sprint(冲刺) towards its market launch(启动), said a senior researcher on the robot project on Saturday.
“We
He said the team hoped to reduce the cost
The robot has been developed with the
Li said that the robot, developed independently in China, has technology at the same
China set about the research of the robot in 2007, when it was listed as a national key project. It is backed by government funding. China has the world’s largest elderly population with 159 million people over 60,
9 . Technology is forever changing the way we get our news. Many people now get a lot of their news on electronic devices, instead of traditional media, such as newspapers, television or radio. Now, there is a new way we get the news: computer-created news readers.
Recently, China’s Xinhua launched(推出)the world’s first AI news presenters with the Chinese search engine Sogou. The news readers created by machine learning technology are based on two real-life newsmen. One is able to present newscasts in English; the other, in Mandarin Chinese.
Machine learning is used to examine video images and sounds of the two newsmen, which look and sound like real people. Some machine learning experts said the system showed off China’s latest progress in voice recognition, text-to-speech technology and data analysis. But several experts suggested that the term Al does not correctly describe abilities of the robotic news readers.
On social media, many Chinese noted that the AI presenters did not seem real. People blamed them for not being more lifelike. Others wondered about the effects robots might have on employment and workers. Some people argued that only low-level jobs requiring heavy labor will be easily replaced by robots. Others praised the technology as a way for companies to make money from low-cost labor machines.
Some businesses have experimented with similar technology for possible use in news operations. Britain’s BBC recently released a video that used machine learning to make it look like one of its news readers speaking different languages. The London-based company that developed the system says its goal is to “remove the language barrier” for many different kinds of video across the Internet.
1. What does the author intend to do in Paragraph 1?| A．Introduce the topic of the text. | B．Summarize the different opinions. |
| C．Add some data about the AI presenters. | D．Compare different ways of getting news. |
| A．To bring newscasts up to date every hour. |
| B．To help AI presenters speak more fluently. |
| C．To keep AI presenters from making any mistakes. |
| D．To ensure images and sounds are like those of real persons. |
| A．Robots will rule over the world in the end. |
| B．Robots will eventually replace human all over. |
| C．Robots may endanger most people’s health. |
| D．Robots may threaten some people’s employment. |
| A．BBC has done similar experiments as Xinhua does. |
| B．BBC has removed the language barrier in newscasts. |
| C．BBC shows interest in Xinhua’s AI news presenters. |
| D．BBC’s news readers can explore different technologies. |
10 . With almost all big employers in the United States now using artificial intelligence (AI) and automation in their hiring processes, the public is considering some urgent questions: How can you prevent discrimination in hiring when a machine is keeping the discrimination? What kind of methods might help?
Some 83% of employers, including 99% of Fortune 500 companies, now use some form of automated tools as part of their hiring process, said the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s ( EEOC) chair Charlotte Burrows, at a hearing on Tuesday. She said everyone needs to speak up on the debate over these technologies. “The risks are simply too high to leave this topic just to the experts.”
Last year, the EEOC issued some guidance around the use of cutting-edge hiring tools, noting many of their shortcomings. The agency found that resume( 简历) scanners which prioritize keywords and programs which evaluate a candidate’s facial expressions and speech patterns in video interviews can create discrimination. Take, for example, a video interview that analyses an applicant’s speech patterns to determine their ability to solve problems. A person with a speech problem might score low and automatically be screened out. The problem will be for the EEOC to root out discrimination or stop it from taking place.
The EEOC is considering the most appropriate ways to handle the problem. It’s agreed that inspections are necessary to ensure that the software used by companies avoids intentional or unintentional discrimination. But who would conduct those inspections is a more challenging question. Each option presents risks, Burrows pointed out. A third party may turn a blind eye to its clients, while a government-led inspection could potentially stop innovation.
In previous remarks, Burrows has noted the great potential that AI decision making tools have to improve the lives of Americans, but only when used properly. “We must work to ensure that these new technologies do not become a high-tech pathway to discrimination,” she said.
1. What does Burrows suggest people do?| A．Make their own voice heard. | B．Follow the experts’ suggestions. |
| C．Stop using AI in hiring processes. | D．Watch debates about technologies. |
| A．By scanning keywords. | B．By evaluating resumes. |
| C．By analyzing personalities. | D．By assessing speech patterns. |
| A．High expense. | B．Unfair results. |
| C．Age discrimination. | D．Innovation interruption. |
| A．Favourable. | B．Disapproving. | C．Cautious. | D．Doubtful. |
