1 . Evan Selinger, professor in RIT’s Department of Philosophy, has taken an interest in the ethics (伦理标准) of Al and the policy gaps that need to be filled in. Through a humanities viewpoint, Selinger asks the questions, “How can AI cause harm, and what can governments and companies creating Al programs do to address and manage it?” Answering them, he explained, requires an interdisciplinary approach.
“AI ethics go beyond technical fixes. Philosophers and other humanities experts are uniquely skilled to address the nuanced (微妙的) principles, value conflicts, and power dynamics. These skills aren’t just crucial for addressing current issues. We desperately need them to promote anticipatory (先行的) governance, ” said Selinger.
One example that illustrates how philosophy and humanities experts can help guide these new, rapidly growing technologies is Selinger’s work collaborating with a special AI project. “One of the skills I bring to the table is identifying core ethical issues in emerging technologies that haven’t been built or used by the public. We can take preventative steps to limit risk, including changing how the technology is designed, ”said Selinger.
Taking these preventative steps and regularly reassessing what risks need addressing is part of the ongoing journey in pursuit of creating responsible AI. Selinger explains that there isn’t a step-by-step approach for good governance. “AI ethics have core values and principles, but there’s endless disagreement about interpreting and applying them and creating meaningful accountability mechanisms, ” said Selinger. “Some people are rightly worried that AI can become integrated into ‘ethics washing’-weak checklists, flowery mission statements, and empty rhetoric that covers over abuses of power. Fortunately, I’ve had great conversations about this issue, including with some experts, on why it is important to consider a range of positions. ”
Some of Selinger’s recent research has focused on the back-end issues with developing AI, such as the human impact that comes with testing AI chatbots before they’re released to the public. Other issues focus on policy, such as what to do about the dangers posed by facial recognition and other automated surveillance(监视) approaches.
Selinger is making sure his students are informed about the ongoing industry conversations on AI ethics and responsible AI. “Students are going to be future tech leaders. Now is the time to help them think about what goals their companies should have and the costs of minimizing ethical concerns. Beyond social costs, downplaying ethics can negatively impact corporate culture and hiring, ” said Selinger. “To attract top talent, you need to consider whether your company matches their interests and hopes for the future. ”
1. Selinger advocates an interdisciplinary approach because ________.| A．humanities experts possess skills essential for AI ethics |
| B．it demonstrates the power of anticipatory governance |
| C．AI ethics heavily depends on technological solutions |
| D．it can avoid social conflicts and pressing issues |
| A．adopt a systematic approach | B．apply innovative technologies |
| C．anticipate ethical risks beforehand | D．establish accountability mechanisms |
| A．More companies will use AI to attract top talent. |
| B．Understanding AI ethics will help students in the future. |
| C．Selinger favors companies that match his students’ values. |
| D．Selinger is likely to focus on back-end issues such as policy. |
The term “multitasking” originally
More than 3. 5 billion people worldwide spend an average of three hours a day glued to their smartphones. Researchers found that people who lowered their usage by one hour every day were
We are writing
5 . Bed rotting — the practice of spending long periods of time just staying under the covers with snacks, screens and other creature comforts — is gaining popularity on social media. Some Generation Z trend followers are now viewing it as a form of self-care, but doctors warn too much could be “sign of depression”. Are these extended breaks really wise for one’s mental health — or could they be a cause for concern?
Dr. Ryan Sultan, a professor at Columbia University in New York, who treats many young people, called the bed rotting trend attractive. “In our culture today, with too much to do, too many expectations and too much productivity, many young individuals (个人) are feeling burned out and often aren’t getting enough sleep. It’s easy to see why taking time off to lie around is attractive,” Sultan said. “In many ways, this is beneficial. It’s a chance to get away from real-life problems and clear your head before returning to life in a better state of mind, ” he added.
For the downside, however, he said a long-term need or desire for bed rotting could do harm to one’s physical health. Spending too many daytime hours in bed — awake or not — could destroy sleep schedules. Our brains are fine-tuned for sleep in darkness and alertness in light. Lying in bed half-asleep during the day will worsen sleep schedules — once that happens, it is a challenge to fix. It could also lead to blood pressure problems and obesity (肥胖).
Long-term need or desire for bed rotting could also be a warning sign of depression, according to a mental health expert. Dr. Marc Siegel, professor of medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center and a Fox News medical contributor, agreed that while some downtime can be useful in terms of de-stressing and rejuvenation (更新), too much bed rotting is a bad health practice. In addition to increasing the risk of depression, it contributes to decreased motivation (动力) as well.
Instead of bed rotting, Siegel recommends regular exercise as a better form of de-stressing. While the occasional lazy day can be beneficial, too much could have the opposite effect. If it happens every day, that’s a fairly sensitive test for depression. Those who lack the motivation to get out of bed could also try calling or texting a family member for support, socializing with close friends, finding a small task to complete, or reaching out to a medical professional for help.
1. According to Dr. Ryan Sultan, why do young people like bed rotting?| A．They are fond of what is popular on social media. | B．They are unwilling to socialize with friends. |
| C．Bed rotting is away to escape stress. | D．Bed rotting helps fix sleep schedules. |
| A．Quickly-activated. | B．Well-trained. | C．Badly-needed. | D．Ill-equipped. |
| A．Being lazy from time to time can be good for individuals. |
| B．Sleeping in light can increase the risk of depression. |
| C．Bed rotting can allow people to avoid expectations. |
| D．Feeling down leads to decreased motivation. |
| A．Different opinions on how to become motivated. |
| B．Main causes of the long-term need for bed rotting. |
| C．Practical suggestions for young people to deal with stress. |
| D．Possible problems from lying in bed for extended periods of time. |
6 . By now, we are all aware that social media has had a tremendous influence on our culture, in business, on the world-at-large. Social media websites revolutionized the way people communicate and socialize on the Web. However, aside from seeing your friend’s new baby on Facebook, or reading about Justin Bieber’s latest conflict with the law on Twitter, what are some of the real influences?
Social networks offer the opportunity for people to re-connect with their old friends and acquaintances, make new friends, share ideas and pictures, and many other activities. Users can keep pace with the latest global and local developments, and participate in campaigns and activities of their choices. Professionals use social media sites like LinkedIn to enhance their career and business development. Students can work together with their peers to improve their academic and communication skills.
Unfortunately, there are a few downsides too to social networking. If you are not careful, immoral people can target you for cyber bullying and disturbance on social sites. School children, young girls, and women can fall victim to online attacks which can create tension and suffering. If you are a victim of cyber bullying, do not take it lying down, but try to take appropriate legal action against the attacker.
Many companies have blocked social networks as addicted employees can distract themselves on such sites, instead of focusing on work. In fact, studies show that British companies have lost billions of dollars per year in productivity because of social media addiction among employees.
Also, what you carelessly post on the Internet can come back to trouble you. Revealing (泄露) personal information on social sites can make users vulnerable (易受伤害的) to crimes like identity theft, stalking, etc. Many companies perform a background check on the Internet before hiring an employee. If a potential employee has posted something embarrassing on social media, it can greatly affect their chances of getting the job. The same holds true for our relationships too, as our loved ones and friends may get to know if we post something undesirable on social networks.
Social media has its advantages and drawbacks as each coin has two sides. It is up to each user to use social sites wisely to enhance their professional and social life, and exercise caution to ensure they do not fall victim to online dangers.
1. Paragraph 2 mainly shows that social networks ________.| A．help students finish their homework | B．offer professionals good chances |
| C．benefit users in various ways | D．guide users to make right choices |
| A．forbid the use of social networks during work time |
| B．avoid posting embarrassing information |
| C．refuse to hire potential addicted employees |
| D．take legal action against the attackers |
| A．share experiences in using social media | B．remind people to wisely use social media |
| C．provide some advice on social problems | D．raise public awareness of social problems |
A． | B． |
C． | D． |
Tom’s wife usually does the shopping, but she had the flu so Tom went instead. Selecting the fruits and vegetables went fine, but when he got to the bread section, he had trouble, because there were over 60 varieties to choose from. Tom compared different types and examined the differences. After 10 minutes of careful consideration, he picked one that seemed like the perfect choice. However, he had to repeat the process for the rest of the shopping list. By the time he had finished and paid for everything, he was tired and upset.
Why did Tom have this kind of experience? According to behavioral economics research, although having some options makes us feel good, once we get beyond that small number, the more choices we have, the less happy we feel.
The cause of our unhappiness has its root in one typical judgment error we make—our natural reactions prefer avoiding losses to making gains. This is probably because of our evolutionary(进化的) background; our minds evolved for the savanna(热带草原) environment, not for our modern shopping context. Due to this, when we have lots of options, we feel anxious about making the wrong choice and losing out on the best one.
Digging into research on factors that make a shopping trip an unhappy experience helps us improve our buying decisions. When choosing what to buy, the number one technique involves satisficing instead of maximizing.
Maximizing behavior refers to finding the perfect option when shopping. Maximizers compare all available options to make sure that they get the best deal in terms of performance, price, and so on. They have high expectations, and they hope that the product will meet their expectations.
It’s the opposite for satisficers. They set certain minimal criteria (最低标准) that need to be met, then search for the first available product that meets the criteria. They look for products that are “good enough” instead of “perfect”. When they focus on “good enough”, their brain automatically highlights the positives, and lowers the expectations.
Research shows that maximizing behavior results in less happiness, less satisfaction, and more regret than satisficing.
To be happier, satisfice and limit your choices. Make a short list that compares a reasonable number of options and doesn’t include every product available. After all, there’s no such thing as the perfect deal.
1. Why did Tom have trouble selecting bread? (不多于9个单词)2. According to the writer, what is the judgment error that causes our unhappiness? (不多于9个单词)
3. What products do satisficers look for? (不多于11个单词)
4. Do you agree that satisficers are happier in life? Why or why not? (单词数不限)
8 . As a doctor, I can give you a lot of useful advice about how to get healthy and stay that way, but you don’t need me to tell you that exercise is good for you. Staying active can benefit the heart, the waistline, even the mind.
The slowdown occurs for most at the beginning of college. Academic pressure and lack of organized sports are certainly part of the problem. A bigger part may be looking at life changes as an occasion to blow up old rules and not create new ones in their place.
The good news is, there are solutions to all these. We can begin with exercises as simple as remembering to sit straighter or drink enough water. Specific workout plans can turn a general desire to exercise into a firm commitment.
We may never again have the energy of a two-year-old, but getting back even a little of our early-life energy can make our later lives a whole lot healthier.
| A．Being in college is certainly part of the problem. |
| B．This is especially so when it comes to staying fit. |
| C．Not having a clearly defined exercise plan can hurt. |
| D．We often wish to go back to our two-year-old selves. |
| E．For instance, you can schedule a weekly gym visit with friends. |
| F．Still, there’s a real disconnect between what we know and what we do. |
| G．The most puzzling part of our inactive nature is that we don’t start out that way. |
9 . Adults are often embarrassed about asking for aid. It’s an act that can make people feel emotionally unsafe.
New research suggests young children don’t seek help in school, even when they need it, for the same reason. Until recently, psychologists assumed that children did not start to care about their reputation and their friends’ thoughts about them until around age nine.
But our research suggests that as early as age seven, children begin to connect asking for help with looking incompetent in front of others. At some point, every child struggles in the classroom.
To learn more about how children think about reputation, we created simple stories and then asked children questions about these situations to allow kids to showcase their thinking.
Across several studies, we asked 576 children, ages four to nine, to predict the behavior of two kids in a story. One of the characters genuinely wanted to be smart, and the other merely wanted to seem smart to others. In one study, we told children that both kids did poorly on a test.
| A．Kids could be afraid to ask their parents for help. |
| B．Seeking help could even be taught as socially desirable. |
| C．In another study we told them that only one kid did poorly. |
| D．Such reputational barriers likely require reputation-based solutions. |
| E．The moment you ask for directions, after all, you reveal that you are lost. |
| F．But if they are afraid to ask for help because their classmates are watching, learning will suffer. |
| G．We then asked which of these characters would be more likely to raise their hand in front of their class to ask the teacher for help. |
10 . Technology seems to discourage slow, immersive reading. Reading on a screen, particularly a phone screen, tires your eyes and makes it harder for you to keep your place. So online writing tends to be more skimmable and list-like than print. The cognitive neuroscientist Mary Walt argued recently that this “new norm” of skim reading is producing “an invisible, game-changing transformation” in how readers process words. The neuronal circuit that sustains the brain’s capacity to read now favors the rapid absorption of information, rather than skills developed by deeper reading, like critical analysis.
We shouldn’t overplay this danger. All readers skim. Skimming is the skill we acquire as children as we learn to read more skillfully. From about the age of nine, our eyes start to bounce around the page, reading only about a quarter of the words properly, and filling in the gaps by inference. Nor is there anything new in these fears about declining attention spans. So far, the anxieties have proved to be false alarms. “Quite a few critics have been worried about attention span lately and see very short stories as signs of cultural decline,” the American author Selvin Brown wrote. “No one ever said that poems were evidence of short attention spans.”
And yet the Internet has certainly changed the way we read. For a start, it means that there is more to read, because more people than ever are writing. If you time travelled just a few decades into the past, you would wonder at how little writing was happening outside a classroom. And digital writing is meant for rapid release and response. An online article starts forming a comment string underneath as soon as it is published. This mode of writing and reading can be interactive and fun. But often it treats other people’s words as something to be quickly harvested as fodder to say something else. Everyone talks over the top of everyone else, desperate to be heard.
Perhaps we should slow down. Reading is constantly promoted as a social good and source of personal achievement. But this advocacy often emphasizes “enthusiastic”, “passionate” or “eager” reading, none of which adjectives suggest slow, quiet absorption.
To a slow reader, a piece of writing can only be fully understood by immersing oneself in the words and their slow comprehension of a line of thought. The slow reader is like a swimmer who stops counting the number of pool laps he has done and just enjoys how his body feels and moves in water.
The human need for this kind of deep reading is too tenacious for any new technology to destroy. We often assume that technological change can’t be stopped and happens in one direction, so that older media like “dead-tree” books are kicked out by newer, more virtual forms. In practice, older technologies can coexist with new ones. The Kindle has not killed off the printed book any more than the car killed off the bicycle. We still want to enjoy slowly-formed ideas and carefully-chosen words. Even in a fast-moving age, there is time for slow reading.
1. What is the author’s attitude towards Selvin Brown’s opinion?| A．Favorable. | B．Critical. | C．Doubtful. | D．Objective. |
| A．advocacy of passionate reading helps promote slow reading |
| B．digital writing leads to too much speaking and not enough reflection |
| C．the public should be aware of the impact skimming has on neuronal circuits |
| D．the number of Internet readers is declining due to the advances of technology |
| A．Comprehensive. | B．Complicated. | C．Determined. | D．Apparent. |
| A．Slow Reading Is Here to Stay |
| B．Digital Technology Prevents Slow Reading |
| C．Screen vs. Print: Which Requires Deep Reading? |
| D．Reading Is Not a Race: The Wonder of Deep Reading |
