2 . Facing AI extinction

In a recent White House press conference, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre couldn’t suppress her laughter at the question: Is it “crazy” to worry that “literally everyone on Earth will die” due to artificial intelligence? _________, the answer is no.

While AI pioneer such as Alan Turing cautioned that we should expect “machines to take control”, many contemporary researchers _________ this concern. In an area of unprecedented growth in AI abilities, why aren’t more expects weighing in?

Before the deep-learning revolution in 2012, I didn’t think human-level AI would emerge in my lifetime. I was familiar with arguments that AI systems would insatiably seek power and resist shutdown — and obvious _________ to humanity if it were to occur. But I also figured researchers must have good reasons not to be worried about human _________ risk (x-risk) from AI.

Yet after 10 years in the field, I believe the main reasons are actually cultural and historical. By 2012, after several hype cycles that didn’t pan out, most AI researchers had stopped asking ‘what if we succeed at replicating human intelligence’, _________ their ambitions to specific tasks like autonomous driving.

When concerns resurfaced outside their community, researchers were to quick to dismiss outsiders as _________ and their worries as science fiction. But in my experience, AI researchers are themselves often ignorant of arguments for AI x-risk.

One basic argument is by analogy: humans’ _________ abilities allowed us to out-compete other species for resources, leading to many extinctions. AI systems could likewise deprive us of the resources we need for our survival. Less _________, AI could displace humans economically and, through its powers of manipulation, politically.

But wouldn’t it be humans wielding AIs as tools who end up in control? Not necessarily. Many people might choose to deploy a system with a 99 per cent chance of making them phenomenally rich and powerful, even if it had a 1 per cent chance of _________ their control and killing everyone.

Because no safe experiment can definitively tell us whether an AI system will actually kill everyone, such concerns are often dismissed as unscientific. But this isn’t an excuse for ignoring the risk. It just means society needs to reason about it in the same way as other complex social issues. Researchers also emphasize the difficulty of predicting when AI might _________ human intelligence, but this is an argument for caution, not complacency.

Attitudes are changing, but not quickly enough. AI x-risk is admittedly more _________ than important social issues with present-day AI, like bias and misinformation, but the basic solution is the same: regulation. A robust public discussion is long overdue. By refusing to engage, some AI researchers are neglecting _________ responsibilities and betraying public trust.

Big tech sponsors AI ethics research when it doesn’t hurt the bottom line. But it is also lobbying to exclude general-purpose AI from E. U. regulation. Concerned researchers recently called for a(n) _________ in developing bigger AI models to allow society to catch up. Critics say this isn’t politically realistic, but problems like AI x-risk won’t _________ just because they are politically inconvenient.

This brings us to the ugliest reason researchers may dismiss AI x-risk: funding. Essentially every researcher (myself included) has received funding from big tech. At some point, society may stop believing reassurances from people with such strong conflicts of _________ and conclude, as I have, that their dismissal betrays wishful thinking rather than good counterarguments.

3 . In the fog of uncertainty about how new technology will change the way we work, policymakers around the world have flocked to the same idea. No matter what the future brings, they say confidently, we will need to upskill the workforce in order to cope.

The view sounds reassuringly sensible. If computers are growing smarter, humans will need to learn to use them to humans’ advantage. Otherwise, they may run the risk of being replaced by computers.     1     .

Research published by the Social Mobility Commission shows that workers with degrees are over three times more likely to participate in training as adults than workers with no qualifications. That creates a virtuous circle for those who did well at school, and vicious circle for those who did not. If the robots are coming for both the accountants and the taxi drivers, you can bet the bean counters will be more able to retrain themselves out of danger.

    2     In the UK, the government introduced an “apprenticeship levy” a few years ago in an attempt to force employers to spend more on training. A surprising number have responded by sending their senior managers on “apprenticeships” at business schools.

It is no good criticizing employers for directing investments at their highly skilled workers. They are simply aiming for the highest return they can get. And, for some types of lower-paid work, it is not always true that technological progress requires more skills. The UK’s latest Employment and Skills Survey, which is performed every five years, suggests the use of literacy and numeracy skills at work has fallen since 2012, even as the use of computers has increased. The trouble is, when the computer makes your job easier one day, it might make it unnecessary the next. Many of those affected by automation will need to switch occupations, or even industries.     3    

It is time to revisit older ideas. The UK once had an energetic culture of night schools, for adults to attend after their day jobs. These institutions have been disappearing due to funding cuts. But a revival of night schools could be exactly what the 21st century needs.     4     They can also explore interests they never had a chance to nurture before.

It is still not clear whether the impact of new technology on the labour market will come in a trickle or aflood. But in an already unequal world, continuing to reserve all the lifeboats for the better-off would be a dangerous mistake.

4 . During the past generation, the American middle-class family that once could count on hard work and fair play to keep itself financially secure had been transformed by economic risk and new realities. Now a pink slip, a bad diagnosis, or a disappearing spouse can reduce a family from solidly middle class to newly poor in a few months.

In just one generation, millions of mothers have gone to work, transforming basic family economics. Scholars, policymakers, and critics of all stripes have debated the social implications of these changes, but few have looked at the side effect: family risk has risen as well. Today’s families have budgeted to the limits of their new two-paycheck status. As a result, they have lost the parachute they once had in times of financial setback – a back-up earner (usually Mom) who could go into the workforce if the primary earner got laid off or fell sick. This “added-worker effect” could support the safety net offered by unemployment insurance or disability insurance to help families weather bad times. But today, a disruption to family fortunes can no longer be made up with extra income from an otherwise-stay-at-home partner.

During the same period, families have been asked to absorb much more risk in their retirement income. Steelworkers, airline employees, and now those in the auto industry are joining millions of families who must worry about interest rates, stock market fluctuation, and the harsh reality that they may outlive their retirement money. For much of the past year, President Bush campaigned to move Social Security to a saving-account model, with retirees trading much or all of their guaranteed payments for payments depending on investment returns. For younger families, the picture is not any better. Both the absolute cost of healthcare and the share of it borne by families have risen – and newly fashionable health-savings plans are spreading from legislative halls to Wal-Mart workers, with much higher deductibles and a large new dose of investment risk for families’ future healthcare. Even demographics are working against the middle class family, as the odds of having a weak elderly parent – and all the attendant need for physical and financial assistance – have jumped eightfold in just one generation.

From the middle-class family perspective, much of this, understandably, looks far less like an opportunity to exercise more financial responsibility, and a good deal more like a frightening acceleration of the wholesale shift of financial risk onto their already overburdened shoulders. The financial fallout has begun, and the political fallout may not be far behind.

8 . Lia Thomas, a student at the University of Pennsylvania, is an excellent swimmer. She often beats her rivals by tens of seconds, breaking records. Her success is based on three things. One is natural talent. Another is persistent training. And the third is biology.

For although she identifies as a woman,Ms Thomas was born male.Since humans cannot change their sex (unlike their self-identified gender),she remains that way.On the eve of her biggest competition, Ms Thomas finds herself at the centre of the bad-tempered debate about whether trans women-males who identify as women-should compete in women’s sports.That,in turn,is part of a broader argument: should brute (纯粹的) biological facts sometimes override people’s deeply held feelings about their identities?

This newspaper believes it is almost always unfair to allow transgender women to compete in women’s sports.The advantages bestowed by male puberty (青春期) are so big that no amount of training or talent can enable female athletes to overcome them.Florence Griffith Joyner’s 100-metres world sprinting record has stood for three decades.A male matching it would not even make it to the Olympics, let alone the final.In 2016,at an American event for high-schoolers, four of the eight boys in the 100-metres final ran faster.

Much of the male advantage is granted by testosterone (睾丸素), a potent anabolic steroid whose levels rise sharply in male puberty.For many years,many sporting bodies, following the lead of the International Olympic Committee, hoped to deal with the issue by allowing trans women to compete in women’s events provided they took testosterone-suppressing drugs.But the science suggests this does not level the playing field.Suppressing testosterone in adults, it seems, does little to undo the advantages granted by a male adolescence.

Sports must therefore choose between inclusion and fairness; and they should choose fair play. That does not mean, as is sometimes claimed, that trans women would be barred from all sport.One way to make that clear would be to replace the “men’s” and “women’s” categories with “open” and “female” ones.The first would be open to all comers.The second would be restricted on the basis of biology.

Sport is public, and results can be measured objectively. That means the argument that the material facts of biology should sometimes outrank a person’s subjective sense of identity is easier to make. But bias exists, as a Republican bill in Florida to restrict “instruction” in schools about gender identity or sexual orientation makes plain.

That should be resisted. Most of the time,it costs little or nothing to respect people’s choices about how they wish to present themselves.In the rare cases where rights clash (不相容), society must weigh the balance sensitively and with open eyes.

9 . If you order a Burger King Stacker Quad,you'll be served with a hamburger with no trace of any vegetable in it,a fact boasted about in the TV ads that accompanied the launch of the product in the United States.The Stacker Quad may be extraordinary, but it is far from_________.Recent times have seen the launch of products that the industry calls"indulgent offerings"foods marketed specifically on the basis of how much meat and cheese and how few vegetables they _________, it is worth _________how strange these developments would have seemed just two years ago,when the _________ to fast-food was at its height. At that time,the American burger restaurant Wendy's added a fresh-fruit bowl to its menu.However, at the end of last year,the company quietly _________the menu,blaming a lack of demand for such healthy dishes."We listened to consumers who said they wanted to eat fresh fruit,"a spokesman told the New York Times,"but apparently they _________ .

The industry's_________, it seems, had been to listen to the market researchers instead of the food psychologists. People tell researchers what they think they want to hear,or what the respondents want to believe about themselves. But we know,_________ recent psychological research, that people drink more than a third more fruit juice when they pour it into a short, wide glass instead of a narrow,tall one,and that people will eat more of a product if it comes in a bigger package.We know that people will report that 'Black Forest Double-Chocolate Cake' taste better than"Chocolate Cake', even when the cakes themselves are exactly the same. _________, we know that just because people say they want to eat more healthily, it doesn't mean they really do want to.

Denny Marie Post,from Burger King, admits that the fast-food industry vastly __________the appeal of healthier product lines."Healthy eating is more a state of intention than it is of __________ ."she says.There is a very small percentage whose behaviour agrees with their intentions.Andrew Geier,a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, recently conducted an experiment in which he placed a large bowl of sweets in the lobby of an apartment building.Eat your __________. Please use the spoon to serve yourself read a sign he placed next to the bowl.He left it there for 10 days in a row,with,on alternative days, either a teaspoon or a large spoon that held a quarter of a cup of sweets.When they were using the __________spoon, people on average took two thirds more sweet. This __________is known as'unit bias'-the way we tend to think that whatever quantity a product is sold in must be appropriate amount to __________.

10 . Ask Americans which they think is more important to success, effort or talent, and they pick effort two to one. Ask them which quality they’d _________ most in a new employee, and they pick diligence over intelligence five to one. But deep down, they hold the _________ view.

We know this thanks to a researcher, Chia-Jung Tsay of University Collee London. Tsay asked professional musicians to listen to audio clips (片段) of two pianists, one described as a “natural” . The other as a “striver” . Despite the fact that the two pianists were really one pianist playing different sections of the same composition — and just contrary to the listeners’ _________ belief that effort won over talent — the musicians thought the “natural” sounded more likely to succeed than the “striver”, and _________. Tsay found a similar _________ among people considering an investment proposal. Their preference for backing a “natural” entrepreneur (企业家) over a “striver” entrepreneur was _________ only when the latter was given four more years of experience and $40,000 more in capital.

From where does the _________ for naturals come? Angela Duckworth, a psychology professor at the University of Pennsylvania, offered her best guess: We don’t _________ strivers because they invite self-comparisons. If what separates, say, Roger Federer from you and me is nothing but the number of hours spent at “deliberate practice” — as the most-extreme behavioralists argue — our _________ of the U.S. Open could be interrupted by the thought There but for the grace of perseverance go I.

Whatever its origins, the preference has __________ implications. Certainly, it suggests that my deep terror of letting anyone see my half-written article drafts makes sense. It perpetuates (使持续) a myth that I’m a natural—the words just flow out,folks as fast as I can type! — and __________ the truth that the words come out fitfully and woodenly, gradually leading to a state of readability only after many seemingly fruitless stages. “If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it would not appear so __________ at all,” Michelangelo observed.

This can __________ confusing career advice. “Try hard enough and you can do just about anything, as long as you don’t __________ to be trying very hard” is not the stuff we can see on the school walls. However, private __________ and public ease may be a recommended combination.