问答题Robot　　Even before the first robot was built, the subject of robotics was controversial. The word robot was coined in 1921 by a Czech playwright who wrote about a colony of machines endowed with artificial intelligence that eventually turned against3 t

第二十二篇 RealWld Robots

　　When you think of a robot, do you envision ashiny, metallic device having the same general shape as a human being,perfming humanlike functions, responding to your questions in a monotonevoice accentuated by high-pitched tones beeps? This is the way many of usimagine a robot, but in the real wld, a robot is not humanoid at all. Insteada robot often is a voiceless, box-shaped machine that efficiently carries outrepetitive dangerous functions usually perfmed by humans. Today’s robot is me than an automatic machine that perfms one taskagain again. A modern robot is programmed with varying degrees ofartificial intelligence—that is, a robot contains acomputer program that tells it how to perfm tasks associated with human intelligence,such as reasoning, drawing conclusions, learning from past experience.

　　A robot does not possess a human shape fthe simple reason that a two-legged robot has great difficulty remainingbalanced. A robot does, however, move from place to place on wheels axlesthat roll rotate. A robot even has limbs that swivel move incombination with ts mots. To find its way in its surroundings1, arobot utilizes various built-in senss. Antennae attached to the robot’s base detect anything they bump into. If the robot starts to teeteras it moves on an incline, a gyroscope a pendulum inside it senses thevertical differential. To determine its distance from an object how quicklyit will reach the object，the robot bounces beams oflaser light ultrasonic sound waves off obstructions in its path2. These other senss constantly feed infmation to the computer, which then analyzesthe infmation crects adjusts the robot’sactions. As science technology advance, the robot too will progress in itsfunctions use of artificial-intelligence programs.

　　词汇：

　　envision v. 想象，预想

　　device n. 装置

　　accentuate v. 强调，重读

　　artificial intelligence n. 人工智能

　　limb n. 臂

　　antennae n. 天线

　　incline v. 倾斜

　　pendulum n. 钟摆

　　ultrasonic adj. 超声的

　　metallic adj. 金属的

　　monotone n. 单调的

　　humanoid adj. 像人的

　　axle n. 轮轴

　　rotate v. 旋转

　　swivel n. 旋转

　　teeter v. 摇晃

　　gyroscope n. 陀螺仪，回转仪

　　vertical n. 直立的

　　注释：

　　1.To find its way in its surroundings...：为了在周围找到路……

　　2.the robot bounces beams of laser light ultrasonic sound waves off obstructions in its path：机器人发射激光束和超声波，反射到障碍物上(以此来探知路径)。

　练习：3.The last paragraph suggests that futurerobots will be

A　me humanlike inbehavi actions.
B　me like automaticmachines.
C　better able to moveon inclines.
D　better equippedwith laser light senss.

共用题干
The Robot Man
According to Hans Moravec,universal robots will take over all the physical activities that we engage in,leaving us with little to do.Moravec sees four generations on the road to true universal robots. The first generation will be here by 2010 and will consist of free-ranging robots that can navigate by building an internal mental map of their surroundings.In new situations they'll be able to adapt,unlike today's mobile industrial robots.These robots will have the computing power to cope with simple speech and text recognition,and will be used for tasks such as domestic clean-ing.
The second generation will arrive around 2020 and will be distinguished by the ability to learn .Second generation robots are programmed with sets of primitive tasks and with feedback that provide"pleasure"and"pain"stimuli .For example,a collision provokes a negative response,a completed task would be positive.
Move forward another ten years to 2030 and you get to generation three.This robot can build internal simulations of the world around it. Before beginning a task,it can imagine what will happen in order to predict problems.If it has a free moment,it can replay past experiences and try variations in order to find a better way of如ing things next time .It could even observe a person or another robot performing a task and learn by imitation.For the first time,we have here a robot that can think.
By the time we get to generation four in 2040,Moravec predicts that robots will be able to: match human reasoning and behaviour;generalise abstract ideas from specific experience;and, conversely,compile detailed plans of action from general commands such as"earn a living"or "make more robots".
The Moravec manifesto（宣告）runs something like this. As robots start to become useful in generation one,they'll begin to take on many tasks in industry.Driven by the availability of this cheap and tireless labour force,the economy will boom and the demand for robots will grow so rapidly that they will soon become lowcost commodity items.So much so that they'll move into the home,where the domestic robot will relieve us of many chores.
With increasing automation in generations two and three,the length of the average working day will plummet,eventually to near zero. Most people will be unemployed as robots take over not just primary industry,but the service economy too.Moravec sees the fourth generation as an opportunity to surpass our human limitations.
These future machines will be our"mind children".Like biological children of previous generations,they will embody humanity's best hope for a long-term future.

The word"plummet" in paragraph 6 means______.
A: decrease
B:stretch
C: extend
D: grow

《第十三篇 Affectionate Androids》



Computers are now powerful enough to allow the age of humanoidrobots to dawn1. And it won’t be long befe we will see realistic cyber companions, completewith skin, dexterity, intelligence.They will be programmed to tend to yourevery need.



Will we ever want to marry robots? Artificial intelligenceresearcher David Levy has published a book claiming human-robot relationshipswill become popular in the next few decades. ____1____



Will humans really be able to fm deep emotional attachments tomachines? It will, in fact, be relatively easy to fm these strong attachmentsbecause the human mind loves to anthropomphize: to give human attributes toother creatures—even objects.



F example, researchers in San Diego recently put a small humanoidrobot in with a toddler playgroup f several months. ____2____The childrenended up treating it as a fellow toddler. When it lay down because itsbatteries were flat，the kids even covered it with a blanket.



In a few decades, when humanoid robots with plastic skin look feel very real, will people want to fm relationships with them? What if thebots could hold a conversation? And be programmed to bethe perfect companions—soul mates,even? ____3____ And like those toddlers inthe experiment, they will be veryaccepting of them.



The next question, then, is whether there is anything wrong withhaving an emotional relationship with a machine. Even today there are peoplewho fm deep attachments to their pets use them as substitutes f friends even children. Few consider that unethical.



____4____ F those who always seem to end upmarrying the wrong man woman, a robotic Mr. Ms. Right could be mighty tempting. As the father ofartificial intelligence, Marvin Minsky, put it when asked about the ethics oflonely older people fming close relationships with robots: “If a robot hadall the virtues of a person was smarter me understing, why wouldthe elderly bother talking to other grumpy old people?”



A robot could be programmed to be as dumb smart, as independent subservient, as an owner desired. And that’s the bigdisadvantage. Having the perfect robot partner will damage the ability to fmequally deep human-human relationships. People will always seem imperfectincomparison. When you’re behaving badly, a good friend will tell you.____5____



People in relationships have to learn to adapt toeach other: toenjoy their common interests to deal with their differences.It makes usricher, stronger, wiser. A robot companion will be perfect at the start. However,there will be nothing to move the relationship to grow to greater heights.



　　词汇：



affectionate adj. 深情的



dexterityn. 灵巧，敏捷



anthropomphize v. 赋于人性，人格化



grumpy adj. 脾气暴躁的



cyber adj. 计算机的



tendv. 照料



bot n. 机器人



subservient adj. 屈从的，奉承的



　　注释：



1.Computers are now powerful enough to allow the age of humanoidrobots to dawn：计算机技术已经足够成熟，能够支持人形机器人的诞生和普及，进入人形机器人的时代。



　　练习：



A.It’s easier to have a robot companion instead of a human friend.



B.But a sophisticated robot will probably be even me attractive.



C.And if you want to go ahead tie the knot with your specialelectronic friend，Levy saidthat such marriages will be socially acceptable by around2050.



D.However, few owners will program their robots to point out theirflaws.



E.Maybe your generation could resist, but eventually there will be ageneration of people who grow up with humanoid robots as a nmal part of life.



F.The bot knew each child because it was programmed with face voice recognition， it giggled when tickled.

共用题干
第三篇

Controlling Robots with the Mind

Belle,our tiny monkey,was seated in her special chair inside a chamber at our Duke
University lab. Her right hand grasped a joystick（操纵杆）as she watched a horizontal
series of lights on a display panel.She knew that if a light suddenly shone and she moved
the joystick left or right to correspond to its position,she would be sent a drop of fruit juice into her mouth.
Belle wore a cap glued to her head.Under it were four plastic connectors,which fed
arrays of microwires一each wire finer than the finest sewing thread一into different regions of
Belle's motor cortex（脑皮层）,the brain tissue that plans movements and sends
instructions. Each of the 100 microwires lay beside a single motor neuron（神经元）.When
a neuron produced an electrical discharge,the adjacent microwire would capture the current
and send it up through a small wiring bundle that ran from Belle's cap to a box of electronics
on a table next to the booth.The box,in turn,was linked to two computers,one next
door and the other half a country away.
After months of hard work,we were about to test the idea that we could reliably
translate the raw electrical activity in a living being's brain一Belle's mere thoughts一into
signals that could direct the actions of a robot.We had assembled a multijointed robot arm
in this room,away from Belle's view,which she would control for the first time.As soon as Belle's brain sensed a lit spot on the panel,electronics in the box running two real-time
mathematical models would rapidly analyze the tiny action potentials produced by her brain
cells.Our lab computer would convert the electrical patterns into instructions that would
direct the robot arm.Six hundred miles north,in Cambridge,Mass,a different computer
would produce the same actions in another robot arm built by Mandayam A. Srinivasan.If
we had done everything correctly,the two robot arms would behave as Belle's arm did,at
exactly the same time.
Finally the moment came.We randomly switched on lights in front of Belle,and she
immediately moved her joystick back and forth to correspond to them.Our robot arm moved
similarly to Belle's real arm.So did Srinivasan's.Belle and the robots moved in synchrony
（同步）,like dancers choreographed（设计舞蹈动作）by the electrical impulses sparking in
Belle's mind.
In the two years since that day,our labs and several others have advanced
neuroscience,computer science and microelectronics to create ways for rats,monkeys and
eventually humans to control mechanical and electronic machines purely by"thinking
through,"or imagining,the motions.Our immediate goal is to help a person who has been
unable to move by a neurological（神经的）disorder or spinal cord（脊髓）injury, but
whose motor cortex is spared,to operate a wheelchair or a robotic limb.

The short-term goal of the research is to help a person
A:whose motor cortex is seriously damaged.
B:who can operate a wheelchair but not a robotic limb.
C:who has spinal cord injury but is able to move a wheelchair.
D:who is unable to move but whose motor cortex is not damaged.

Rats and other animals need to be highly at tuned to social signals from others so that can identify friends to cooperate with and enemies to avoid.To find out if this extends to non-living beings,Loleh Quinn at the University of California,San Diego,and her colleagues tested whether rats can detect social signals form robotic rats.They housed eight adult rats with two types of robotic rat-one social and one asocial一for 5 our days.The robots rats were quite minimalist,resembling a chunkier version of a computer mouse with wheels-to move around and colorful markings.During the experiment,the social robot rat followed the living rats around,played with the same toys,and opened caged doors to let trapped rats escape.Meanwhile,the asocial robot simply moved forwards and backwards and side to side Next,the researchers trapped the robots in cages and gave the rats the opportunity to release them by pressing a lever.Across 18 trials each,the living rats were 52 percent more likely on average to set the social robot free than the asocial one.This suggests that the rats perceived the social robot as a genuine social being.They may have bonded more with the social robot because it displayed behaviours like communal exploring and playing.This could lead to the rats better remembering having freed it earlier,and wanting the robot to return the favour when they get trapped,says Quinn.The readiness of the rats to befriend the social robot was surprising given its minimal design.The robot was the same size as a regular rat but resembled a simple plastic box on wheels.“We'd assumed we'd have to give it a moving head and tail,facial features,and put a scene on it to make it smell like a real rat,but that wasn’t necessary,”says Janet Wiles at the University of Queensland in Australia,who helped with the research.The finding shows how sensitive rats are to social cues,even when they come from basic robots.Similarly,children tend to treat robots as if they are fellow beings,even when they display only simple social signals.“We humans seem to be fascinated by robots,and it turns out other animals are too,”says Wiles.James Wiles notes that rats________

A.can remember other rat's facial features
B.differentiate smells better than sizes
C.respond more to cations than to looks
D.can be scared by a plastic box on wheels

Rats and other animals need to be highly at tuned to social signals from others so that can identify friends to cooperate with and enemies to avoid.To find out if this extends to non-living beings,Loleh Quinn at the University of California,San Diego,and her colleagues tested whether rats can detect social signals form robotic rats.They housed eight adult rats with two types of robotic rat-one social and one asocial一for 5 our days.The robots rats were quite minimalist,resembling a chunkier version of a computer mouse with wheels-to move around and colorful markings.During the experiment,the social robot rat followed the living rats around,played with the same toys,and opened caged doors to let trapped rats escape.Meanwhile,the asocial robot simply moved forwards and backwards and side to side Next,the researchers trapped the robots in cages and gave the rats the opportunity to release them by pressing a lever.Across 18 trials each,the living rats were 52 percent more likely on average to set the social robot free than the asocial one.This suggests that the rats perceived the social robot as a genuine social being.They may have bonded more with the social robot because it displayed behaviours like communal exploring and playing.This could lead to the rats better remembering having freed it earlier,and wanting the robot to return the favour when they get trapped,says Quinn.The readiness of the rats to befriend the social robot was surprising given its minimal design.The robot was the same size as a regular rat but resembled a simple plastic box on wheels.“We'd assumed we'd have to give it a moving head and tail,facial features,and put a scene on it to make it smell like a real rat,but that wasn’t necessary,”says Janet Wiles at the University of Queensland in Australia,who helped with the research.The finding shows how sensitive rats are to social cues,even when they come from basic robots.Similarly,children tend to treat robots as if they are fellow beings,even when they display only simple social signals.“We humans seem to be fascinated by robots,and it turns out other animals are too,”says Wiles.Quin and her colleagues conducted a test to see if rats can________

A.pickup social signals from non-living rats
B.distinguish a friendly rat from a hostile one
C.attain sociable traits through special training
D.send out warning messages to their fellow

资料：Demystifying how social and human-like robots work is vital so that we can understand and shape how they will affect our future, Dr Hatice Gunes will tell the Hay Festival next week. (1)
　　Fear mongering and myth-making about human-like and social robots is stopping us from engaging with the technology behind them and having an input into how they—and we—evolve, says Hatice Gunes, Associate Professor at University of Cambridge's Computer Laboratory. (2)
　　Dr Gunes will be speaking about her research at the Hay Festival on 1st June and says we need to move beyond sensationalist portrayals of human-like robot. Her Hay talk will centre on human robot interaction [ HRI] and how it can be used for our benefit, for instance, for helping children with autism learn how to read expressions and to stimulate the senses of elderly people in care. (3)
　　Dr Gunes will outline how HRI works. She says it has to be believable in order to be effective. That means robots’ appearance is very important. This is what has driven the development of humanoid robots with arms and aspects of a human face which can behave in a human-like way, for instance, moving their arms, legs and eyes. However, more important than appearance is their behaviour and emotional expressivity. Dr Gunes refers to the way we relate to Disney’s animated characters. “People believe in them because they can portray emotion,” she says. (4)
　　To achieve expressivity requires an understanding of how human emotions are portrayed and triggered. Scientists have been working on artificial emotional intelligence which enables new technology such as embodied agents and robots to both express and detect emotions, understanding non-verbal cues. Dr Gunes cites the work of Charles Darwin on the visual nature of emotions and how they can be mapped to various changes in facial expressions. (5)
　　Her research investigates how humanoids can be programmed not only to extract and respond to facial clues to emotions, but also to understand the context in which those emotions are expressed. That means they will be able to offer a response that is sensitive to specific contexts. (6)
　　Will robots ever be able to have emotions themselves though? Dr Gunes says there is no reason why not and questions what emotions are. The process of working with robots on artificial emotional intelligence unpicks the nature of our emotions, showing them to be a layering of different goals, experiences and stimuli. (7)
　　 Another area which scientists are looking at in their quest to improve humanoids’ believability is personality. Dr Gunes has done a lot of work on personality in telepresence robotics, robots controlled remotely by a human—a kind of 3D avatar. These can be used in many ways, for instance, by medical staff to offer remote home care. The medical person can be based anywhere and operate the robot through a virtual headset. Dr Gunes is interested in how people react to the teleoperator (the human controlling the robot remotely) who is present in robot form. Once again, both the robot’s physical appearance and behaviour are important and research shows that their personality needs to be task dependent. (8)
　　Dr Gunes says there remain some big challenges for scientists working on HRI, including how to process and combine all the different data they are gathering, how to modify their appearance and behaviour dynamically, and how to keep their power going 24/7. The major challenges, however, are to do with breaking down some of the myths and fears people have about humanoids. (9)
　　 Part of this is because they don’t understand the benefits humanoid robots can bring and why, for instance, they need to take on a human form and understand emotions. She says humanoids can be positive in terms of increasing trust and engagement among certain groups, such as the elderly; that humans tends to anthropomorphise technology in any event; and that robots can be programmed to be limited to positive emotions that promote altruism. (10)
　　“People tend to love or hate robots, but they don’t really know a lot abou

A.Neutral
B.Positive
C.Negative
D.Critical

资料：Demystifying how social and human-like robots work is vital so that we can understand and shape how they will affect our future, Dr Hatice Gunes will tell the Hay Festival next week. (1)
　　Fear mongering and myth-making about human-like and social robots is stopping us from engaging with the technology behind them and having an input into how they—and we—evolve, says Hatice Gunes, Associate Professor at University of Cambridge's Computer Laboratory. (2)
　　Dr Gunes will be speaking about her research at the Hay Festival on 1st June and says we need to move beyond sensationalist portrayals of human-like robot. Her Hay talk will centre on human robot interaction [ HRI] and how it can be used for our benefit, for instance, for helping children with autism learn how to read expressions and to stimulate the senses of elderly people in care. (3)
　　Dr Gunes will outline how HRI works. She says it has to be believable in order to be effective. That means robots’ appearance is very important. This is what has driven the development of humanoid robots with arms and aspects of a human face which can behave in a human-like way, for instance, moving their arms, legs and eyes. However, more important than appearance is their behaviour and emotional expressivity. Dr Gunes refers to the way we relate to Disney’s animated characters. “People believe in them because they can portray emotion,” she says. (4)
　　To achieve expressivity requires an understanding of how human emotions are portrayed and triggered. Scientists have been working on artificial emotional intelligence which enables new technology such as embodied agents and robots to both express and detect emotions, understanding non-verbal cues. Dr Gunes cites the work of Charles Darwin on the visual nature of emotions and how they can be mapped to various changes in facial expressions. (5)
　　Her research investigates how humanoids can be programmed not only to extract and respond to facial clues to emotions, but also to understand the context in which those emotions are expressed. That means they will be able to offer a response that is sensitive to specific contexts. (6)
　　Will robots ever be able to have emotions themselves though? Dr Gunes says there is no reason why not and questions what emotions are. The process of working with robots on artificial emotional intelligence unpicks the nature of our emotions, showing them to be a layering of different goals, experiences and stimuli. (7)
　　 Another area which scientists are looking at in their quest to improve humanoids’ believability is personality. Dr Gunes has done a lot of work on personality in telepresence robotics, robots controlled remotely by a human—a kind of 3D avatar. These can be used in many ways, for instance, by medical staff to offer remote home care. The medical person can be based anywhere and operate the robot through a virtual headset. Dr Gunes is interested in how people react to the teleoperator (the human controlling the robot remotely) who is present in robot form. Once again, both the robot’s physical appearance and behaviour are important and research shows that their personality needs to be task dependent. (8)
　　Dr Gunes says there remain some big challenges for scientists working on HRI, including how to process and combine all the different data they are gathering, how to modify their appearance and behaviour dynamically, and how to keep their power going 24/7. The major challenges, however, are to do with breaking down some of the myths and fears people have about humanoids. (9)
　　 Part of this is because they don’t understand the benefits humanoid robots can bring and why, for instance, they need to take on a human form and understand emotions. She says humanoids can be positive in terms of increasing trust and engagement among certain groups, such as the elderly; that humans tends to anthropomorphise technology in any event; and that robots can be programmed to be limited to positive emotions that promote altruism. (10)
　　“People tend to love or hate robots, but they don’t really know a lot abou

A.it is not meaningful for robots to have the appearance of human
B.people who make the appearance of robots very human-like should be blamed
C.people need to pay more attention to the development of robots’functions
D.the appearance of robots has become more and more emotional

共用题干
The Robot Man
According to Hans Moravec,universal robots will take over all the physical activities that we engage in,leaving us with little to do.Moravec sees four generations on the road to true universal robots. The first generation will be here by 2010 and will consist of free-ranging robots that can navigate by building an internal mental map of their surroundings.In new situations they'll be able to adapt,unlike today's mobile industrial robots.These robots will have the computing power to cope with simple speech and text recognition,and will be used for tasks such as domestic clean-ing.
The second generation will arrive around 2020 and will be distinguished by the ability to learn .Second generation robots are programmed with sets of primitive tasks and with feedback that provide"pleasure"and"pain"stimuli .For example,a collision provokes a negative response,a completed task would be positive.
Move forward another ten years to 2030 and you get to generation three.This robot can build internal simulations of the world around it. Before beginning a task,it can imagine what will happen in order to predict problems.If it has a free moment,it can replay past experiences and try variations in order to find a better way of如ing things next time .It could even observe a person or another robot performing a task and learn by imitation.For the first time,we have here a robot that can think.
By the time we get to generation four in 2040,Moravec predicts that robots will be able to: match human reasoning and behaviour;generalise abstract ideas from specific experience;and, conversely,compile detailed plans of action from general commands such as"earn a living"or "make more robots".
The Moravec manifesto（宣告）runs something like this. As robots start to become useful in generation one,they'll begin to take on many tasks in industry.Driven by the availability of this cheap and tireless labour force,the economy will boom and the demand for robots will grow so rapidly that they will soon become lowcost commodity items.So much so that they'll move into the home,where the domestic robot will relieve us of many chores.
With increasing automation in generations two and three,the length of the average working day will plummet,eventually to near zero. Most people will be unemployed as robots take over not just primary industry,but the service economy too.Moravec sees the fourth generation as an opportunity to surpass our human limitations.
These future machines will be our"mind children".Like biological children of previous generations,they will embody humanity's best hope for a long-term future.

What does Moravec think of these future robots?
A: They will look like previous biological children.
B: They will be humans' mind-children.
C: They will create a dangerous world.
D: They will rule the world.

第二十二篇 RealWld Robots

　　When you think of a robot, do you envision ashiny, metallic device having the same general shape as a human being,perfming humanlike functions, responding to your questions in a monotonevoice accentuated by high-pitched tones beeps? This is the way many of usimagine a robot, but in the real wld, a robot is not humanoid at all. Insteada robot often is a voiceless, box-shaped machine that efficiently carries outrepetitive dangerous functions usually perfmed by humans. Today’s robot is me than an automatic machine that perfms one taskagain again. A modern robot is programmed with varying degrees ofartificial intelligence—that is, a robot contains acomputer program that tells it how to perfm tasks associated with human intelligence,such as reasoning, drawing conclusions, learning from past experience.

　　A robot does not possess a human shape fthe simple reason that a two-legged robot has great difficulty remainingbalanced. A robot does, however, move from place to place on wheels axlesthat roll rotate. A robot even has limbs that swivel move incombination with ts mots. To find its way in its surroundings1, arobot utilizes various built-in senss. Antennae attached to the robot’s base detect anything they bump into. If the robot starts to teeteras it moves on an incline, a gyroscope a pendulum inside it senses thevertical differential. To determine its distance from an object how quicklyit will reach the object，the robot bounces beams oflaser light ultrasonic sound waves off obstructions in its path2. These other senss constantly feed infmation to the computer, which then analyzesthe infmation crects adjusts the robot’sactions. As science technology advance, the robot too will progress in itsfunctions use of artificial-intelligence programs.

　　词汇：

　　envision v. 想象，预想

　　device n. 装置

　　accentuate v. 强调，重读

　　artificial intelligence n. 人工智能

　　limb n. 臂

　　antennae n. 天线

　　incline v. 倾斜

　　pendulum n. 钟摆

　　ultrasonic adj. 超声的

　　metallic adj. 金属的

　　monotone n. 单调的

　　humanoid adj. 像人的

　　axle n. 轮轴

　　rotate v. 旋转

　　swivel n. 旋转

　　teeter v. 摇晃

　　gyroscope n. 陀螺仪，回转仪

　　vertical n. 直立的

　　注释：

　　1.To find its way in its surroundings...：为了在周围找到路……

　　2.the robot bounces beams of laser light ultrasonic sound waves off obstructions in its path：机器人发射激光束和超声波，反射到障碍物上(以此来探知路径)。

　练习：2.Artificial intelligence is

A　the unnatural wayin which robots move.
B　a voiceless,box-shaped machine that perfms repetitive tasks.
C　senss such asantennae a gyroscope.
D　a computer programthat imitates human intellectual processes.

第二十二篇 RealWld Robots

　　When you think of a robot, do you envision ashiny, metallic device having the same general shape as a human being,perfming humanlike functions, responding to your questions in a monotonevoice accentuated by high-pitched tones beeps? This is the way many of usimagine a robot, but in the real wld, a robot is not humanoid at all. Insteada robot often is a voiceless, box-shaped machine that efficiently carries outrepetitive dangerous functions usually perfmed by humans. Today’s robot is me than an automatic machine that perfms one taskagain again. A modern robot is programmed with varying degrees ofartificial intelligence—that is, a robot contains acomputer program that tells it how to perfm tasks associated with human intelligence,such as reasoning, drawing conclusions, learning from past experience.

　　A robot does not possess a human shape fthe simple reason that a two-legged robot has great difficulty remainingbalanced. A robot does, however, move from place to place on wheels axlesthat roll rotate. A robot even has limbs that swivel move incombination with ts mots. To find its way in its surroundings1, arobot utilizes various built-in senss. Antennae attached to the robot’s base detect anything they bump into. If the robot starts to teeteras it moves on an incline, a gyroscope a pendulum inside it senses thevertical differential. To determine its distance from an object how quicklyit will reach the object，the robot bounces beams oflaser light ultrasonic sound waves off obstructions in its path2. These other senss constantly feed infmation to the computer, which then analyzesthe infmation crects adjusts the robot’sactions. As science technology advance, the robot too will progress in itsfunctions use of artificial-intelligence programs.

　　词汇：

　　envision v. 想象，预想

　　device n. 装置

　　accentuate v. 强调，重读

　　artificial intelligence n. 人工智能

　　limb n. 臂

　　antennae n. 天线

　　incline v. 倾斜

　　pendulum n. 钟摆

　　ultrasonic adj. 超声的

　　metallic adj. 金属的

　　monotone n. 单调的

　　humanoid adj. 像人的

　　axle n. 轮轴

　　rotate v. 旋转

　　swivel n. 旋转

　　teeter v. 摇晃

　　gyroscope n. 陀螺仪，回转仪

　　vertical n. 直立的

　　注释：

　　1.To find its way in its surroundings...：为了在周围找到路……

　　2.the robot bounces beams of laser light ultrasonic sound waves off obstructions in its path：机器人发射激光束和超声波，反射到障碍物上(以此来探知路径)。

　练习：　4.The writer begins the passage by comparing

A　the shape of ahuman being with a box.
B　a modem robot witha fictional robot.
C　an imaginarymachine with a human.
D　a computer programwith artificial intelligence.

共用题干
第三篇

Controlling Robots with the Mind

Belle,our tiny monkey,was seated in her special chair inside a chamber at our Duke
University lab. Her right hand grasped a joystick（操纵杆）as she watched a horizontal
series of lights on a display panel.She knew that if a light suddenly shone and she moved
the joystick left or right to correspond to its position,she would be sent a drop of fruit juice into her mouth.
Belle wore a cap glued to her head.Under it were four plastic connectors,which fed
arrays of microwires一each wire finer than the finest sewing thread一into different regions of
Belle's motor cortex（脑皮层）,the brain tissue that plans movements and sends
instructions. Each of the 100 microwires lay beside a single motor neuron（神经元）.When
a neuron produced an electrical discharge,the adjacent microwire would capture the current
and send it up through a small wiring bundle that ran from Belle's cap to a box of electronics
on a table next to the booth.The box,in turn,was linked to two computers,one next
door and the other half a country away.
After months of hard work,we were about to test the idea that we could reliably
translate the raw electrical activity in a living being's brain一Belle's mere thoughts一into
signals that could direct the actions of a robot.We had assembled a multijointed robot arm
in this room,away from Belle's view,which she would control for the first time.As soon as Belle's brain sensed a lit spot on the panel,electronics in the box running two real-time
mathematical models would rapidly analyze the tiny action potentials produced by her brain
cells.Our lab computer would convert the electrical patterns into instructions that would
direct the robot arm.Six hundred miles north,in Cambridge,Mass,a different computer
would produce the same actions in another robot arm built by Mandayam A. Srinivasan.If
we had done everything correctly,the two robot arms would behave as Belle's arm did,at
exactly the same time.
Finally the moment came.We randomly switched on lights in front of Belle,and she
immediately moved her joystick back and forth to correspond to them.Our robot arm moved
similarly to Belle's real arm.So did Srinivasan's.Belle and the robots moved in synchrony
（同步）,like dancers choreographed（设计舞蹈动作）by the electrical impulses sparking in
Belle's mind.
In the two years since that day,our labs and several others have advanced
neuroscience,computer science and microelectronics to create ways for rats,monkeys and
eventually humans to control mechanical and electronic machines purely by"thinking
through,"or imagining,the motions.Our immediate goal is to help a person who has been
unable to move by a neurological（神经的）disorder or spinal cord（脊髓）injury, but
whose motor cortex is spared,to operate a wheelchair or a robotic limb.

Which of the following is NOT true of the robot built by Srinivasan?
A:It was directed by signals converted from the electrical activity in Belle's brain.
B:It converted the electrical patterns into instructions for the other robot.
C:It was six hundred miles away from where Belle was.
D:It could perform the same function as Belle did.

Rats and other animals need to be highly at tuned to social signals from others so that can identify friends to cooperate with and enemies to avoid.To find out if this extends to non-living beings,Loleh Quinn at the University of California,San Diego,and her colleagues tested whether rats can detect social signals form robotic rats.They housed eight adult rats with two types of robotic rat-one social and one asocial一for 5 our days.The robots rats were quite minimalist,resembling a chunkier version of a computer mouse with wheels-to move around and colorful markings.During the experiment,the social robot rat followed the living rats around,played with the same toys,and opened caged doors to let trapped rats escape.Meanwhile,the asocial robot simply moved forwards and backwards and side to side Next,the researchers trapped the robots in cages and gave the rats the opportunity to release them by pressing a lever.Across 18 trials each,the living rats were 52 percent more likely on average to set the social robot free than the asocial one.This suggests that the rats perceived the social robot as a genuine social being.They may have bonded more with the social robot because it displayed behaviours like communal exploring and playing.This could lead to the rats better remembering having freed it earlier,and wanting the robot to return the favour when they get trapped,says Quinn.The readiness of the rats to befriend the social robot was surprising given its minimal design.The robot was the same size as a regular rat but resembled a simple plastic box on wheels.“We'd assumed we'd have to give it a moving head and tail,facial features,and put a scene on it to make it smell like a real rat,but that wasn’t necessary,”says Janet Wiles at the University of Queensland in Australia,who helped with the research.The finding shows how sensitive rats are to social cues,even when they come from basic robots.Similarly,children tend to treat robots as if they are fellow beings,even when they display only simple social signals.“We humans seem to be fascinated by robots,and it turns out other animals are too,”says Wiles.
What did the social robot do during the experiment?

A.It followed the social robot.
B.It played with some toys.
C.It set the trapped rats free.
D.It moved around alone.

Rats and other animals need to be highly at tuned to social signals from others so that can identify friends to cooperate with and enemies to avoid.To find out if this extends to non-living beings,Loleh Quinn at the University of California,San Diego,and her colleagues tested whether rats can detect social signals form robotic rats.They housed eight adult rats with two types of robotic rat-one social and one asocial一for 5 our days.The robots rats were quite minimalist,resembling a chunkier version of a computer mouse with wheels-to move around and colorful markings.During the experiment,the social robot rat followed the living rats around,played with the same toys,and opened caged doors to let trapped rats escape.Meanwhile,the asocial robot simply moved forwards and backwards and side to side Next,the researchers trapped the robots in cages and gave the rats the opportunity to release them by pressing a lever.Across 18 trials each,the living rats were 52 percent more likely on average to set the social robot free than the asocial one.This suggests that the rats perceived the social robot as a genuine social being.They may have bonded more with the social robot because it displayed behaviours like communal exploring and playing.This could lead to the rats better remembering having freed it earlier,and wanting the robot to return the favour when they get trapped,says Quinn.The readiness of the rats to befriend the social robot was surprising given its minimal design.The robot was the same size as a regular rat but resembled a simple plastic box on wheels.“We'd assumed we'd have to give it a moving head and tail,facial features,and put a scene on it to make it smell like a real rat,but that wasn’t necessary,”says Janet Wiles at the University of Queensland in Australia,who helped with the research.The finding shows how sensitive rats are to social cues,even when they come from basic robots.Similarly,children tend to treat robots as if they are fellow beings,even when they display only simple social signals.“We humans seem to be fascinated by robots,and it turns out other animals are too,”says Wiles.
According to Quinn,the rats released the social robot because they________

A.tried to practice a means of escape
B.expected it to do the same in return
C.wanted to display their intelligence
D.considered that an interesting game

资料：Demystifying how social and human-like robots work is vital so that we can understand and shape how they will affect our future, Dr Hatice Gunes will tell the Hay Festival next week. (1)
　　Fear mongering and myth-making about human-like and social robots is stopping us from engaging with the technology behind them and having an input into how they—and we—evolve, says Hatice Gunes, Associate Professor at University of Cambridge's Computer Laboratory. (2)
　　Dr Gunes will be speaking about her research at the Hay Festival on 1st June and says we need to move beyond sensationalist portrayals of human-like robot. Her Hay talk will centre on human robot interaction [ HRI] and how it can be used for our benefit, for instance, for helping children with autism learn how to read expressions and to stimulate the senses of elderly people in care. (3)
　　Dr Gunes will outline how HRI works. She says it has to be believable in order to be effective. That means robots’ appearance is very important. This is what has driven the development of humanoid robots with arms and aspects of a human face which can behave in a human-like way, for instance, moving their arms, legs and eyes. However, more important than appearance is their behaviour and emotional expressivity. Dr Gunes refers to the way we relate to Disney’s animated characters. “People believe in them because they can portray emotion,” she says. (4)
　　To achieve expressivity requires an understanding of how human emotions are portrayed and triggered. Scientists have been working on artificial emotional intelligence which enables new technology such as embodied agents and robots to both express and detect emotions, understanding non-verbal cues. Dr Gunes cites the work of Charles Darwin on the visual nature of emotions and how they can be mapped to various changes in facial expressions. (5)
　　Her research investigates how humanoids can be programmed not only to extract and respond to facial clues to emotions, but also to understand the context in which those emotions are expressed. That means they will be able to offer a response that is sensitive to specific contexts. (6)
　　Will robots ever be able to have emotions themselves though? Dr Gunes says there is no reason why not and questions what emotions are. The process of working with robots on artificial emotional intelligence unpicks the nature of our emotions, showing them to be a layering of different goals, experiences and stimuli. (7)
　　 Another area which scientists are looking at in their quest to improve humanoids’ believability is personality. Dr Gunes has done a lot of work on personality in telepresence robotics, robots controlled remotely by a human—a kind of 3D avatar. These can be used in many ways, for instance, by medical staff to offer remote home care. The medical person can be based anywhere and operate the robot through a virtual headset. Dr Gunes is interested in how people react to the teleoperator (the human controlling the robot remotely) who is present in robot form. Once again, both the robot’s physical appearance and behaviour are important and research shows that their personality needs to be task dependent. (8)
　　Dr Gunes says there remain some big challenges for scientists working on HRI, including how to process and combine all the different data they are gathering, how to modify their appearance and behaviour dynamically, and how to keep their power going 24/7. The major challenges, however, are to do with breaking down some of the myths and fears people have about humanoids. (9)
　　 Part of this is because they don’t understand the benefits humanoid robots can bring and why, for instance, they need to take on a human form and understand emotions. She says humanoids can be positive in terms of increasing trust and engagement among certain groups, such as the elderly; that humans tends to anthropomorphise technology in any event; and that robots can be programmed to be limited to positive emotions that promote altruism. (10)
　　“People tend to love or hate robots, but they don’t really know a lot abou

A.To enable robots to serve humans.
B.To decrease humans fear about robots.
C.To make robots more human-like.
D.To equip robots with human emotions.

资料：Demystifying how social and human-like robots work is vital so that we can understand and shape how they will affect our future, Dr Hatice Gunes will tell the Hay Festival next week. (1)
　　Fear mongering and myth-making about human-like and social robots is stopping us from engaging with the technology behind them and having an input into how they—and we—evolve, says Hatice Gunes, Associate Professor at University of Cambridge's Computer Laboratory. (2)
　　Dr Gunes will be speaking about her research at the Hay Festival on 1st June and says we need to move beyond sensationalist portrayals of human-like robot. Her Hay talk will centre on human robot interaction [ HRI] and how it can be used for our benefit, for instance, for helping children with autism learn how to read expressions and to stimulate the senses of elderly people in care. (3)
　　Dr Gunes will outline how HRI works. She says it has to be believable in order to be effective. That means robots’ appearance is very important. This is what has driven the development of humanoid robots with arms and aspects of a human face which can behave in a human-like way, for instance, moving their arms, legs and eyes. However, more important than appearance is their behaviour and emotional expressivity. Dr Gunes refers to the way we relate to Disney’s animated characters. “People believe in them because they can portray emotion,” she says. (4)
　　To achieve expressivity requires an understanding of how human emotions are portrayed and triggered. Scientists have been working on artificial emotional intelligence which enables new technology such as embodied agents and robots to both express and detect emotions, understanding non-verbal cues. Dr Gunes cites the work of Charles Darwin on the visual nature of emotions and how they can be mapped to various changes in facial expressions. (5)
　　Her research investigates how humanoids can be programmed not only to extract and respond to facial clues to emotions, but also to understand the context in which those emotions are expressed. That means they will be able to offer a response that is sensitive to specific contexts. (6)
　　Will robots ever be able to have emotions themselves though? Dr Gunes says there is no reason why not and questions what emotions are. The process of working with robots on artificial emotional intelligence unpicks the nature of our emotions, showing them to be a layering of different goals, experiences and stimuli. (7)
　　 Another area which scientists are looking at in their quest to improve humanoids’ believability is personality. Dr Gunes has done a lot of work on personality in telepresence robotics, robots controlled remotely by a human—a kind of 3D avatar. These can be used in many ways, for instance, by medical staff to offer remote home care. The medical person can be based anywhere and operate the robot through a virtual headset. Dr Gunes is interested in how people react to the teleoperator (the human controlling the robot remotely) who is present in robot form. Once again, both the robot’s physical appearance and behaviour are important and research shows that their personality needs to be task dependent. (8)
　　Dr Gunes says there remain some big challenges for scientists working on HRI, including how to process and combine all the different data they are gathering, how to modify their appearance and behaviour dynamically, and how to keep their power going 24/7. The major challenges, however, are to do with breaking down some of the myths and fears people have about humanoids. (9)
　　 Part of this is because they don’t understand the benefits humanoid robots can bring and why, for instance, they need to take on a human form and understand emotions. She says humanoids can be positive in terms of increasing trust and engagement among certain groups, such as the elderly; that humans tends to anthropomorphise technology in any event; and that robots can be programmed to be limited to positive emotions that promote altruism. (10)
　　“People tend to love or hate robots, but they don’t really know a lot abou

A.With the development of human robot interaction, robots ae now able to communicate with humans in an effective way.
B.Scientists have many challenges in developing robots, such as how to modify their appearance and behavior.
C.Human emotions enable robots to win the trust from human, especially the elderly and children.
D.It is important to help people understand robots in order to develop robots to human needs.