学术英语(第二版)综合教学课件U9

would one day come to reality? Why or why not?
Reference answers
• I think it’s a likely scenario although it depends on how we design and control technology. Artificial intelligence has been facilitating our daily life in a good way, from self-driving cars to digital personal assistants. So far, it has been beneficial and under control, and the world depicted in The Matrix seems unlikely to come to reality. But artificial intelligence is advancing at a rapid
Contents
• Reading • Viewing • Speaking • Writing
Reading
• Text A • Text B
Reading Mind
Text A
• Lead-in task • While reading • After reading tasks
Text A Lead-in task
Critical thinking
Reference answers
• So if we are not careful, we might be creating a monster that could turn into our master. Whether the world depicted in The Matrix would one day come to reality is still hanging in the air. What we can do now is to improve the chances of reaping the benefits and avoiding the risks by conducting more research into where artificial intelligence could lead.
Text A Lead-in
Critical thinking
task
The science fiction movie The Matrix (黑客帝国)
describes a world dominated by robots who
manipulate human beings. Do you think such a world
Text A While reading
Language Support
… it seems that our conviction that people have minds is no better based than the belief that there could be understanding computers. (Para. 11)
Text A While reading
Language Support
Both the fantasy and the fact would have astonished our grandparents. (Para. 1)
• Paraphrase: Both what we imagine about computers today and what the computers can actually do today would have been far beyond the imagination of our grandparents.
Text A
While reading
Supplementary Information
2. Behaviorists
A behaviorist is a person who believes in behaviorism the main argument of which is that the scientific study of people’s mind should be based only on their behavior. In other words, behavior can be described and explained without reference to mental events or psychological processes. This school of thought tends to emphasize the external sources of behavior and dismiss the internal sources (the mind). The mind hence has no independent significance.
• Paraphrase: It seems that our belief that people have minds is as groundless as believing that computers have minds.
Text A While reading
Language Support
Text A While reading
Language Support
The first response I'll call mentalist, for the sake of a label. (Para. 4)
• The term "mentalist" is used loosely by the author for the sake of convenience in order to refer to the first type of response.
1. Mentalists
A mentalist is a person who believes in mentalism the main argument of which is that mind is the basic reality and that objects of knowledge exist only as aspects of the subject’s consciousness. Some mentalists claim that physical objects are merely sensations or perceptions, or that the whole material world is mental in nature.
e.g. To my mind the companies which lose those assets are all in the same boat.
She’s always complaining that she doesn’t have enough money, but we’re all in the same boat.
Text A While reading
Language Support
Wouldn’t you have as much reason for thinking that M had a mind as you have for thinking that your mother does? You might say, “Not if l know that it’s got silicon chips in its head.” But did you ever check that your mother has got brain tissue in her head? (Para. 8)
Text A While reading
Language Support
Paraphrase: Since M responds exactly like your mother, you might think M had a mind for the same reason that you think your mother have a mind. If you don’t think so due to the reason that M’s head might be made of silicon chips, you should realize that the same goes with the case of your mother.
Text A While reading
Language Support
Much of this is still science fiction. (Para. 1)
• Paraphrase: Much of what computers do in movies still does not exist in reality.
From the epistemologist’s point of view, other people’s minds and the “minds” of computers are in the same boat (Para. 11)
in the same boat: in the same difficult or unpleasant situation
The second sentence must be understood with the sentence before it — “Wouldn’t you have as much reason for thinking that …” In context the second sentence means “I wouldn’t have as much reason for thinking that M had a mind if I know that it’s got silicon chips in its head.”
Text A While reading
• The focused issue
– the mind of the computer
• Reading task
– Does the computer have a mind?
Text A
While reading
Supplementary Information
Text A Lead-in task
Critical thinking
Reference answers
• Some experts predict that artificial intelligence will write better books than humans can write by 2049, and perform surgeries independently by 2053. Hence comes Stephen Hawking’s warning: Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn’t compete or would be superseded by “thinking machines.” He worries that artificial intelligence would outsmart us and “take off on its own, and redesign itself at an ever increasing rate,” which could pose a threat to our very existence.