考研英語特訓(xùn)：看閱讀記單詞（十一）_跨考網(wǎng)

? Since thedawnof human ingenuity,people have devised ever more cunningtools to cope with work that is dangerous, boring,burdensome, or just plain nasty. Thatcompulsion has resulted in robotics--thescience of conferring various human capabilities on machines. And if scientistshave yet to create the mechanical version of science fiction,they have begun to come close.

? As a result,the modern world is increasingly populated by intelligent gizmos whose presencewe barely notice butwhose universal existence has removed much human labor. Our factories hum to therhythmof robot assembly arms. Our banking is done at automated teller terminals thatthank us with mechanical politeness for the transaction. Our subway trains arecontrolled by tireless robot-drivers. And thanks to the continualminiaturization of electronics and micro-mechanics, there are already robotsystems that can perform some kinds of brain and bone surgerywith submillimeter accuracy--far greater precisionthan highly skilled physicians can achieve with their hands alone.

? But if robotsare to reach the next stage of laborsavingutility,they will have to operate with less human supervision and be able to make atleast a few decisionsfor themselves--goals that posea real challenge. “While we know how to tell a robot to handle a specificerror,” says Dave Lavery, manager of a robotics program at NASA, “we can't yetgive a robot enough ‘common sense’ to reliably interactwith a dynamicworld.”

? Indeed thequest for true artificial intelligence has produced very mixed results. Despitea spell of initial optimism in the1960s and 1970s when it appeared that transistor circuitsand microprocessorsmight be able to copy the action of the human brain by the year 2010,researchers lately have begun to extend that forecast by decades if notcenturies.

? What theyfound, in attempting to model thought, is that the human brain's roughly onehundred billion nerve cells are much more talented-and human perceptionfar more complicated--than previously imagined. They have built robots that canrecognize the error of a machine panel by a fraction of a millimeter in acontrolled factory environment. But the human mind can glimpse a rapidlychanging scene and immediately disregard the 98 percent that is irrelevant,instantaneously focusing on the monkey at the side of a winding forest road orthe single suspicious face in a big crowd. The most advanced computer systems onEarth can't approach that kind of ability, and neuroscientists still don't knowquite how we do it.

? 譯文

??? 從人類產(chǎn)生智慧初期至今，人們一直在設(shè)計越來越巧妙的工具來應(yīng)付那些危險的、枯燥的、繁重的或者直接就是骯臟的工作。這種動力產(chǎn)生了機(jī)器人科學(xué)——一門將人類的能力賦予機(jī)器的科學(xué)。如果科學(xué)家們還沒有創(chuàng)造出科幻小說的機(jī)械版本，他們也已經(jīng)很接近這個目標(biāo)了。
　　由此引起的結(jié)果是，現(xiàn)代世界已經(jīng)充斥著越來越多的智能裝置，盡管我們幾乎都注意不到他們，但他們的普遍存在卻節(jié)省了許多人類勞力。我們的工廠里轟鳴著機(jī)器人生產(chǎn)線的節(jié)奏；我們的金融服務(wù)在自動柜員機(jī)上完成，它們還會機(jī)械地、禮貌地感謝我們使用業(yè)務(wù)；我們的地鐵車輛由不知疲倦的機(jī)器人司機(jī)駕駛。多虧了電子和微觀機(jī)械儀器的不斷縮小，現(xiàn)在已有一些機(jī)器人系統(tǒng)能夠進(jìn)行腦部和骨髓手術(shù)，準(zhǔn)確性精確到亞毫米，遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)超過熟練的醫(yī)生用他們的雙手所能達(dá)到的水平。
　　但是如果機(jī)器人要進(jìn)入節(jié)省勞力的下一個階段，他們必須能夠在更少的人工監(jiān)控下運(yùn)行，并且至少能夠獨(dú)立地做一些決定。這些目標(biāo)提出了一個真正的挑戰(zhàn)。“雖然我們知道如何讓機(jī)器人去糾正一個特定的錯誤，”NASA的一個機(jī)器人項目經(jīng)理戴維·拉維里說，“我們?nèi)匀徊荒苜x予機(jī)器人以足夠的‘常識’，使它們能夠與動態(tài)的世界進(jìn)行可靠的交流?！?br>　　實(shí)際上對真正的人工智能的探索已經(jīng)產(chǎn)生了各種各樣的結(jié)果。雖然剛開始在20世紀(jì)60和70年代有過一段樂觀的時期，那時候看起來晶體管電路和微處理器的發(fā)展將使它們在2010年能夠模仿人類大腦的活動——但是最近研究人員已經(jīng)開始將這個預(yù)測延后了不是數(shù)百年至少也有數(shù)十年。
　　在試圖建造思維模型的過程中，研究人員發(fā)現(xiàn)，人類大腦中的近1000億個神經(jīng)細(xì)胞要比以前想像的更聰明，人類的感知也比以前想像的更復(fù)雜。他們建造出來的機(jī)器人在嚴(yán)格控制的工廠環(huán)境里，能夠在儀識別表盤上一毫米以下的誤差。但是人的大腦能夠掃描一個快速變化的場景，迅速排除98％的不相干的物體，立即聚焦于森林中婉蜒道路旁的一只猴子，或者人群中的一張可疑的臉。地球上最先進(jìn)的計算機(jī)系統(tǒng)也不能達(dá)到這種能力，并且神經(jīng)學(xué)科學(xué)家仍然不知道我們是怎樣做到這一點(diǎn)的。

詞匯

? Boring?? a.煩人的, 無聊的, 無趣的

? 派生：boren. 使人討厭的人或事

? 例句：Whataboring film!這電影真乏味！

? Burdensome? a.累贅的, 惱人的, 繁重的

? 派生：burdenn. 負(fù)擔(dān)；重?fù)?dān)

? 例句：The work wasburdensome.這工作很繁重。

? 詞組：a burdensome task一項艱巨的任務(wù)

? Barely? ad. 幾乎不

? 例句：Hebarely missedbeing killed. 他幾乎喪了命。

? 詞組：barely enough勉強(qiáng)夠bebarely of age剛成年

? 同義詞：hardlyjustscarcely

? Cunning?? a.狡猾的, 巧妙的, 可愛的

? 派生：cunningnessn. 狡猾 cunninglyad. 狡猾地

? 例句：Tom is ascunning asanything. 湯姆狡猾得不得了。