2021在职硕士英语阅读理解练习及答案.docx

2021在职硕士英语阅读理解练习及答案 Since the dawn of human ingenuity, peopIe have devised ever more cunning tools to cope with work that i s dangerous, boring, burdensome, or just plain nasty. That compulsion has resulted in robotics一the science of conferring various human capabiI ities on machines. And if scientists have yet to create the mechanical version of science fiction, they have begun to come close. As a result, the modern worId i s increasingly populated by intel Iigent gizmos whose presence we barely notice but whose universal ex i stence has removed much human labor. Our factories hum to the rhythm of robot assembly arms. Our banking i s done at automated teller termi naIs that thank us with mechanical politeness for the transact ion.Oursubwaytrains are control led by ti re less robo-dr ivers.Andthanksto the cont inuaI miniatur ization of electronicsandmicromechanics, there are already robot systems thatcan with mechanical politeness for the transact ion. Our subway trains are control led by ti re less robo-dr ivers. And thanks to the cont inuaI miniatur ization of electronics and micro mechanics, there are already robot systems that can perform some kinds of brain and bone surgery with submiI Iimeter accuracy—far greater precision than highly skilled physicians can achieve with their hands alone. But i f robots are to reach the next stage of laborsaving ut i I i ty, they will have to operate with less human supervision and be able to make at least a few decisions for themselves—goaIs that pose a reaI chaIlenge. While we know how to tell a robot to handle a specific error, ” says Dave Lavery, manager of a robotics program at NASA, “we can11 yet give a robot enough 1 common sense* to rel iably interact with a dynamic world. Indeed the quest for true artificial intelIigence has produced very mixed results. Despite a spelI of initial optimism in the 1960s and 1970s when it appeared that transistor circuits and microprocessors might be able to copy the action of the huma