BBC 6分钟英语学习 机器人会超越人类吗？

English, from BBC, learning English. Hello, and welcome to Six Minute English.

I'm Dan, and joining me today is

Neil. Hi. Dan. What's with the protective gear in helmet?

I'm just getting ready for the inevitable rise of the ones.

That's the takeover

of the world by artificial

intelligence, or AI, which some people predict will happen.

Inevitable means cannot be avoided or stopped.

Rise of the machines. What do you mean?

It's our topic. In this 6 min we'll be talking about that, giving you six related pieces of vocabulary, and of course, our regular quiz question.

That's the 1st thing you said that makes any sense?

What's the question? The word robot, as we use it today, was 1st, used to in a 1920s check play rossam's Universal Robots.

But before this, what was its original meaning?

A forced labor, B metal man or C Heartless thing.

I will go for a forced labor.

We'll find out if you were right or not later in the show.

Okay, dan, tell me what's going on.

I saw a news article written by BBC Technology correspondent Roarly kettleyn Jones about the recent C-E-S technology show in Las Vegas.

He interviewed David Hanse, founder of Handsome Robotics, who said it was his ambition to achieve an AI that can beat humans at any intellectual task.

Surely, it's a good thing. Better.

AI and robotics could take over many of the jobs that we don't want to do, or that are so important to get 100% right, like air traffic control.

We'd never have another plane crash.

It would be infallible, because it would be so clever.

Infallible means never failing, and that's what bothers me.

What happens when its intelligence surpasses ours?

Why should it do what we wanted to do?

To surpass something is to do or be better than it?

Dan you've been watching too many movies, robots fighting Humanity is a popular theme.

Guess what? Humanity often wins. And besides, we would program the computer to be benevolent.

Benevolent means kind and helpful. But that's just it.

Once the intelligence becomes sentient, or able to think for itself, who knows what it will do.

We humans are not exactly perfect.

You know what happens if it decides that it's better than us and wants us out of the way?

Don't worry. Asimov thought of that.

Isaac Asimov was an American science fiction writer who, among other things, wrote about robots.

He came up with three laws that every robot would have to follow to stop it from acting against humanity so we're safe.

I'm not so sure. A sentient robot could make up its own mind about how to interpret the laws.

E.g., imagine if we created an AI system to protect all of humanity.

Well, that's great. No more war, no more murder, no more fighting.

Do you really think that humans can stop fighting?

What if the AI decides that the only way to stop us from hurting ourselves and each other is to control everything we do so it takes over to protect us?

Then we would lose our freedom to a thing that we created that is infallible and more intelligent than we are.

That's the end. Kneel. I think that's a little far fetched, which means difficult to believe.

I'm sure others don't think that way.

Okay, let's hear what the learning English teams say when I ask them if they're worried that AI and robots could take over the world.

Well, it's possible, but unlikely. There'll come a point where our technology'll be limited, and probably before real A-I is achieved.

Never in a million years. 1st of all, we'd program them so that they couldn't and secondly, we'd beat them anyway.

Haven't you ever seen a movie?

I totally think it could happen.

We only have to make a robot that's smart enough to start thinking for itself.

after that, who knows what it might do.

A mixed bag of opinions there.

Dan, it seems you aren't alone.

Nope. But I don't exactly have an army of support either.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see, speak for yourself.

I've waited long enough for our quiz question.

That is, oh yeah. I asked you what the original meaning of the word robot was before it was used in its modern form, A forced labor, B metalman or C heartless thing.

And I said, A forced labor.

And you were right. Shall we take a look at the vocabulary then?

OK? 1st, we had inevitable. If something is inevitable, then it cannot be avoided or stopped.

Can you think of something inevitable meal?

It is inevitable that one day the sun will stop burning.

Then we had infallible, which means never failing.

Give us an example, dan, the vaccine

for smallpox is infallible. The natural spread of that disease has been completely stopped.

After that was Surpasses. If something surpasses something else, then it becomes better than it.

Many paren'ts across the world hope that their children will surpass them in wealth, status or achievement.

After that, we heard benevolent, which means kind and helpful.

Name a person famous for being benevolent.

Dan hum Father. Christmas is a benevolent character.

After that, we heard sentient. If something is sentient, it is able to think for itself.

Indeed, many people wonder about the possibility of sentient life on other planets.

Finally, we heard far fetched, which means difficult to believe, like that far fetched story you told me the other day about being late because of a dragon.

Dan, I swear it was real.

It had a big sharp teeth and everything.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's the end of this six minute English.

Don't forget to check out our Facebook, twitter and youtube pages.

See you next time. Bye, bye.

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