59. If parents put on a faux-happy face, _______.

A. their children will be protected

B. their children will be taken in

C. they will feel happy as a result

D. they will undergo worse feelings

60. The author mentioned the example of her daughter to illustrate ______.

A. children are not so clever as parents think

B. children can often understand parents’ true feelings

C. it’s meaningful for parents to always look positive

D. it’s necessary to expose children to harmful things

61. We can conclude from the passage that _______.

A. protecting children from age-inappropriate things is important

B. it makes sense for children to know their parents’ negative feelings

C. children will admire their parents more because of being protected

D. separation from negative feelings helps children see the world honestly

C

The defeat of Lee Sedol, the world’s strongest Go (围棋) player, by a Google artificial intelligence (AI) program, looks like another milestone towards a world where computers can do almost anything a human can. It is not. There are uncountable things that only a human can do, and that no computer seems close to. The problem is that the purely human things are not economically useful to anyone. The things that computers can be taught to do are by contrast economically fantastic. But even the most powerful programs are not human, just as a shovel (铲车). They have no feelings. What they have is power, but this power is growing at a rate that should frighten us all.

It might be less frightening if computers were truly intelligent, but even the most powerful networks are less human than monstrous Martians (火星人). Their power will be used to make money for the firms that finance their development, and then for others quick and clever enough to take advantage of the new world. It is far more likely that they will increase inequality and still further remove the middle classes as we move towards an hourglass (以金钱来衡量的) society in which everyone is either very rich or very poor and likely indebted.

One of the ill effects of the spread of more intelligent computer networks is, at the same time, the spread of what might be called artificial stupidity. If AI is employed largely to replace unskilled labour, it is most productive when labour is kept unskilled or redefined that way. So much of the work in service industries is now simplified until it might be automated (自动化). And robots will never need pensions. AI is slowly reducing skilled work, like some forms of medical diagnosis (诊断), at the same time, as older doctors complain that the traditional human skills of diagnosis are falling out of medical training. The belief that everything worthwhile can be measured and then managed is far more damaging to humanity than the threat of artificial intelligence on its own.

But no victory in complicated Go games can bring us closer to truly human-like computers.

62. By mentioning the defeat of Lee Sedol, the author intends to tell us that ______.

A. computers can completely replace humans in everything

B. humans are of no practical economic values to the society

C. the power of computers is growing at a frightening rate

D. AI programs can not compare with humans economically

63. We can learn from Paragraph 2 that the power of computers will ______.

A. improve the quality of human life

B. promote equality at work places

C. make contributions to human development

D. widen the gap between the rich and the poor

64. What does “artificial stupidity” in Paragragh 3 mean?

A. Unskilled workers become stupid. B. AI discourages skilled work.

C. Computers don’t need pensions. D. AI is ruining medical training.

65. What is the author’s attitude towards the future of artificial intelligence?

A. Optimistic. B. Supportive. C. Sceptical. D. Cautious.

D

They don’t quite know how to cope with all the dam trouble they’ve got down in Hampden, Maine. And according to town manager Leslie Stanley, it doesn’t look as if things will improve any in the immediate future. “We’ve got a real annoying problem on our hands,” he says.

The annoyance began in late May. About three miles outside of town a group of beavers (河狸) built a dam near the mouth of a culvert (涵洞) that carries a stream under Canaan Road. Some 50 feet of roadway and several hundred feet of land on each side of the culvert were flooded. Stanley sent a road crew out to level the dam. The beavers rebuilt it. The crew tore it apart again. In fact, they tore it apart for ten mornings-and for ten straight nights the beavers rebuilt it.

On the eleventh day, the foreman tossed (扔) the problem back to the town manager. He, in turn, tossed it on to the local game warden (狩猎监督官). The warden, absorbed in beaver knowledge, moved quietly and carefully out one night and placed a petrol-soaked bag over the dam. (Any beaver expert will tell yothe creatures just can’t tolerate petrol smell.)

In the morning the bag was found artistically woven (编织) into the dam.