劍橋雅思5 Test 3閱讀Passage 3原文翻譯The return of Artificial Intelligence

劍橋雅思5 Test 3 Passage 3閱讀原文翻譯

自然段A

After years in the wilderness,the term‘a(chǎn)rtificial intelligence’(AI)seems poised to make a comeback.AI was big in the 1980s but vanished in the 1990s.It re-entered public consciousness with the release of AI,a movie about a robot boy.This has ignited public debate about AI,but the term is also being used once more within the computer industry.Researchers,executives and marketing people are now using the expression without irony or inverted commas.And it is not always hype.The term is being applied,with some justification,to products that depend on technology that was originally developed by AI researchers.Admittedly,the rehabilitation of the term has a long way to go,and some firms still prefer to avoid using it.But the fact that others are starting to use it again suggests that AI has moved on from being seen as an over-ambitious and under-achieving field of research.

在荒廢多年之后，“人工智能”（AI）一詞似乎勢必卷土重來。AI在20世紀80年代十分流行，但在20世紀90年代消失了。一部關(guān)于機器人男孩的電影《AI》的發(fā)布重新喚起了公眾的意識。這點燃了關(guān)于AI的公開辯論，但該術(shù)語也再次被計算機行業(yè)使用。研究人員，管理人員和市場營銷人員現(xiàn)在正在使用該表述，而不會產(chǎn)生諷刺或帶有引號。而且它并不總是炒作。該術(shù)語被合理地用于描述一些產(chǎn)品。它們建立在最初由AI研究者所開發(fā)的技術(shù)之上。誠然，該術(shù)語的恢復(fù)還有很長的路要走，并且一些公司仍然希望避免使用它。但是，其他人再次開始使用它的事實表明，AI已從被視為過于雄心勃勃且成績欠佳的研究領(lǐng)域大步向前發(fā)展。

自然段B

The field was launched,and the term‘a(chǎn)rtificial intelligence’coined,at a conference in 1956 by a group of researchers that included Marvin Minsky,John McCarthy,Herbert Simon and Alan Newell,all of whom went on to become leading figures in the field.The expression provided an attractive but informative name for a research programme that encompassed such previously disparate fields as operations research,cybernetics,logic and computer science.The goal they shared was an attempt to capture or mimic human abilities using machines.That said,different groups of researchers attacked different problems,from speech recognition to chess playing,in different ways;AI unified the field in name only.But it was a term that captured the public imagination.

在1956年的一次會議上，由馬文·明斯基，約翰·麥卡錫，赫伯特·西蒙和艾倫·紐厄爾等人組成的研究小組提出了這一研究領(lǐng)域，并創(chuàng)造了“人工智能”一詞。他們后來全都成為該領(lǐng)域的佼佼者。該表達為研究計劃提供了一個引人入勝但具有參考價值的名稱。該研究計劃涵蓋了諸如運籌學(xué)，控制論，邏輯學(xué)和計算機科學(xué)等先前分散的領(lǐng)域。他們的共同目標是嘗試使用機器捕捉或模仿人類的能力。也就是說，不同的研究人員群體以不同的方式攻克不同的問題，從語音識別到下棋。AI只是在名字上將這一領(lǐng)域整合起來。但這個詞激發(fā)了公眾的想象。

自然段C

Most researchers agree that AI peaked around 1985.A public reared on science-fiction movies and excited by the growing power of computers had high expectations.For years,AI researchers had implied that a breakthrough was just around the corner.Marvin Minsky said in 1967 that within a generation the problem of creating‘a(chǎn)rtificial intelligence’would be substantially solved.Prototypes of medical-diagnosis programs and speech recognition software appeared to be making progress.It proved to be a false dawn.Thinking computers and household robots failed to materialise,and a backlash ensued.‘There was undue optimism in the early 1980s,’says David Leake,a researcher at Indiana University.‘Then when people realised these were hard problems,there was retrenchment.By the late 1980s,the term AI was being avoided by many researchers,who opted instead to align themselves with specific sub-disciplines such as neural networks,agent technology,case-based reasoning,and so on.’

大多數(shù)研究人員都同意A I在1985年左右達到頂峰。對科幻電影感興趣，并對計算機日益強大的功能感到興奮的公眾對此寄予厚望。多年來，AI研究人員一直暗示突破指日可待。馬文·明斯基（Marvin Minsky）在1967年表示，創(chuàng)造“人工智能”的問題將在一代人以內(nèi)得到實質(zhì)性解決。醫(yī)學(xué)診斷程序和語音識別軟件的原型似乎正在取得進展。事實證明那是虛假的曙光。會思考的計算機和家用機器人未能實現(xiàn)，反彈隨之而來。印第安納大學(xué)的研究人員戴維·萊克（David Leake）說：“在20世紀80年代初，人們過分樂觀。然后，當人們意識到這些是十分困難的問題時，緊縮就發(fā)生了。到20世紀80年代后期，許多研究人員都不再使用‘AI’一詞。他們選擇將自己與特定的子學(xué)科聯(lián)系在一起，例如神經(jīng)網(wǎng)絡(luò)，代理技術(shù)，基于案例的推理等等。”

自然段D

Ironically,in some ways AI was a victim of its own success.Whenever an apparently mundane problem was solved,such as building a system that could land an aircraft unattended,the problem was deemed not to have been AI in the first place.‘If it works,it can’t be AI,’as Dr Leake characterises it.The effect of repeatedly moving the goal-posts in this way was that AI came to refer to‘blue-sky’research that was still years away from commercialisation.Researchers joked that AI stood for‘a(chǎn)lmost implemented’.Meanwhile,the technologies that made it onto the market,such as speech recognition,language translation and decision-support software,were no longer regarded as AI.Yet all three once fell well within the umbrella of AI research.

具有諷刺意味的是，從某種方式上說，AI是自己成功的受害者。每當一個平凡的問題得到解決，如構(gòu)建無人操作的飛機降落系統(tǒng)，該問題就會立刻被視為不是AI。正如Leake博士概括的那樣，“如果它行的通，它就不是AI。”。這種反復(fù)移動目標方式造成了如下影響：AI指的是距商業(yè)化還差幾年的“blue-sky”研究。研究人員開玩笑說AI代表“幾乎已實現(xiàn)”。同時，已經(jīng)進入市場的技術(shù)，如語音識別，語言翻譯和決策輔助軟件等，不再被當作AI來看待。然而，這三者曾一度處于AI研究的范圍之內(nèi)。

自然段E

But the tide may now be turning,according to Dr Leake.HNC Software of San Diego,backed by a government agency,reckon that their new approach to artificial intelligence is the most powerful and promising approach ever discovered.HNC claim that their system,based on a cluster of 30 processors,could be used to spot camouflaged vehicles on a battlefield or extract a voice signal from a noisy background–tasks humans can do well,but computers cannot.‘Whether or not their technology lives up to the claims made for it,the fact that HNC are emphasising the use of AI is itself an interesting development,’says Dr Leake.

但是據(jù)Leake博士說，現(xiàn)在這一潮流可能正在扭轉(zhuǎn)。由政府機構(gòu)支持的圣地亞哥HNC軟件公司認為，他們研究人工智能的新方法是迄今為止最強大，最有前途的方法。HNC聲稱，他們的系統(tǒng)基于30個處理器的集群，可用于在戰(zhàn)場上發(fā)現(xiàn)偽裝的車輛或從嘈雜的背景中提取語音信號-這些都是人類可以做的很好，但計算機無法完成的任務(wù)。Leake博士說：“無論他們的技術(shù)是否達到自己宣稱的標準，HNC對使用AI的強調(diào)本身就是一個有趣的發(fā)展。”

自然段F

Another factor that may boost the prospects for AI in the near future is that investors are now looking for firms using clever technology,rather than just a clever business model,to differentiate themselves.In particular,the problem of information overload,exacerbated by the growth of e-mail and the explosion in the number of web pages,means there are plenty of opportunities for new technologies to help filter and categorise information–classic AI problems.That may mean that more artificial intelligence companies will start to emerge to meet this challenge.

不久的將來可能提振AI前景的另一個因素是，投資者現(xiàn)在正在尋找使用聰明的技術(shù)而不是聰明的商業(yè)模式來使自己與眾不同的公司。尤其是，電子郵件的增長和網(wǎng)頁數(shù)量的激增加劇了信息過載的問題，這意味著有很多機會可以利用新技術(shù)來幫助對信息進行過濾和分類-經(jīng)典的AI問題。這可能意味著將出現(xiàn)更多的人工智能公司以應(yīng)對這一挑戰(zhàn)。

自然段G

The 1969 film,2001:A Space Odyssey,featured an intelligent computer called HAL 9000.As well as understanding and speaking English,HAL could play chess and even learned to lipread.HAL thus encapsulated the optimism of the 1960s that intelligent computers would be widespread by 2001.But 2001 has been and gone,and there is still no sign of a HAL-like computer.Individual systems can play chess or transcribe speech,but a general theory of machine intelligence still remains elusive.It may be,however,that the comparison with HAL no longer seems quite so important,and AI can now be judged by what it can do,rather than by how well it matches up to a 30-year-old science-fiction film.‘People are beginning to realise that there are impressive things that these systems can do,’says Dr Leake hopefully.

1969年的電影《2001：太空漫游指南》以一部名為HAL 9000的智能計算機為特色。除了能理解和說英語外，HAL還能下象棋，甚至學(xué)會讀唇語。HAL由此代表了20世紀60年代的樂觀看法，即智能計算機將在2001年得到廣泛應(yīng)用。但是2001年已經(jīng)過去了，現(xiàn)在仍然沒有類似HAL的計算機的跡象。存在獨立的系統(tǒng)可以下棋或轉(zhuǎn)錄語音，但是機器智能的一般理論仍然難以捉摸。但是，與HAL的比較似乎不再那么重要了，現(xiàn)在可以通過它能做什么來判斷AI，而不是根據(jù)它與一部擁有30年歷史的科幻電影的匹配程度來判斷。Leake博士滿懷希望地說：“人們開始意識到這些系統(tǒng)可以做些令人印象深刻的事情?！?/p>

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