Say whether these statements are TRUE or FALSE. 1. According to Albert Einstein nothing can exceed the speed of light

1. According to Albert Einstein nothing can exceed the speed of light. 2. Neutrinos have only one type and they are very stable. 3. The team of researchers sent a beam of neutrinos through the Earth from the lab in the USA to an underground laboratory in Spain. 4. In the course of the experiments, the researchers noticed that the particles moved faster than the speed of light. 5. The researchers dream that another independent experiment should prove their results.

2. Give synonyms to the following words from the text:

fast, to suggest, a mistake, to scrutinise, inconsistency, to switch, an impact, to contain, speed, to understand, tiny, to claim, crazy.

3. Ready For the Robot Revolution?

a chore	хатня робота	patience	терпіння
to look after	доглядати	unconsciously	підсвідомо
a cusp	пік	to prime	попереджати
an entrepreneur	підприємець	to draft	складати план
artificial intelligence	штучний інтелект	to tell smb. from smb.	відрізняти
to vacuum	пилососити	vulnerable	уразливий
sophisticated	складний	to evoke	викликати
a point	питання, проблема	solely	виключно
frustrated	розчарований	responsible	відповідальний

From performing household chores, to entertaining and educating our children, to looking after the elderly, roboticists say we will soon be welcoming their creations into our homes and workplaces.

Researchers believe we are on the cusp of a robot revolution that will mirror the explosive growth of the computer revolution from the 1980s onwards. They are developing new laws for robot behaviour, and designing new ways for humans and robots to interact. “I think robotics technology will change who we are, just as eyeglasses and fire changed who we were before,” says Rodney Brookes, robotics entrepreneur and former director of the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.

Commercially available robots are already beginning to perform everyday tasks like vacuuming our floors.

The latest prototypes from Japan are able to help the elderly to get out of bed or get up after a fall. They can also remind them when to take medication, or even help wash their hair.

Current robots are not human like. For example they are things like automated beds and wheelchairs but the time is coming when robots start looking less like machines, and more like us.

Today in robotics we have machines that are sophisticated enough to be put together with people in a daily life setting. A major point to keep in mind is that people will need human–machine interaction in the future. The research team has found that people react well to a robot gym instructor, and seem to get less frustrated with it than with instructions given on a computer screen. The robot can act as a perfect trainer, with infinite patience.

People are going to have to like, and importantly trust robots before they welcome them into their homes, and several groups around the world are working on making it easier to communicate with them. Much of human interaction takes place unconsciously, through body language. Gestures, eye contact, and concepts of personal space are all things that robots are being taught. In learning about how people interact with machines, researchers are also discovering new roles for robots in our lives. Robots can communicate with humans in ways that other technology cannot.

Science fiction may have primed us for the coming robot revolution, but it has also given us an idea of the types of controls we may want to consider before welcoming robots into our lives and homes.

At present, robots are not sophisticated enough to be made to behave ethically. The UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, together with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, has drafted a set of ethical principles for robot design – which can be summarised as follows:

1. Robots should not be designed solely or primarily to kill or harm humans.

2. Humans, not robots, are responsible agents. Robots are tools designed to achieve human goals.

3. Robots should be designed in ways that assure their safety and security.

4. Robots are artefacts; they should not be designed to exploit vulnerable users by evoking an emotional response or dependency. It should always be possible to tell a robot from a human.

5. It should always be possible to find out who is legally responsible for a robot.

At present this code is simply a set of ideas. It’s out for debate and discussion. However they are ideas that people should be thinking about before the coming “robot revolution”.

Дата добавления: 2015-10-30