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  3. The New Machine — Move Over Data! The potential of integrated applications in medical technology and patient monitoring is a

The New Machine — Move Over Data! The potential of integrated applications in medical technology and patient monitoring is a

admin2013-07-02  30
问题                 The New Machine — Move Over Data!
    The potential of integrated applications in medical technology and patient monitoring is as exciting as it is exotic.
    Remember the Star Trek robot who could speak 5,000 languages and who was familiar with the protocols(礼仪)of many worlds? Not only can Data talk, reason and feel. It is almost impossible to shut him up! Well, the scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s(MIT)Artificial Intelligence(AI)lab are exploring and creating robots that may someday rival Data’s accomplishments.

    The implications of their work — ranging from artificial limbs that feel, respond and act like the originals, to thinking machines — are moving fairly quickly from the realms of fantasy into those of probability. One robot, nicknamed Kismet, has even been programmed to read human facial expressions and react "emotionally". Kismet has a disembodied head, albeit a remarkably cute one with long eyelashes shading large blue eyes. Just as babies learn from reading and imitating the expressions and sounds made by their parents(with parents often projecting their emotions to the child), Kismet "learns" and reacts to the faces of its creators.
    While Kismet’s ability to interact and learn is primitive when compared to a human baby, it nonetheless elicits a great deal of "projected" humanity from those around it, and triggers some of the same emotions as an infant would from the adults that surround him or her. Children learn to be real people because the adults close to them are "programmed"(i. e., infants trigger hormonal and neuronal stimuli in adults)to treat them as real people. Thus, the scientists at MIT are predicting that humanoid robots may be possible if we treat them as if they were human!
    This work is fascinating in all of its facets — especially mat which teaches us about ourselves. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. " And can you create who they are and how they treat you? "As you sow, so shall you reap!" While humans are infinitely more complex, making their reactions infinitely less predictable, even at the most primitive level, the impact of respectful and gentle interactions can be not clearly seen.
Real News — Interactive Robot
    The real news, however, is Cog: an interactive robot that makes eye contact, plays catch, and bobbles a Slinky back and forth in its hands. Unlike robots in which a single central computer controls multiple separate mechanical systems, Cog is built with "embodied" intelligence — every joint has an independent "thinking" machine designed to interact in simple ways with the joints around it, and to take cues directly from its environment. This means, of course, that not even its creators know precisely how Cog will behave in every situation. And now the creators are working on Cog’s skin.
    Here’s what’s going on: to help build Cog’s arm coordination, the scientists put touch sensors in the robot’s belly(to give Cog’s hand something at which to aim). Cog was then programmed to touch the sensors, but its response was so life-like(as each affected joint responded)that it looked as if the robot was exploring its body — almost exactly like a human baby. Before that, Cog was a fascinating toy, but with "skin" it became a primitive human, although a mechanical one.
Expanding Capabilities
    As robots like Cog become more,and more complex, their capabilities will expand rapidly into the work-a-day world, and certainly not as "pincers" awkwardly controlled by human hands, but rather as independently functioning units controlled by their own programming. Although we have worked for years on computer models of how the human brain works, and even built a computer that can beat a chess master at his or her own game, we have so far built pretty worthless robots. Why?
    The answer may lie in Cog’s "embodied intelligence". As long as scientists insisted that all intelligence was centrally located in a computer that received information and gave commands to the mechanical systems that enabled the robot to move, we failed. Each joint and system has an intelligence of its own — and reacts to stimuli on its own — in addition to whatever commands it receives from the central computer. It is possible, perhaps probable, that Cog is successful because its systems are, at a most primitive level, mimicking our systems. That intelligence and even memory is stored in our various body parts and systems as well as our minds.
    The fact that Cog "came alive" when it was given skin(implanted with sensors)gives added meaning to therapeutic touch. As an interesting aside, in the 14th Century, Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra interpreted the words in Genesis 3: 21 "... and Yahweh made garments for the man and his wife and clothed them." The Rabbi thinks this means that Yahweh quite literally encased them in skin(their own skin, not an animal’s)and through this skin came knowledge of the world. Thus all human knowledge is " embodied. " It would seem that MIT’s Artificial Intelligence researchers are just catching up with him!
Present and Potential Application
    Today we have robots that assist with micro- and tele-surgery. We even have a home health robot that reminds people to take their medicine at the prescribed times, and dispenses the appropriate drug in. the prescribed dose. We have voice-activated computers that record, store, dispense and charge. We have monitor systems that watch, secure record and warn. We have computerized compliance systems that record and track and match and advise.
    What we need, like Cog, is a way of connecting and integrating them while each maintains its own intelligence and its own interactivity. The potential of integrated applications in smart buildings, in decision-support environments(clinical and managerial), in medical technology, and patient monitoring-diagnosis-intervention(in the OR, in the ER, in the home), is as exciting as it is exotic.
    Soon, very soon, far sooner than most humans will be ready for it, MIT’s scientists are going to marry Kismet and Cog — and then, Data — move over! To take this thesis a step further, MIT’s AI researchers could join forces with neurobiologists whose work enables brain waves to be picked up, magnified and used to communicate and/or perform any function that a computer can perform. Humans actually could create their own doppelgangers(面貌极相似的人). Moreover, we are more than likely to live to see it happen.
When robots’ capabilities expand into daily life, they can be programmed to_____.
选项 A、control themselves
B、beat a chess master
C、work longer
D、receive demand
答案A
解析 题干中的daily life对应第一句中的work-a-day world，文中说那个时候，机器人自身的设计程序可以控制自己的各个部分。因此[A]正确，其他三项表述片面，不具有概括在daily life中的整体作用。
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