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  3. Technology changes the way people live. This article is about using thought

Technology changes the way people live. This article is about using thought

游客2023-10-15  71
问题     Technology changes the way people live. This article is about using thought to control machines. Brain-computer interfaces may change what it means to be human.

【B1】______ For William Kochevar, the term is justified. Mr Kochevar is paralysed below the shoulders after a cycling accident, yet has managed to feed himself by his own hand. This remarkable feat is partly thanks to electrodes, implanted in his right arm, which stimulate muscles. But the real magic lies higher up. Mr Kochevar can control his arm using the power of thought. His intention to move is reflected in neural activity in his motor cortex: these signals are detected by implants in his brain and processed into commands to activate the electrodes in his arms.
【B2】______. But brain-computer interfaces (BCIs)like the BrainGate system used by Mr Kochevar provide evidence that mind-control can work. Researchers are able to tell what words and images people have heard and seen from neural activity alone. Information can also be encoded and used to stimulate the brain. Over 300,000 people have cochlear implants, which help them to hear by converting sound into electrical signals and sending them into the brain. Scientists have "injected" data into monkeys, heads, instructing them to perform actions via electrical pulses.
【B3】______. Both America’s armed forces and Silicon Valley are starting to focus on the brain. Facebook dreams of thought -to-text typing. Kernel, a startup, has $100m to spend on neu-rotechnology. Elon Musk has formed a firm called Neuralink: he thinks that, if humanity is to survive the advent of artificial intelligence, it needs an upgrade. Entrepreneurs envisage a world in which people can communicate telepathically, with each other and with machines, or acquire superhuman abilities, such as hearing at very high frequencies.
【B4】______. But well before then, BCIs could open the door to remarkable new applications. Imagine stimulating the visual cortex to help the blind, forging new neural connections in stroke victims or monitoring the brain for signs of depression. By turning the firing of neurons into a resource to be harnessed, BCIs may change the idea of what it means to be human.
【B5】______. The brain is still a foreign country. Scientists know little about how exactly it works, especially when it comes to complex functions like memory formation. Research is more advanced in animals, but experiments on humans are hard. Yet, even today, some parts of the brain, like the motor cortex, are better understood. Nor is complete knowledge always needed. Machine learning can recognize patterns of neural activity, the brain itself gets the hang of controlling BCIS with extraordinary ease. And neurotechnology will reveal more of the brain’s secrets.
Questions 61 to 65
Choose from the sentences A—G the one which best fits each gap of 61—65. There are two extra sentences which you do not need to use.
A. As our Technology Quarterly in this issue explains, the pace of research into BCIs and the scale of its ambition are increasing.
B. The degree of drought is largely a function of temperature and drainage.
C. Technologies are often billed as transformative.
D. These powers, if they ever materialize, are decades away.
E. Nintendo is promising there will be 5 to 10 games available for the machine initially.
F. Clear the technological barrier, and another one looms.
G. An ability to decode thought in this way may sound like science fiction. [br] 【B4】
选项
答案 D
解析 由于第四段提到的企业家们所要实现的幻想难度较高，如心灵感应，所以D选项描述“实现这些可能需要几十年的时间”符合逻辑；同时后面用了But转折，给出了一些实现难度相对低的例子，故选择D项最合适。
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