[originaltext]W: Hello, Tom.M: Hello. Feeling bright today, Cathy? W: I am fe

W: Hello, Tom.
M: Hello. Feeling bright today, Cathy?
W: I am feeling quite bright and clever, yes!
M: That’s good to hear, because we’re talking about intelligence today, or to be more accurate, Artificial Intelligence. Cathy, you know who Professor Stephen Hawking is, right?
W: Well, of course! Yes. Many people say that he’s a genius, very, very intelligent. Professor Hawking is one of the most famous scientists in the world and people remember him for his brilliance and also because he communicates using a synthetic voice generated by a computer.
M: Synthetic?
W: Yes, synthetic means it’s made from something non-natural. Artificial is similar in meaning—we use it when something is man-made to look or behave like something natural.
M: Well, Professor Hawking has said recently that efforts to create thinking machines are a threat to our existence. Can you imagine that?!
W: Well, there’s no denying that good things can come from the creation of Artificial Intelligence. Computers which can think for themselves might be able to find solutions to problems we haven’t been able to solve. But technology is developing quickly and maybe we should consider the consequences. Some of these very clever robots are already surpassing us.
M: Yes. Maybe you can remember the headlines when a supercomputer defeated the World Chess Champion to everybody’s astonishment. What was the computer called? Was it Red Menace?
W: No, it’s Deep Blue. The 1997 match was actually the second one between Kasparov and Deep Blue, a supercomputer designed by the company IBM and it was specialized in chess-playing.
M: Well, I think I might challenge Deep Blue to a game. I’m a bit of a genius myself.
W: Very good! Many science fiction movies have explored the idea of bad computers who want to harm us. One example is "2001: A Space Odyssey."
M: Yes, a good film. And another is "The Terminator", a movie in which actor Arnold Schwarzenegger played a robot from the future. The robot looks exactly like a human. Have you watched that one?
W: Yes, I have. And the robot is not very friendly.
M: No, it’s not. In many movies and books about robots, the robots end up rebelling against their creators.
W: If Stephen Hawking is worried, I think I might be too. How can we be sure that Artificial Intelligence understands what is right and what is wrong?
M: You are right.
This is the end of Conversation One. Questions 1 to 5 are based On Conversation One.
1. Which statement is true about Stephen Hawking?
2. What does synthetic mean?
3. What is the name of the supercomputer which has defeated a chess champion?
4. Which role did Schwarzenegger play in "The Terminator"?
5. What does Professor Hawking think of the intelligent thinking machines?