英语新闻一起读30

标题：Powerful computers will reshape humanity’s future. How to ensure the promise outweighs the perils

★outweigh

The benefits outweigh the risks；The advantages far outweigh the disadvantages.

★peril:n危险 。在标题中似乎promise 和peril 意思相对，那promise在这里是什么意思呢？

★做名词时promise有这样一个意思： A sign that something, usually something good, may happen （就是所谓的好兆头）

来看几个例句吧。 The new drug holds great promise, especially for women.新药前途广大，尤其是对于妇女。

There is nothing to show how that this fortunate situation is based on any permanent foundations, or holds any particular promise for the future.没有什么迹象表明，这种顺利的局面有任何长远的基础或是具有任何特别的发展前途。

Does the new project have sufficient commercial promise to make an investment worthwhile? 新项目有没有充足的商业前途，是否值得进行投资？形容词promising，也是“大有前途”的意思。

The scandal threatened an abrupt end to a promising political career.丑闻有可能使得一个人大有前途的政治生涯戛然而止。

第一段：“THE development of full artificial intelligence(人工智能) could spell the end of the human race,” Stephen Hawking warns. Elon Musk fears that the development of artificial intelligence, or AI, may be the biggest existential threat humanity faces. Bill Gates urges people to beware of it.

（文章开篇引用霍金的名言，告诉我们人工智能可能带来的问题）

第二段：Dread that the abominations people create will become their masters, or their executioners, is hardly new. But voiced by a renowned（有名的） cosmologist, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur（企业家） and the founder of Microsoft—hardly Luddites—and set against the vast investment in AI by big firms like Google and Microsoft, such fears have taken on new weight. With supercomputers in every pocket and robots looking down on every battlefield, just dismissing them as science fiction seems like self-deception. The question is how to worry wisely.

（这段话开篇告诉我们关于机器将会控制人的恐惧已经不新鲜了，但是一些科技大佬的声音让这个话题的“分量增加”。这两段讲完现状，在结尾作者提出了一个问题：The question is how to worry wisely.我们如何才能更明智的担心呢？看来下文就要着手解决这个问题了。）

★Abominations:令人憎恶的事物，这里指的就是AI.

★Executioners:指那些执行死刑的人，就是侩子手。看到这个单词有木有想到我们说了好多遍的那个词：executive。

★Silicon Valley：这个地方你要是不知道就别考研了。硅谷，在很多文章里这个词就代表着高科技。

★self-deception：自欺