最近，一款名为ChatGPT的聊天机器人程序火爆全球，再次将人工智能这个话题推向了热搜。今年的各大英语考试的写作中，可能就会考到这个话题。这篇文章就将探讨一下人工智能的利弊(The pros and cons of artificial intelligence)
蓝色字体标注的为一些话题词汇和表达。划线部分为主要观点。红色字体为人工智能的几个例子。
The benefits of artificial intelligence
1 Artificial intelligence eliminates the need for humans to do many mundane chores and makes life easier. Speech recognition systems allow users to have some simple tasks performed, such as turning off the light, simply by giving verbal instructions. A more recent example is the driverless car, which spares people the drudgery of driving, though frequent monitoring may be necessary.
人工智能的利用避免了人类做很多无聊的事情，使得生活更加便利。语音识别系统使用户只需要给出口头指令，就能完成一些事情，比如关灯。一个更近的例子就是无人驾驶汽车：无人驾驶汽车使驾驶者摆脱了驾驶这一单调乏味的事，尽管可能还需要时不时监视一下。
2 Advances in artificial intelligence will give a boost to workplace productivity. Intelligent machines, which are immune to sickness, boredom and stress, are more effective and accurate than human workers in handling time-consuming, repetitive work. Companies that employ artificial intelligence may achieve higher profits with lower cost in the long run, prompting the competition to do the same and thus enhancing the productivity of the whole society.
人工智能的发展将会促进工作中的生产力。智能机器不会受生病、无聊和压力的影响，因此比人类工作者在处理耗时且重复性的工作中更有效、更准确。从长期来看，使用人工智能的企业可能会以更低的成本实现更高的利润，从而促使竞争者也使用人工智能，进而提升了整个社会的生产力。
On the other side of the coin, however, is the prospect of massive redundancies, as already happened in technology giants like Alphabet.
但是另一方面就是可能会发生大规模的裁员，正如在Alphabet这样的科技巨头公司中已经在发生的那样。
The drawbacks of artificial intelligence
1 As we are increasingly reliant on machines, our physical fitness and mental faculties could atrophy. It is commonly acknowledged that more and more people are leading a sedentary life thanks largely to technological progress. What many fail to realise is that this does us great physcial harm, albeit not in the short term. By the same token, heavy dependence on artificial intelligence might erode our ability to think and innovate. For example, ChatGPT, an AI chatbot based on advanced language models that has been sweeping the globe recently, has already been utilised by some students to do homework and write essays.
随着我们对机器的依赖程度越来越大，我们的身体健康和思维能力可能会退化。众所周知，由于科技的进步，越来越多的人过上的久坐不动的生活。而很多人没有意识到的是，这种生活方式对我们的身体有很大危害，尽管不是立即会有危害。同样地，过于依赖人工智能也许会逐渐损害我们思考和创新的能力。例如，最近席卷全球的基于高级语言模型的AI聊天程序ChatGPT已经被一些学生用来做作业和写文章了。
2 There are fears that artificial intelligence may take away jobs and render many people unemployed. It may hold true for repetitive and low-skill jobs, such as entry-level editors and customer-service workers. But where human emotions and interactions are required, as in child care, mental-health counselling and teaching, artificial intelligence is a poor substitute for human workers, at least for now. Highly professional occupations, too, stand little chance of being replaced by machines or programmes.
有些人担忧，人工智能可能会夺走工作，造成大规模失业。这可能适用于重复性的、低技能的工作，比如初级的编辑和客服人员。但是在需要人类情绪和互动的领域，正如育儿、心理健康咨询和教学，人工智能并不能很好地替代人类，至少现在还不能。专业性很高的职业也几乎不会被机器或程序所取代。
3 Artificial intelligence, with its large database and the potential to penetrate every corner of modern life, may infringe upon personal privacy. From viewing habits to purchasing behaviour to food preferences, people's private information is at the mercy of app developers and website owners in this age of big data. Used for ill, it may lead to property losses and, even worse, compromise personal safety.
人工智能具有庞大的数据库，并有可能渗入当代生活的方方面面，因此可能会侵犯个人隐私。从观影习惯到购买行为到食物偏好，人们的私人信息在这个大数据时代任由软件开发商和网站所有者摆布。如果用作不好的目的，这些个人信息可能造成财产损失，更严重甚至会危害个人安全。
拓展：
Many technological products that originally meet with strong scepticism prove to be a boon to humanity. When machines were rolled out on the factory floor in the 18th century, they were blamed by labours for threatening their livelihood; however, by scaling up production capacity, such automation helped spawn more jobs in other areas while killing some. Social media, once dismissed as a huge distractor, have now become an indispensable part of people's everyday lives, with
multiple functions. Artificial intelligence is no exception. A decade from now, it will possibly have become as commonplace as smartphones and the Internet are today.事实证明，很多最初遭到强烈质疑的科技产品都对人类有利。当机器在18世纪被引入生产车间时，劳动者责怪这些机器威胁到了他们的生计；然而，通过扩大生产规模，这种自动化在消灭一些工作的同时，在其他领域又创造了新的工作。社交媒体曾被认为会严重分散人们的注意力，但是现在却成了人们日常生活的一部分，有着多种功能。人工智能也不例外。十年后，人工智能可能已经变得跟现在的智能手机和互联网一样家常便饭。
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