《2025年实验班全程提优训练高中英语选择性必修第二册外研版》

(2023·浙江 1 月卷)阅读理解
主题语境: 人与社会
语篇类型: 说明文
建议用时: 8 min
A machine can now not only beat you at chess, it can also outperform you in debate. Last week, in a public debate in San Francisco, a software programme called Project Debater beat its human opponents, including Noa Ovadia, Israel's former national debating champion.
Brilliant though it is, Project Debater has some weaknesses. It takes sentences from its library of documents and prebuilt arguments and strings them together. This can lead to the kinds of errors no human would make. Such wrinkles will no doubt be ironed out, yet they also point to a fundamental problem. As Kristian Hammond, professor of electrical engineering and computer science at Northwestern University, put it: "There's never a stage at which the system knows what it's talking about."
What Hammond is referring to is the question of meaning, and meaning is central to what distinguishes the least intelligent of humans from the most intelligent of machines. A computer works with symbols. Its programme specifies a set of rules to transform one string of symbols into another. But it does not specify what those symbols mean. Indeed, to a computer, meaning is irrelevant. Humans, in thinking, talking, reading and writing, also work with symbols. But for humans, meaning is everything. When we communicate, we communicate meaning. What matters is not just the outside of a string of symbols, but the inside too, not just how they are arranged but what they mean.
Meaning emerges through a process of social interaction, not of computation, interaction that shapes the content of the symbols in our heads. The rules that assign meaning lie not just inside our heads, but also outside, in society, in social memory, social conventions and social relations. It is this that distinguishes humans from machines. And that's why, however astonishing Project Debater may seem, the tradition that began with Socrates and Confucius will not end with artificial intelligence.
1. 新考法 Why does the author mention Noa Ovadia in the first paragraph?
A. To explain the use of a software programme.
B. To show the cleverness of Project Debater.
C. To introduce the designer of Project Debater.
D. To emphasise the fairness of the competition.
2. What does the underlined word "wrinkles" in Paragraph 2 refer to?
A. Arguments.
B. Doubts.
C. Errors.
D. Differences.
3. What is Project Debater unable to do according to Hammond?
A. Create rules.
B. Comprehend meaning.
C. Talk fluently.
D. Identify difficult words.
4. What can we learn from the last paragraph?
A. Social interaction is key to understanding symbols.
B. The human brain has potential yet to be developed.
C. Ancient philosophers set good examples for debaters.
D. Artificial intelligence ensures humans a bright future.

答案： 1. B 推理判断题。根据第一段中的“Last week, in a public debate in San Francisco, a software programme called Project Debater beat its human opponents, including Noa Ovadia, Israel's former national debating champion.”可知，作者在第一段提到 Noa Ovadia 的目的是展示 Project Debater 的聪明。故选 B。
2. C 词义猜测题。根据第二段中的“Brilliant though it is, Project Debater has some weaknesses. It takes sentences from its library of documents and prebuilt arguments and strings them together. This can lead to the kinds of errors no human would make.”和“will no doubt be ironed out”可知，画线词所在句子表示“这样的错误会被纠正，被解决”，所以画线词 wrinkles 意为“错误”，和 errors 意思相近。故选 C。
3. B 细节理解题。根据倒数第二段中的“What Hammond is referring to is the question of meaning... Indeed, to a computer, meaning is irrelevant.”可知，根据 Hammond 的说法，Project Debater 不能理解意义。故选 B。
4. A 细节理解题。根据最后一段前两句可知，从最后一段我们能了解到社会互动是理解符号的关键。故选 A。