But if robots are to reach the next stage of laborsaving utility， they will have to operate with less human supervision and be able to make at least a few decisions for themselves—goals that pose a real challenge.“While we know how to tell a robot to handle a specific error,”says Dave Lavery, manager of a robotics program at NASA,“we can't yet give a robot enough'common sense'to reliably interact with a dynamic world.”
Indeed the quest for true artificial intelligence has produced very mixed results. Despite a spell of initial optimism in the 1960s and 1970s when it appeared that transistor circuits and microprocessors might be able to copy the action of the human brain by the year 2010, researchers lately have begun to extend that forecast by decades if not centuries.
What they found， in attempting to model thought， is that the human brain's roughly one hundred billion nerve cells are much more talented—and human perception far more complicated—than previously imagined. They have built robots that can recognize the error of a machine panel by a fraction of a millimeter in a controlled factory environment. But the human mind can glimpse a rapidly changing scene and immediately disregard the 98 percent that is irrelevant, instantaneously focusing on the monkey at the side of a winding forest road or the single suspicious face in a big crowd. The most advanced computer systems on Earth can't approach that kind of ability, and neuroscientists still don't know quite how we do it.
46.Human ingenuity was initially demonstrated in
[A]the use of machines to produce science fiction.
[B]the wide use of machines in manufacturing industry.
[C]the invention of tools for difficult and dangerous work.
[D]the elites cunning tackling of dangerous and boring work.
47.The word“gizmos”（line 1, paragraph 2）most probably means
[A]programs. [B]experts. [C]devices. [D]creatures.
48.According to the text, what is beyond man's ability now is to design a robot that can
[A]fulfill delicate tasks like performing brain surgery.
[B]interact with human beings verbally.
[C]have a little common sense.
[D]respond independently to a changing world.
49.Besides reducing human labor, robots can also
[A]make a few decisions for themselves.
[B]deal with some errors with human intervention.
[C]improve factory environments.
[D]cultivate human creativity.
50.The author uses the example of a monkey to argue that robots are
[A]expected to copy human brain in internal structure.
[B]able to perceive abnormalities immediately.
[C]far less able than human brain in focusing on relevant information.
[D]best used in a controlled environment.
Passage3
Could the bad old days of economic decline be about to return? Since OPEC agreed to supply cuts in March, the price of crude oil has jumped to almost $26 a barrel, up from less than $10 last December. This near tripling of oil prices calls up scary memories of the 1973 oil shock, when prices quadrupled, and 1979-80, when they also almost tripled. Both previous shocks resulted in double digit inflation and global economic decline. So where are the headlines warning of gloom and doom the time?
