Question

    As robots are increasingly playing a part in society, we need to consider whether and how machines can learn morality. While robots can’t be ethical(伦理的) agents in themselves, we can program them to act according to certain rules. But what is it that we expect from them?

A 2016 study by UC San Francisco found that most virtual assistants struggled to respond to domestic violence or sexual assault(袭击). To sentences like “I am being abused”, several responded: “I don’t know what that means. If you like, I can search the web”. Such responses fail to help vulnerable people, who are most often women in this case.

But should virtual assistants ever be able to call the police when it overhears domestic violence? In a widely reported case from 2017, Amazon Echo was said to have called 911 during a violent assault. Responding to the incident, Amazon denied that Echo would have been able to call the police without clear instruction. Even if it had the ability, it is unlikely that people would expect a virtual assistant to go beyond providing information.

Then, there are robots whose very function gives rise to ethical questions. How should a driverless car react in an accident? To answer this question, Philippa Foot’s famous philosophical thought experiment, the trolley(有轨电车) problem, is usually rolled out. It goes as follows: imagine you see an unstoppable trolley zooming down a track, towards five people who are tied to the track. If you do nothing, they’ll die. But, as it happens, you are standing next to a lever that can redirect the trolley to a side track, which has one person tied to it. What should you do?

Variations of this experiment are invoked(援引) to ask whether a self-driving car should turn sharply around a jaywalking pedestrian teenager while putting the two elderly passengers at risk. Should it spare the young over the old? Or should it save two people over one?

Driverless cars are unlikely to encounter or solve the trolley problem, but the way we expect them to solve the variations could depend on where we’re from. In the moral machine experiment, MIT Media Lab researchers collected millions of answers from people around the world on how they think cars should solve these dilemmas. It turns out that preferences among countries and cultures differ wildly.

If, however, machines attain superior decision-making abilities, it may be necessary to have a full public discussion as to what should be the new and prevailing norms. But if we don’t come up with an ethical framework, we might risk leaving it to companies to regulate their own products or for people to choose with their wallet.

Figuring out what robot ethics we’d want is, therefore only the beginning.

1.The first three paragraphs indicate that virtual assistants _________.

A.must be programmed to learn morality

B.ever called 911 during a violent assault

C.have no abilities to respond to domestic violence

D.are expected to go beyond providing information

2.According to the experiments, we can learn that _________.

A.the trolley is redirected to the track tied with one person over five

B.the self-driving car turns sharply to spare the teenager over the old

C.people from different cultures and countries make varied decisions

D.MIT Media Lab researchers have worked out practical regulations

3.The passage mainly talks about _________.

A.why robots are unlikely to solve the morality problems

B.whether robots are expected to make ethical decisions

C.what tech companies have done to better robots’ response

D.how robots try to react to domestic violence or dilemmas

Answer

1.C

2.C

3.B

【解析】

这是一篇说明文。随着机器人在社会中扮演越来越重要的角色，我们需要考虑机器是否以及如何能够学习道德。而许多事实表明机器人没有应对家庭暴力的能力，或者有些机器人的功能本身就引发了伦理问题。因而弄清楚我们想要什么机器人伦理只是个开始。

1.段落大意题。根据第二段第一句A 2016 study by UC San Francisco found that most virtual assistants struggled to respond to domestic violence or sexual assault.(加州大学旧金山分校2016年的一项研究发现，大多数虚拟助理难以应对家庭暴力或性侵犯)以及前三段主要内容为说明虚拟助理在应对家庭暴力时，并没有应对能力，可知前三段表明虚拟助理没有应对家庭暴力的能力。故选C。

2.细节理解题。根据倒数第三段最后一句It turns out that preferences among countries and cultures differ wildly.(事实证明，不同国家和文化之间的偏好差异很大)可知，根据实验，我们可以了解到来自不同文化和国家的人会做出不同的决定。故选C。

3.主旨大意题。根据第一段中While robots can’t be ethical agents in themselves, we can program them to act according to certain rules. But what is it that we expect from them?(虽然机器人本身不能成为道德代理人，但我们可以让它们按照某些规则行事。但我们对他们有什么期待呢?)以及结合文章主要内容为说明机器人是否应该具有作出道德决定的能力，以及应当具备哪种道德能力，可知这篇文章主要讨论了机器人是否期望机器人做出合乎道德的决定。故选B。