What Is The Current State Of Play In Artificial Intelligence? IELTS Reading Answers

Sep 18, 2023

What is the current state of play in Artificial Intelligence? IELTS Reading Answers is a general reading subject that explores What is the current state of play in Artificial Intelligence?.What is the current state of play in Artificial Intelligence? IELTS reading answers have a total of thirteen questions. The specified topic generates a single type of question: True/False/Not Given. Candidates should read the IELTS Reading passage thoroughly in order to recognize synonyms, identify keywords, and answer the questions below. IELTS reading practice papers, which feature topics such as Research Committed a Crime IELTS Reading Answers. Candidates can use IELTS reading answers to enhance their performance in the reading section.

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Section 1

Read the Passage to Answer the Following Questions

What is the current state of play in Artificial Intelligence?

Can robots advance so far that they become the ultimate threat to our existence? Some scientists say no, and dismiss the very idea of Artificial Intelligence. The human brain, they argue, is the most complicated system ever created, and any machine designed to reproduce human thought is bound to fail. Physicist Roger Penrose of Oxford University and others believe that machines are physically incapable of human thought.
Colin McGinn of Rutgers University backs this up when he says that Artificial Intelligence is like sheep trying to do complicated psychoanalysis. They just don't have the conceptual equipment they need in their limited brains'.
Artificial Intelligence, or Al, is different from most technologies in that scientists still understand very little about how intelligence works. Physicists have a good understanding of Newtonian mechanics and the quantum theory of atoms and molecules, whereas the basic laws of intelligence remain a mystery.
But a sizable number of mathematicians and computer scientists, who are specialists in The area is optimistic about the possibilities. To them it is only a matter of time before the thinking machine walks out of the laboratory. Over the years, various problems have impeded all efforts to create robots. To attack these difficulties, researchers tried to use the 'top- down approach', using a computer in an attempt to program all the essential rules onto a single disc. By inserting this into a machine, it would then become self-aware and attain human-like intelligence.
In the 1950s and 1960s great progress was made, but the shortcomings of these prototype robots soon became clear. They were huge and took hours to navigate across a room. Meanwhile, a fruit fly, with a brain containing only a fraction of the computing power, can effortlessly navigate in three dimensions.
Our brains, like the fruit fly's, unconsciously recognize what we see by performing countless calculations. This unconscious awareness of patterns is exactly what computers are missing. The second problem is robots' lack of common sense. Humans know that water is wet and that mothers are older than their daughters. But there is no mathematics that can express these truths. Children learn the intuitive laws of biology and physics by interacting with the real world. Robots know only what has been programmed into them.
Because of the limitations of the top-down approach to Artificial Intelligence, attempts have been made to use a 'bottom-up' approach instead - that is, to try to imitate evolution and the way a baby learns. Rodney Brooks was the director of MIT's Artificial Intelligence laboratory, famous for its lumbering 'top- down' walking robots. He changed the course of research when he explored the unorthodox idea of tiny 'insectoid' robots that learned to walk by bumping into things instead of computing mathematically the precise position of their feet.
Today many of the descendants of Brooks' insectoid robots are on Mars gathering data for NASA (The National Aeronautics and Space Administration), running across the dusty landscape of the planet. For all their successes in mimicking the behavior of insects, However, robots using neural networks have performed miserably when their programmers have tried to duplicate in them the behavior of higher organisms such as Mammals. MIT's Marvin Minsky summarizes the problems of Al: 'The history of Al is sort of funny because the first real accomplishments were beautiful things, like a machine that could do well in a math course. But then we started to try to make machines that could answer questions about simple children's stories. There's no machine today that can do that.
There are people who believe that eventually there will be a combination between the top- down and bottom-up, which may provide the key to Artificial Intelligence. As adults, We blend the two approaches. It has been suggested that our emotions represent the quality that most distinguishes us as human, that it is impossible for machines ever to have emotions. Computer expert Hans Moravec thinks that in the future robots will be programmed with emotions such as fear to protect themselves so that they can signal to humans when their batteries are running low, for example. Emotions are vital in decision-making. People who have suffered a certain kind of brain injury lose the ability to experience emotions and become unable to make decisions.Without emotions to guide them, they debate endlessly over their options. Moravec points out that as robots become more intelligent and are able to make choices, they could likewise become paralyzed with indecision. To aid them, robots of the future might need to have emotions hardwired into their brains.
There is no universal consensus as to whether machines can be conscious, or even, in human terms, what consciousness means. Minsky suggests the thinking process in our brain is not localized but spread out, with different centers competing with one another at any given time. Consciousness may then be viewed as a sequence of thoughts and images issuing from these different, smaller 'minds', each one competing for our attention.
Robots might eventually attain a 'silicon consciousness'. Robots, in fact, might one day embody an architecture for thinking and processing information that is different from ours - but also indistinguishable. If that happens, the question of whether they really'understanding' becomes largely irrelevant. A robot that has perfect mastery of syntax, for all practical purposes, understands what is being said.

Section 2

Questions 14-20
Reading Passage has six paragraphs A-F. Which paragraph contains the following information?
Write the correct letter A-F in boxes 14-20 on your answer sheet.
NB You may use any letter more than once.

14) An insect that proves the superiority of natural intelligence over Artificial Intelligence

Answer: C
Supporting statement: “...Our brains, like the fruit fly's, unconsciously recognize what we see by performing countless calculations. This unconscious awareness of patterns is exactly what computers are missing...”
Keywords: countless, awareness
Keyword location: para C, section 2
Explanation: It is mentioned in the passage that fruit fly is able to recognize patterns better than many computers. They are able to perform countless calculations seamlessly.

15) Robots being able to benefit from their mistakes

Answer: D
Supporting statement: “...However, robots using neural networks have performed miserably when their programmers have tried to duplicate in them the behavior of higher organisms such as Mammals...”
Keywords: neural, organisms
Keyword location: para D, line 9
Explanation: Neural Networks are used to make computers learn from their past mistakes. They do it mathematically and try to duplicate the human neurons.

16) Many researchers not being put off believing that Artificial Intelligence will eventually be developed

Answer: B
Supporting statement: “...But a sizable number of mathematicians and computer scientists, who are specialists in the area, are optimistic about the possibilities....”
Keywords: sizable, specialist
Keyword location: para B, line 6
Explanation: It is known that scientists have all the research in quantum mechanics and modern physics. But in computer science a good amount of problems are not known and computer scientists are very eager to learn about that.

17) An innovative approach that is having limited success

Answer: D
Supporting statement: “...But then we started to try to make machines that could answer questions about simple children's stories. There's no machine today that can do that...”
Keywords: machine, stories
Keyword location: para D, last para
Explanation: AI is an innovative approach. AI has its own limitations that it cannot interpret emotions. Creativity and art is something that cannot be generated by AI algorithms. Hence D is correct answer.

18) The possibility of creating Artificial Intelligence being doubted by some academics

Answer: A
Supporting statement: “...Can robots advance so far that they become the ultimate threat to our existence? Some scientists say no, and dismiss the very idea of Artificial Intelligence....”
Keywords: advance, existence
Keyword location: para A, line 1-2
Explanation: It was doubted because it was assumed that the human brain is so complex to understand that any device that was made to mimic the brain was a failure. And it was also thought to be a threat to existence.

19) No generally accepted agreement of what our brains do

Answer: F
Supporting statement: “...Minsky suggests the thinking process in our brain is not localized but spread out, with different centers competing with one another at any given time....”
Keywords: localized, centers
Keyword location: para F
Explanation: The brain is thought to be localized but it is spread out. The functioning of the brain is so complex that it is difficult to state what the brain can do.

20) Robots not being able to extend their intelligence in the same way as humans.

Answer: C
Supporting statement: “...Children learn the intuitive laws of biology and physics by interacting with the real world. Robots know only what has been programmed into them...”
Keywords: intuitive, interacting
Keyword location: para C
Explanation: We know that children learn by experimenting or we can say by interacting with the real world. But we cannot make robots interact. They will only do what they have been programmed to do.

Questions 21-23
Look at the following people and the list of statements below. Match each person with the correct statement A-E
Write the correct letter A-E in boxes 21-23 on your answer sheet.

21) Colin McGinn

Answer: D
Supporting statement: “...Colin McGinn of Rutgers University backs this up when he says that Artificial Intelligence is like sheep trying to do complicated psychoanalysis. They just don't have the conceptual equipment they need in their limited brains'....”
Keywords: sheep, equipment
Explanation: Colin McGinn is a professor who explained concepts of artificial intelligence. He explained it like a sheep trying to do some psychoanalysis.

22) Marvin Minsky

Answer: C
Supporting statement: “...MIT's Marvin Minsky summarizes the problems of Al: 'The history of Al is sort of funny because the first real accomplishments were beautiful things, like a machine that could do well in a math course...”
Keywords: funny, machines
Keyword location: para C
Explanation: Marvin Minsky gave a statement that summarizes the problem caused by AI. He mentioned that AI is funny and said that machines are only limited to mathematics only.

23) Hans Moravec

Answer: A
Supporting statement: “....Computer expert Hans Moravec thinks that in the future robots will be programmed with emotions such as fear to protect themselves so that they can signal to humans when their batteries are running low, for example....”
Keywords: future, protect
Keyword location: para E
Explanation: Hans Moravec gave a statement that the robots need to be programmed with emotions in-order to make them more smart and advanced.

Artificial Intelligence may require something equivalent to feelings in order to succeed.
Different kinds of people use different parts of the brain.
Tests involving fiction have defeated Artificial Intelligence so far.
People have intellectual capacities which do not exist in computers.
People have no reason to be frightened of robots.

Questions 24-26
Complete the summary below. Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each
answer. Write your answers in boxes 24-26 on your answer sheet.

When will we have a thinking machine?

Despite some advances, the early robots had certain weaknesses. They were given the information they needed on a 24) ........ This was known as the 'top-down' approach and enabled them to do certain tasks but they were unable to recognise 25)........ Nor did they have any intuition or ability to make decisions based on experience. Rodney Brooks tried a different approach. Robots similar to those invented by Brooks are to befound on 26)............ where they are collecting information.

24. Answer: DISC

Supporting statement: “...To attack these difficulties, researchers tried to use the 'top- down approach', using a computer in an attempt to program all the essentia rules onto a single disc...”
Keywords: researchers, attempt
Keyword location: para B, line 8
Explanation: they wanted to store all the information on a disk about all the top down approaches to solve the difficult problems.

25. Answer: PATTERNS

Supporting statement: “...This unconscious awareness of patterns is exactly what computers are missing....”
Keywords: unconsciousness, patterns
Keyword location: para C, line 7
Explanation: the top down approach and enabled them to do a lot of task but failed identify patterns

26. Answer: MARS

Supporting statement: “...Today many of the descendants of Brooks' insectoid robots are on Mars gathering data for NASA (The National Aeronautics and Space Administration), ....”
Keywords: descendants, insectoid
Keyword location: para D, line 7
Explanation: All the descendants of Brooks robots are stored on MARS for gathering information.

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