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  3. How did we get brains big enough to create machines with artificial intelligence? Some suggest that it was to help keep track of

How did we get brains big enough to create machines with artificial intelligence? Some suggest that it was to help keep track of

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问题    How did we get brains big enough to create machines with artificial intelligence? Some suggest that it was to help keep track of all the people, and their roles, within our growing social groups. Large, well-integrated and co-ordinated groups improved our chances of survival because they made the division of labour possible.
   The alternative explanation is that our brain power is due to needing brains that facilitated problem-solving and invention. Whatever the cause, our evolved problem-solving abilities have thrown a spanner in the works. Google’s artificial intelligence machine AlphaGo upends the evolved social contract. Now we can only hope that the machine will help us understand how to preserve the value of individuals who have no contribution to make.
   Until recently, for instance, Lee Sedol’s unique selling point lay in his ability to beat all-comers at the ancient Asian game of Go. Now a team of human beings equipped with AlphaGo, an AI tool, have beaten him. After the first defeat, Sedol pronounced himself "in shock". After the second defeat he was "quite speechless". After the third he confessed he felt "powerless".
   This quiet revolution has already started. You know about Google’s self-driving car. Artificial intelligence is already better than most doctors at interpreting medical scans. It is organising school timetables and finding the optimal delivery schedule for supermarket supplies: getting Easter eggs into the hands of slavering infants involves AI.
   You’re not even going to notice the takeover. Next time you’re in a supermarket, give the self-service checkout a hard stare. It’s essentially a static robot. And this robot has human assistants. Those people who turn up when you attempt to buy alcohol are summoned by the machine.
   The human assistant is still necessary, but only because the manufacturers and programmers made a decision to limit the robot’s capabilities. They didn’t have to: if we decided we wanted fully autonomous robot checkouts, we could equip them to read iris scans or fingerprints, or simply use face recognition.
   And that would require us to sign up and hand over our biometric data. Given a little time to get used to the idea, most of us probably would do, and more jobs will go. That tells us something about why we should start coming to terms with the implications of AlphaGo’s success.
   It’s not clear our big, clever brains can solve the problem. Maybe those who profit from making human roles redundant could pay a "human capital gains" tax: we could charge the innovators for replacing a job and divert the money into social programmes. But how to make Google pay to implement its AI? We may have found the problem AlphaGo can’t solve.
The phrase "throw a spanner in the works" in Para. 2 is closest in meaning to______.
选项 A、throw a handle
B、throw in the towel
C、throw something into chaos
D、throw the baby out with the bathwater
答案C
解析 猜词题。短语throw a spanner in the works的前后文写道：不管诞生的原因如何，人工智能已经颠覆了社会契约，也就是类似于“给……添乱”的意思。选项[C]“使某物陷入混乱”正好符合此意，为正确答案。[A]throw a handle“推一下把手(使大型机器或电器设备启动或停止)”；[B]throw in the towel“认输”；[D]throw the baby out with the bathwater“在摒弃不重要的东西的同时，将重要的东西也抛弃了”，喻指得不偿失。
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