Passage One
Questions 46 to 50 are based on the following passage.
Technology is never a neutral tool for achieving human ends. Technological innovations reshape people as they use these innovations to control their environment. Artificial intelligence, for example, is altering humanity.
While the term AI conjures up anxieties about killer robots or catastrophic levels of unemployment, there are other, deeper implications. As AI increasingly shapes the human experience, how does this change what it means to be human? central to the problem is a person's capacity to make choices, particularly judgments that have moral implications.
Aristotle argued that the capacity for making practical judgments depends on regularly making them—on habit and practice. We see the emergence of machines as substitute judges in a variety of everyday contexts as a potential threat to people learning how to effectively exercise judgment themselves.
In the workplace, managers routinely make decisions about who to hire or fire and which loan to approve, to name a few. These are areas where algorithmic(算法的) prescription is replacing human judgment, and so people who might have had the chance to develop practical judgment in these areas no longer will.
Recommendation engines, which are increasingly prevalent intermediaries in people's consumption of culture, may serve to constrain choice and minimize luck. By presenting consumers with algorithmically selected choices of what to watch, read, stream and visit next, companies are replacing human taste with machine taste. In one sense, this is helpful. After all, machines can survey a wider range of choices than any individual is likely to have the time or energy to do on their own.
At the same time, though, this selection is optimizing for what people are likely to prefer based on what they' ve preferred in the past. We think there is some risk that people's options will be constrained by their past in a new and unanticipated way.
As machine learning algorithms improve and as they train on more extensive data sets, larger parts of everyday life are likely to become utterly predictable. The predictions are going to get better and better, and they will ultimately make common experiences more efficient and pleasant.
Algorithms could soon—if they don't already—have a better idea about which show you'd like to watch next and which job candidate you should hire than you do. One day, humans may even find a way for machines to make these decisions without some of the biases that humans typically display.
But to the extent that unpredictability is part of how people understand themselves and part of what people like about themselves, humanity is in the process of losing something significant. As they become more and more predictable, the creatures inhabiting the increasingly AI-mediated world will become less and less like us.
46. What do we learn about the deeper implications of AI?
A) It is causing catastrophic levels of unemployment.
B) It is doing physical harm to human operators.
C) It is altering moral judgments.
D) It is reshaping humanity.
47. What is the consequence of algorithmic prescription replacing human judgment?
A) People lose the chance to cultivate the ability to make practical judgments.
B) People are prevented from participating in making major decisions in the workplace.
C) Managers no longer have the chance to decide which loan to approve.
D) Managers do not need to take the trouble to determine who to hire or fire.
48. What may result from increasing application of recommendation engines in our consumption of culture?
A) Consumers will have much limited choice.
B) Consumers will actually enjoy better luck.
C) It will be easier to decide on what to enjoy.
D) Humans will develop tastes similar to machines’.
49. What is likely to happen to larger parts of our daily life as machine learning algorithms improve?
A) They will turn out to be more pleasant.
B) They will repeat our past experience.
C) They can be completely anticipated.
D) They may become better and better.
50. Why does the author say the creatures living in the more and more AI-mediated world will become increasingly unlike us?
A) They will have lost the most significant human element of being intelligent.
B) They will no longer possess the human characteristic of being unpredictable.
C) They will not be able to understand themselves as we can do today.
D) They will be deprived of what their predecessors were proud of about themselves.
答案解析：
46. 由题干中的关键词“deeper implications of AI”定位到第二段“While the term AI conjures up anxieties about killer robots or catastrophic levels of unemployment, there are other, deeper implications. As AI increasingly shapes the human experience, how does this change what it means to be human?”以及第一段“Artificial intelligence, for example, is altering humanity.”。这里提到人工智能有更深层次的影响，且正在改变人性，也就是重塑人类，所以选D。
47. 由题干中的关键词“algorithmic prescription replacing human judgment”定位到第四段“These are areas where algorithmic(算法的) prescription is replacing human judgment, and so people who might have had the chance to develop practical judgment in these areas no longer will.”。该句表明算法规定取代人类判断后，人们就失去了培养做出实际判断能力的机会，所以选A。
48. 由题干定位到第五段“Recommendation engines, which are increasingly prevalent intermediaries in people's consumption of culture, may serve to constrain choice and minimize luck.”以及第六段“We think there is some risk that people's options will be constrained by their past in a new and unanticipated way.”。这表明推荐引擎在文化消费中的应用增加会导致消费者选择受限，所以选A。
49. 由题干定位到第七段“As machine learning algorithms improve and as they train on more extensive data sets, larger parts of everyday life are likely to become utterly predictable.”。这说明随着机器学习算法的改进，日常生活的大部分将变得完全可预测，也就是能被完全预料到，所以选C。
50. 由题干中定位到最后一段“But to the extent that unpredictability is part of how people understand themselves and part of what people like about themselves, humanity is in the process of losing something significant. As they become more and more predictable, the creatures inhabiting the increasingly AI - mediated world will become less and less like us.”。这里指出不可预测性是人类理解自己和喜欢自己的部分，而生活在AI媒介世界中的生物变得越来越可预测，即不再具有人类不可预测的特性，所以选B。
