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2015考研英语同源外刊文章阅读理解练习(二)

　　文章导读：

　　本文选自The Economist《经济学人》2014年3月29日刊登的一篇文章，原文标题为“Domestic service robots—Seal of approval”，主要是围绕机器人在家庭服务中，特别是在照顾老年人方面的作用展开的，认为机器人不仅应该方便人们使用，而且也应该像宠物一样讨人喜爱。

　　Domestic service robots

　　When Takanori Shibata began working on robots in the early 1990s, he had something practical in mind, perhaps to help the elderly with their daily chores. But he soon realised that robots were not really able to do anything useful, so he decided to make a robot that did not even try—but that could nevertheless deliver real benefits.

　　The result of his labours, Paro, has been in development since 1998. It is 57cm long and looks like a baby harp seal. Thanks to an array of sub-skin sensors, it responds amiably to stroking; and though it cannot walk, it can turn its head at the sound of a human voice and tell one voice from another. It is a comforting and gentle presence in your arms, on your lap or on a table top, where it gives the impression of following a conversation. The best thing about it is that it seems to be helping in the care of people with dementia and other health problems.

　　You could see Paro as a very well-designed $5,000 pet that will never turn on the person holding it, and will never be hurt if its master flies into a rage. It is as happy in one lap as the next, needs no house-training, can be easily washed and will not die. This makes it a much more practical proposition to have in a nursing home or hospital than a live pet. It is used in such homes in Japan, in parts of Europe and in America. As well as simply making people happy—no mean goal—it can act as a source of reassurance and calm. People with Alzheimer’s often suffer from “sundowning”—a distressed urge to wander that comes on towards the end of the afternoon. Mr. Shibata has found that a seal in the arms tends to reduce such wandering, which means fewer falls. Experience in Italy, Denmark and America indicates that care homes equipped with Paro need less medication for their residents. Larger trials now under way in Australia should establish whether this and other benefits can be provided simply by a soft toy, or whether Paro’s ability to interact with the world makes a clinical difference.

　　If Paro proves to be more useful than a plush animal, there is a huge market for it. Akifumi Kitashima, who works on Japan’s robotics strategy at the Ministry for the Economy, Trade and Industry, points out that in 2025 Japan will have 10.7m more elderly people than it did in 2005. Though Japan is ageing particularly quickly, a lot of the rest of the world is on a similar course. Some will long remain spry; most will eventually need care.

　　Looking after old people in homes might become easier with robots, be they mood enhancers like Paro or something more practical that can help careworkers lift and reposition their charges (Mr. Kitashima says 70% of carers have bad backs). Yoshiyuki Sankai, perhaps Japan’s best-known robotics entrepreneur, has set up a company called Cyberdyne to make wearable systems that help people walk and lift things by adding artificial strength to their limbs.

　　Robots may also make it possible for old people to stay independent in their own homes for longer. Mr. Angle says this is iRobot’s “long-term guiding star”, towards which the Roomba is a small step. Mr. Gupta at the NSF thinks that general-purpose home-help robots would be a big advance which, given a push, could be achieved in a couple of decades (though that, he stresses, is his own view, not the foundation’s). Mr. Thrun reckons it could be done more quickly. Mr. Ng points out that if you get a graduate student to teleoperate a PR2 robot, it can already do more or less everything a home-help robot might be required to do, so all that is needed is better software and more processing power, both of which are becoming ever more easily available.

　　Cloud robotics can probably provide much of the required software. Mr. Pratt says that if there were dramatic performance improvements in the finals of the DRC, he would expect them to come from the cloud. But specific robot hardware will need upgrading, too. No robot hand yet comes close to the utility of the human hand. Tasks that require feedback in terms of force and fit—like putting a plug into a socket—remain particularly hard for robots, and there are a lot of such tasks around a house. General technological progress will not help; the only way to find a solution to this sort of problem is to work specifically on it.

　　Even more important will be interfaces to tell the robots what to do. Take-me-by-the-wrist Baxter, stroke-me Paro and the film-enabling industrial arms of Bot & Dolly, all very different from each other, show that interfaces can matter just as much as any other technological advance. Tobias Kinnebrew, of Bot & Dolly, thinks that new interfaces could open up markets and applications of robotics in all sorts of fields, and might do so surprisingly quickly.

　　Voice would be an obvious choice, but it has its drawbacks: give a robot a voice, says Mr. Hassan, and the user will think it is smart. An interface that allows the robot to be dumb and the user not to care might be preferable. Indeed, small errors can be endearing, and needing help with something can engender affection. People do not resent Paro’s need to be stroked; it is one of the things they like about it. CoBot’s need for help with the lifts at Carnegie Mellon makes people warm to it, though being pestered for help by random robots in offices and shopping malls would probably not work so well. But if the interface is properly designed, teaching a robot home help to do the job better might make it more welcome.

　　It may also be a good idea to let the robots turn for help to people other than those they are working for. As Mr. Goldberg at Berkeley points out, the cloud does not just contain computers; it provides access to a lot of humans, too. One of the things that make Aethon’s Tugs a success in hospitals is that the company’s headquarters has a small but always staffed help desk which deals with queries from robots. If one gets stuck or lost, a remote operator can look through its eyes, check its logs and sort things out before the hospital concerned even becomes aware that anything is wrong. If similar support could be provided for robot home helps, the occasional mistake might not matter.

　　If the robot can call on a help desk, it can communicate with other people too, perhaps providing a way for friends and relatives to stay in touch. Some home-automation products already allow a degree of monitoring, notes Oz Chambers of Carnegie Mellon’s Quality of Life Technology Centre, but what they offer leaves much to be desired. It makes the adult offspring feel greater responsibility—which they often cannot exercise—rather than giving them reassurance. The elderly, for their part, can feel snooped upon. A robot with a defined presence in the house might make a better intermediary.

　　What matters, as iRobot and other practically minded companies have learned, is not so much having robots but having a business model that does a job, be it washing the dishes, checking that medication is being taken or providing telepresence. Producing something reliable and likeable that can be sold in large numbers and does not get its makers sued may prove a lot more difficult than simply developing the required robotic skills, but not impossible. To be sure, robots will not spread as quickly or relentlessly as mobile phones have done. Over a decade they may not achieve much. Over a century, though, they could turn everyday life upside down.

　　【词汇提升】

　　work on 研究;从事于……;致力于……;对……起作用

　　harp seal 海豹

　　amiably 和蔼的;温和的

　　stoke敲打;抽打;敲击

　　dementia [内科]痴呆

　　fly into a rage 勃然大怒

　　Alzheimer 阿兹海默症;老年痴呆症

　　sundowning 日落综合征

　　plush 长毛绒的

　　reposition vt.使……复位;改变……的位置 n. 复位;贮藏;放回

　　drawback 缺点;弊端