是「人」還是「機器」
Man or Machine

A humanoid robot is a machine with the appearance of a human.
人形機器人是一部有著人類外貌的機器。

The professor visited an exhibition of contemporary Japanese art.
那位教授參訪了一場當代日本藝術的展覽。

My mother prefers the mobility of a lightweight hand-held vacuum.
我媽媽更喜歡輕型手提吸塵器的靈活性。

The software product was the brainchild of Steve.
這個軟體產品是 Steve 的智慧結晶。

She concealed her purse under the pillow.
她把錢包藏在枕頭下。

An autonomous country has the freedom to govern itself.
一個獨立自主的國家擁有統治該國的自由。

The fortune teller’s predictions turned out to be uncannily accurate.
那位算命師的預言不可思議的準確。

The company has made strides to expand internationally.
那間公司有很大的進展，將業務拓展到國際。

This problem would lead into a study of kinetic energy.
這個問題將導致運動力學的研究。

The professor was fascinated by the bipedal ape.
那位教授深深著迷於那隻雙足猿。

Man or Machine

MlT’s humanoid robots showcase both human creativity and contemporary pessimism. Humanoid robots were once the stuff of political and science fiction. Today, scientists working in Japan and the USA have been turning fiction into a physical reality.

During July 2003, the Museum of Science in Cambridge, Massachusetts exhibited what Honda calls ‘the world’s most advanced humanoid robot’, ASIMO (the Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility). Honda’s brainchild is on tour in North America and delighting audiences, wherever it goes. After 17 years in the making, ASIMO stands at four feet tall, weighs around 115 pounds and looks like a child in an astronaut’s suit. Though it is difficult to see ASIMO’s face at a distance, on closer inspection it has a smile and two large ‘eyes’ that conceal cameras. The robot cannot work autonomously—its actions are ‘remote controlled’ by scientists through the computer in its backpack. Yet watching ASMIO perform at a show in Massachusetts it seemed uncannily human. The audience cheered as ASIMO walked forwards and backwards, side to side and up and downstairs. It can even dance to the Hawaiian Hula.

While the Japanese have made huge strides in solving some of the engineering problems of human kinetics and bipedal movements, for the past 10 years scientists at MIT’s former Artificial Intelligence (AI) lab (recently renamed the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, CSAIL) have been making robots that can behave like humans and interact with humans. One of MIT’s robots, Kismet, is an anthropomorphic head and has two eyes (complete with eyelids), ears, a mouth, and eyebrows. It has several facial expressions, including happy, sad, frightened and disgusted. Human interlocutors are able to read some of the robot’s facial expressions, and often change their behaviour towards the machine as a result - for example, playing with it when it appears ‘sad’. Kismet is now in MIT’s museum, but the ideas developed here continue to be explored in new robots.

Cog (short for Cognition) is another pioneering project from MIT’s former AI lab. Cog has a head, eyes, two arms, hands and a torso—and its proportions were originally measured from the body of a researcher in the lab. The work on Cog has been used to test theories of embodiment and developmental robotics, particularly getting a robot to develop intelligence by responding to its environment via sensors, and to learn through these types of interactions. This approach to AI was thought up and developed by a team of students and researchers led by the head of MIT’s former AI lab, Rodney Brooks (now head of CSAIL), and represented a completely new development...