考研英语阅读理解中的文章,很多来自一些外刊杂志方面的题材。接下来,北京文都考研网为扩宽2020考研学子的知识面,整理了考研英语经济学人外刊:拥有“智慧”的武器,供考生参考。
2020考研英语经济学人外刊:拥有“智慧”的武器
How to tame autonomous weapons
如何驯服自主武器
As military systems get cleverer, humans must keep up
军事系统变得越来越“聪明”,人类必须跟上了
For thousands of years, weapons went where humans thrust, threw or propelled them.
几千年来,武器都是朝着人们刺、投或推的方向攻击。
In the past century, they have grown cleverer: more able to duck and weave to their targets; more able to select which of many ships, tanks or aircraft to strike; and more able to wait for the right target to turn up.
在过去的一个世纪里,武器变得更“聪明”了:它们更能躲闪、迂回地奔向目标;更能在众多舰艇、坦克以及飞机中选择要攻击的目标;更能伺机而待直至目标出现后再发动攻击。
Increasingly, such weapons can be let loose on the battlefield with little or no supervision by humans.
这样的武器可能会越来越多地在少有或无人监管的情况下被用在战场上。
The world has not entered the age of the killer robot, at least not yet. Today’s autonomous weapons are mostly static systems to shoot down incoming threats in self-defence, or missiles fired into narrowly defined areas.
世界还没有进入机器人杀手的时代,至少目前还没有。当今的自主武器大都是用于自卫(击落来袭的危险目标)的静态系统或攻击特定区域的导弹。
Almost all still have humans “in the loop” (eg, remotely pulling the trigger for a drone strike) or “on the loop” (ie, able to oversee and countermand an action).
几乎所有的自主武器都有人“在回路中”(例如,远程操控无人机发动攻击)或“在回路上”(例如,能够监视并撤销一项行动)。
But tomorrow’s weapons will be able to travel farther from their human operators, move from one place to another and attack a wider range of targets with humans “out of the loop”.
但未来的武器将能够远离人类操作者,将人们“置身于回路之外”,从一地移动到另一地并向更远的目标发动攻击。
Will they make war even more horrible? Will they threaten civilisation itself? It is time for states to think harder about how to control them.
这样的武器是否会让战争变得更可怕?它们是否会威胁到人类文明自身?各国是时候好好思考如何限制自主武器了。
The UN’s Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) has been discussing autonomous weapons for five years, but there is little agreement.
联合国的《特定常规武器公约》(CCW)就自主武器问题已经讨论了五年了,但仍未能达成共识。
More than two dozen states (including Austria, the Vatican, Brazil and nuclear-armed Pakistan), backed by increasingly vocal activists, support a pre-emptive ban on “fully autonomous weapons”.
在呼声日益强烈的活动者的支持下,20多个国家(包括奥地利、梵蒂冈、巴西以及拥有核武器的巴基斯坦)支持将“完全自主武器”扼杀在摇篮中。
They point to campaigns against anti-personnel landmines, cluster munitions, and biological and chemical weapons as evidence that this can succeed.
他们指出,以反对杀伤性地雷、集束弹药和生化武器的行动为例足以证明“完全自主武器”需要被禁止。
Most big powers—among them America, Russia and Britain—retort that the laws of war are already good enough to control autonomous weapons. Some argue that such weapons can be more accurate and humane than today’s.
而包括美国、俄罗斯和英国在内的多数强国则反驳称,战争法已经完善到足以限制自主武器了。一些国家甚至认为,“完全自主武器”可以比现有的武器更精准、更人道。
A third group of countries, led by the likes of France and Germany, is urging greater transparency and scrutiny.
以法国、德国等国为首的第三类国家则正在敦促提高透明度以及加大审查力度。
Autonomous systems make wars more unpredictable and harder to supervise; and they make it harder to assign responsibility for what happens during conflict. This third group is surely right to try to impose at least some controls.
自主武器系统让战争变得更不可测、更难监督;它还让冲突发生后的责任界定变得更加困难。这些国家至少想要对自主武器施加一些限制措施,这显然是正确的。
The laws of war are still the right place to start. They do not seek to ban war, but to limit its worst excesses.
从战争法入手没有错。战争法并不是为了禁止战争,而是要限制最恶劣的战争暴行。
Among other things, they require that warriors discriminate properly between combatants and civilians, and ensure that collateral damage is proportionate to military gains.
除此之外,它还要求士兵正确区分战斗人员和平民,并且要确保附带损害与军事收益成正比。
Military actions must therefore be judged in their context. But that judgment is hard for machines to form.
因此,必须根据实际情况来判断采取怎样的军事行动。但对于机器来说,这种判断很难实现。
[重难点词汇]
supervision [,sʊpɚ'vɪʒən] n. 监督,管理
countermand ['kaʊntɚmænd] n. 取消;反对命令 vt. 取消,撤消;下反对命令召回
humane [hju'men] adj. 仁慈的,人道的;高尚的
transparency [træns'pærənsi] n. 透明,透明度;幻灯片;有图案的玻璃
scrutiny ['skrutəni] n. 详细审查;监视;细看;选票复查
discriminate [dɪ'skrɪmɪnet] vt. 歧视;区别;辨别 vi. 区别;辨别
以上是北京文都考研网给出的“2020考研英语经济学人外刊:拥有“智慧”的武器”,希望对备考2020考研英语的考生有所帮助!祝2020考研顺利!
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