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      考研英语水平的进步，不仅要记单词，还需要阅读外语文献等资料。接下来，小编为2024考研者们，整理出——2024考研英语同源外刊9月:互联网的下一个风口，供考生参考。

2024考研英语同源外刊9月:互联网的下一个风口

The carbon footprint of generative AI doesn’t need to grow exponentially to threaten the planet. Meeting our ambitious climate targets will require decreasing emissions across every sector, and AI makes it much harder to stabilize, let alone shrink, the internet’s share.

生成式人工智能的碳足迹根本不需要以指数级增长，就会威胁到地球。要实现我们宏大的气候目标，需要各个行业减少排放，而人工智能让互联网的减排份额更难稳定，更不用说缩小了。

Compared with many other things we use online, ChatGPT and its brethren are unique in their power usage. AI risks making every search, scroll, click, and purchase a bit more energy intensive as Silicon Valley rushes to stuff the technology into search engines, photo-editing software, shopping and financial and writing and customer-service assistants, and just about every other digital crevice. Compounded over nearly 5 billion internet users, the toll on the climate could be enormous. “Within the near future, at least the next five years, we will see a big increase in the carbon footprint of AI”.

与我们上网用的其他东西相比，ChatGPT及其同类产品在能耗上可以说独一无二。加上近50亿互联网用户，这对气候造成的不良影响可能十分巨大。“在不久的将来，至少在未来五年内，我们将看到人工智能的碳足迹大幅增加。”

As AI and other digital tools help other sectors become greener—improving the efficiency of the grid, enhancing renewable-energy design, optimizing flight routes—the internet’s emissions may continue creeping up. “If we’re using AI, and AI is being sold as pro-environment, we’re going to increase our use of AI throughout all sectors,” Gabrielle Samuel, a lecturer in environmental justice and health at King’s College London, told me.

随着人工智能和其他数字工具帮助其他行业变得更加绿色环保——例如可以加强电网的效率，加强可再生能源设计，优化飞行路线——互联网的排放可能会继续缓慢上升。伦敦国王学院环境正义与健康讲师加布里埃尔•塞缪尔告诉我：“如果我们正在利用人工智能，而人工智能的卖点又是环保，那么我们在所有领域中对人工智能的使用都会增加。”

Perhaps the most troubling aspect of AI’s carbon footprint is that, because the internet’s emissions have always been relatively small, almost no one is prepared to deal with them. The Inflation Reduction Act, the historic climate law Congress passed last year, doesn’t mention the web; activists don’t chain themselves to data centers; we don’t teach children to limit their search queries or chatbot conversations for the sake of future generations. With so little research or attention given to the issue, it’s not clear that anybody should. Ideally AI, like coal-fired power plants and combustion-engine cars, would face the economic and regulatory pressure to become emissions-free.

可能人工智能碳足迹烦人的地方在于，互联网的碳排放量一直比较小，几乎没有人做过解决这个问题的准备。国会去年通过的具有历史意义的气候法《降低通货膨胀法案》并没有提到互联网;活动人士也不会把自己跟数据中心扯上关系;我们也不会教孩子为了子孙后代而限制使用搜索或聊天机器人对话。由于对这个问题的研究和关注如此之少，甚至不清楚是否应该有人这么做。理想情况下，人工智能应该像燃煤发电厂和内燃机汽车一样，面临实现零排放的经济和监管压力。

The internet can appear untethered from the physical world: digital and virtual, two-dimensional, in cyberspace instead of material space. A chatbot is not visibly plugged into a smokestack belching gray plumes, does not secrete the acrid smell of gasoline from an exhaust pipe. But the data centers and computer chips it connects to, and the electricity and carbon they generate, are of our world—and our problem.

互联网似乎脱离了现实世界的束缚：数字化、虚拟、二维，在网络空间而不是物质空间中。一个聊天机器人看上去并没有连着一个冒着灰烟的烟囱，也没有从排气管中排出刺鼻的汽油的气味。但它连接的数据中心和计算机芯片，以及它们产生的电流以及碳排放是真实世界的一部分，因此(人工智能带来的问题)也是我们的问题。

 

单词：

1.brethren

/ˈbrɛðrɪn/

n.兄弟们，同胞;同党，会友

2.scroll

/skrəʊl/

n. (供书写的)长卷纸，卷轴; 一卷古书(或公文、文件); (绘制或雕刻的)涡卷形装饰; 印上格言(或题字)的丝带的描绘

v. 滚屏，滚动; 使像纸卷合(或打开)那样移动

3.compound

/ˈkɒmpaʊnd/

n. 混合物，化合物; 复合词; 大院，有围墙的场地

adj. 复合的，混合的; 以复利计算的

v. 使加重，使恶化; 合成，混合; 以复利计算支付; 和解，私了

      综上是“2024考研英语同源外刊9月:互联网的下一个风口”，希望对备战2024考研考生们有所帮助!让我们乘风破浪，终抵彼岸，考研加油!

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