Reading 1 ⇱
Rain pounded down on the roof. I was trying to read but the sound was too loud. I couldn’t help myself from being a little grumpy. I wanted to be outside playing, but the rain was keeping me inside.
My mom had gone to the grocery store, and my dad was spending Saturday at the office. I had planned to spend the day hiking, but Mother Nature decided that today was the perfect day for rain.
It meant that I would have to entertain myself. I spent most of the morning playing with my stuffed animals and reading. I was sitting next to the window staring out when I got a strange idea: why not just go outside anyway?
I put on my boots and a big raincoat and stepped out into the wet world. It was raining hard but it wasn’t cold. All I could hear were raindrops and the wind. I decided to go on my hike anyway.
My feet didn’t make any sound on the wet ground and the forest seemed different. I went to my favourite place and sat down. In the summer, my best friend Ellen and I would come here and sit for hours. It was our special place. All of a sudden, I thought I heard someone shouting my name. I turned and saw Ellen walking up behind me.
“Oh my Gosh! It’s really you, Martha!” she said. “I can’t believe that you are out here right now. I thought I would be the only person crazy enough to go for a walk in the rain.”
I was very happy to have some company. We decided that hiking in the rain was just as fun as hiking in the sunshine. We planned on hiking in the rain again.
(Adapted from Navigate)
Reading 2 ⇱
In the near term, the goal of keeping AI’s impact on society beneficial motivates research in many areas, from economics and law to technical topics such as verification, validity, security and control. Whereas it may be little more than a minor nuisance if your laptop crashes or gets hacked, it becomes all the more important that an AI system does what you want it to do if it controls your car, your airplane, your pacemaker, your automated trading system or your power grid. Another short-term challenge is preventing a devastating arms race in lethal autonomous weapons.
In the long term, an important question is what will happen if the quest for strong AI succeeds and an AI system becomes better than humans at all cognitive tasks. Such a system could potentially undergo recursive self-improvement, triggering an intelligence explosion leaving human intellect far behind. By inventing revolutionary new technologies, such a super-intelligence might help us eradicate war, disease, and poverty, and so the creation of strong AI might be the biggest event in human history. Some experts have expressed concern, though, that it might also be the last, unless we learn to align the goals of the AI with ours before it becomes super-intelligent.
There are some who question whether strong AI will ever be achieved, and others who insist that the creation of super-intelligent AI is guaranteed to be beneficial. At FLI we recognize both of these possibilities, but also recognize the potential for an artificial intelligence system to intentionally or unintentionally cause great harm. We believe research today will help us better prepare for and prevent such potentially negative consequences in the future, thus enjoying the benefits of AI while avoiding pitfalls.
(source: https://www.beyondteaching.com/)
Reading 3 ⇱
As a result of globalisation, the world is becoming more and more connected. This has changed people’s way of life, beliefs, art and customs, or their culture, in many respects. Although people’s experiences around the world have become very similar, globalisation has also encouraged cultural diversity. Below are some examples.
Fast food chains and international restaurants have become popular, offering a wide range of dishes and more food choices to local people. For example, here in Viet Nam, we can enjoy Italian pizza or Japanese sushi, in addition to our traditional food. Moreover, some international dishes use local ingredients, which make them unique and more suitable to local tastes. On the other hand, Vietnamese specialties, such as pho and banh mi, are also gaining popularity worldwide.
Thanks to globalisation, people can quickly discover new music from all over the world. People nowadays enjoy listening to music from different countries and cultures, and in different languages. For example, American teens are captivated by K-pop music and dance. There are also many music festivals around the globe that bring artists and music fans together. In today’s connected world, it is very common for musicians across the world to work on music projects and share ideas together.
Globalisation has also impacted fashion by opening it up to a variety of styles and influences from around the world. Cross-cultural styles that blend both traditional and modern elements are on the rise. This presents opportunities for fashion designers to be creative and reflect the cultural richness of the world. It is now easier for people to keep up with fashion trends from different cultures and regions, and express their identities in new and exciting ways.
In conclusion, globalisation has helped strengthen cultural diversity in the world and made people appreciate different cultures and lifestyles.