基于修改

標題

The ChatGPT bot is causing panic now – but it'll soon be as mundane a tool as Excel

?mundane【重點詞匯】 adj.世俗的，普通的，平淡的?

?【助記】mund- 表示“世界”。

?We are always busy with mundane tasks.?

?我們一直為無聊的瑣事奔波。

P1

So the ChatGPT language processing model burst upon an astonished world and the air was rent by squeals of delight and cries of outrage or lamentation. The delighted ones were those transfixed by discovering that a machine could apparently carry out a written commission competently. The outrage was triggered by fears of redundancy on the part of people whose employment requires the ability to write workmanlike prose. And the lamentations came from earnest folks (many of them teachers at various levels) whose day jobs involve grading essays hitherto written by students.

?burst【熟詞僻義】v.突然出現(xiàn)?

?He burst onto the fashion scene in the early 1980s.20世紀80年代初他突然在時尚界活躍起來。

?burst into tears?突然哭出來?

?burst out laughing 突然笑出來

?burst in on / upon sb / sth 突然闖入?

?I'm sorry to?burst in on you?like this.?

?對不起，我這樣闖進來打擾你。

?squeal【重點難詞】n.長而尖銳的聲音?

?She gave a squeal of laughter.?

?她發(fā)出了一聲尖笑。

?cry【熟詞僻義】(表達強烈感情的)叫喊，叫聲

?outrage【重點詞匯】n.憤慨；義憤?

?arouse public outrage 激起公憤

?lamentation【重點詞匯】n.悲慟；哀悼?

?There was lamentation throughout the land at news of the death of...?

?聽到……逝世的消息，舉國為之悲慟。

?There was some emotion throughout the land at news of something

?transfix【重點難詞】v.使呆住;使動彈不得（stunned）

• I was completely transfixed.我完全被她迷住了

?commission【重點詞匯】n.受托之事;（接受報酬的）任務；傭金，回扣

?competent【重點詞匯】adj.勝任的;稱職的 （Someone who is competent is efficient and effective.）?

?The government performed competently in the face of multiple challenges.?

?面臨多種挑戰(zhàn)，政府表現(xiàn)得非常出色。

?redundancy【重點詞匯】n.多余，累贅；解雇?

?sb be made redundant 解雇某人?

?As the economy weakens, more and more jobs will be made redundant.?隨著經(jīng)濟越來越不景氣，越來越多的工作崗位將被裁減。?

?（公司）裁員 downsize its workforce

? on sb's part / on the part of sb【固定搭配】 某人所做（感覺）的; 就某人而言?

?There has never been any jealousy on my part.我從沒有感到嫉妒。

?workmanlike【了解】adj.出自匠人之手的；技藝純熟但無創(chuàng)意的 （If you describe something as workmanlike, you mean that it has been done quite well and sensibly, but not in a particularly imaginative or original way.）

?prose【了解】n.散文〔與詩歌相對的文體〕，乏味的大白話

?earnest【重點詞匯】adj.認真的?

?He made an earnest attempt to persuade her.?

?他真心想說服她。

? folk 人們；民謠

P2

So far, so predictable. If we know anything from history, it is that we generally overestimate the short-term impact of new communication technologies, while grossly underestimating their long-term implications. So it was with print, movies, broadcast radio and television and the internet. And I suspect we have just jumped on to the same cognitive merry-go-round.

?If we know anything from history【寫作推薦】 以史為鑒

≈If history is any guide

?grossly【重點詞匯】adv.很，非常?

gross 總，全

?grossly underprepared 準備得嚴重不足?

?grossly understaffed 人手嚴重不足?

?grossly underpaid 工資嚴重不足

?implication【重點詞匯】n.可能引發(fā)的后果?

?The low level of current investment?has serious implications for?future economic growth.?當前低迷的投資水平會對未來的經(jīng)濟增長產(chǎn)生嚴重影響。?

?merry-go-round【重點詞匯】旋轉(zhuǎn)木馬，[引申] 一連串的相關活動

?He was tired of the merry-go-round of romance and longed to settle down.?他厭倦了沒完沒了的風流韻事，渴望安定下來。

P3

（1/2）Before pressing the panic button, though, it's worth examining the nature of the beast. It's what the machine-learning crowd call a large language model (LLM) that has been augmented with a conversational interface. The underlying model has been trained on hundreds of terabytes of text, most of it probably scraped from the web, so you could say that it has "read" (or at any rate ingested) almost everything that has ever been published online.

1. It's what sb call a large language model (LLM) that...

?augment【重點詞匯】v.增加?

?【助記】aug-,aux-,auth- = to increase 增長?

?To augment the family income, she found a side hustle.為了增加家庭收入，她找了份副業(yè)。?

?AR, augmented reality 增強現(xiàn)實?

?augmentation n.

?underlying【重點詞匯】adj.根本的,潛在的

?underlying cause/ problem/logic 根本的原因/問題/邏輯?

?underlie v. 構(gòu)成…的基礎; 作為…的原因?

?So, the internet is really a network of networks that underlies critically so many things in our lives. “互聯(lián)網(wǎng)的確是構(gòu)成我們生活中眾多關鍵事物基礎網(wǎng)絡的網(wǎng)絡。

?terabyte【了解】n.萬億字節(jié)?TB

?scrape【重點詞匯】v.刮落，削掉，擦掉?

?Scrape the carrots and slice them thinly.把這些胡蘿卜去皮切成薄片。?

?scrape together 勉強籌集，湊足

? at any rate【固定搭配】不管怎樣，無論如何（ = anyway, at least）

?At any rate...It's out of our hands.無論如何，這不是我們可以控制的。

?ingest【了解】v.攝取;吸收

（2/2）As a result, ChatGPT is pretty adept at mimicking human language, a facility that has encouraged many of its users to anthropomorphism, ie viewing the system as more human-like than machine-like. Hence the aforementioned squeals of delight – and also the odd misguided user apparently believing that the machine is in some way "sentient".

? adept【重點詞匯】adj.熟練的；擅長的；內(nèi)行的；n.能手；內(nèi)行?

?He is an adept at getting people to talk confidentially to him.?

?他很善于引導別人與其談心。

?be adept at/in 固定搭配，擅長（be good/skilful at)?

?mimic【重點詞匯】v.模仿;仿效;效尤（imitate , take off ）（mimicked, mimicking）

?【助記】mim- = to imitate, 表示“模仿”。?

?He mimicked her upper-class accent.他模仿她那上流社會的腔調(diào)。?

?The computer doesn't mimic human thought; it reaches the same ends by different means.?

?計算機并沒有模仿人的思維，而是通過不同的手段達到了相同的目的。

?facility【熟詞僻義】n.天賦; 才能（= talent），設施

?She has an amazing facility for languages.她有驚人的語言才能

?leisure facilities 休閑設施?

?research facility 研究機構(gòu)

?encourage【重點詞匯】v.刺激;助長;促進（to make something more likely to exist, happen, or develop）?

?Violent TV programmes encourage anti-social behaviour.暴力電視節(jié)目會助長反社會行為。?

?Slow music encourages supermarket-shoppers to browse longer but spend more.?舒緩的音樂會促使超市購物者花更長的時間瀏覽商品的同時花更多的錢。

?hence【重點詞匯】adv.因此；（尤指未來的長時間）之后

用法1：加名詞，形成一個沒有謂語動詞的特殊句型，表示“因為前面說過的緣故，所以有了…” 。

【例如】Hence my surprise. 所以我感到驚訝。/ Hence my letter. 所以我就寫這封信。/

用法2：作為一個普通的副詞（“因此”、“由此”）放在正常的句子中起作用。

【例如】These cars have become cheaper, and hence affordable to more people.這些汽車變得更為便宜，因而為更多的人所買得起。

用法3：“從現(xiàn)在算起”的副詞意義。【例如】The property must be vacated 12 days hence. 該不動產(chǎn)應該自現(xiàn)在起12天內(nèi)騰出。

?odd【熟詞僻義】adj. 非特意挑選（收集）的，各種各樣的?

?Any odd scrap of paper will do.?

?隨便拿一張碎紙片都行。

?sentient【重點難詞】adj.有感知能力的;有知覺力的?

?【助記】前綴sens-, sent- = feel, 表示“感覺”，來自拉丁語。后綴-ent 表示形容詞， “…的”。?

?Man is a sentient being.?人是有感知力的生物。

P4

（1/2）The best-known antidote to this tendency to anthropomorphise systems such as ChatGPT is Talking About Large Language Models, a recent paper by the distinguished AI scholar Murray Shanahan, available on arXiv. In it, he explains that LLMs are mathematical models of the statistical distribution of "tokens" (words, parts of words or individual characters including punctuation marks) in a vast corpus of human-generated text.

?antidote【重點詞匯】n.解毒藥，解毒劑；矯正方法，對抗手段（antidote to ）?

?【助記】anti- 表示“反對，相反”

do-,don-,dit-,dot-,dow- = to give 給予

?解藥，類似表達：solution to/cure for

?Massage is a wonderful antidote to stress.按摩是舒緩壓力的一劑妙方。?

?The magic cure for inflation does not exist.抑制通貨膨脹沒有什么靈丹妙藥。

?tendency【重點詞匯】n.傾向?

?tendency 后面接 to 或 towards 和名詞，或接不定式（to do）

?例如：她是個悲觀的人。

說法1：She used to have a tendency to/towards pessimism.

說法2：She used to have a tendency to look at the worst aspect of things.

?available【重點詞匯】adj.可用的, 可獲得的

?There are plenty of jobs available these days.這個地區(qū)有許多就業(yè)機會。

?（人）有空的

• Are you available on Thursday night?你周四晚上有空嗎？

?(非正式)獨身的，單身的?

• Are you available？你有對象嗎？

?token【重點詞匯】n. （用于操作機器、換購貨物或服務的）輔幣，代幣；(情感的)表示，證明

• NFT: non-fungible tokens 非同質(zhì)化代幣

?exchange love tokens to celebrate February 14?互換愛情信物以慶祝情人節(jié)

? punctuation mark【了解】標點符號

?corpus【了解】n.語料庫

（2/2）So if you give the model a prompt such as "The first person to walk on the moon was ... " and it responds with "Neil Armstrong", that's not because the model knows anything about the moon or the Apollo mission(阿波羅任務) but because we are actually asking it the following question: "Given(鑒于；考慮到) the statistical distribution of words in the vast public corpus of [English] text, what words are most likely to follow the sequence ‘The first person to walk on the moon was'? A good reply to this question is ‘Neil Armstrong'."

?prompt【重點詞匯】n.提詞，提示

?v.促使；推動；引起（prompt sb to do sth）

?The growing public expenditure bill has prompted a review of spending. 不斷增長的公共開支賬單引發(fā)對支出的檢查。

?adj.及時的，迅速的?

• Prompt action must be taken.?必須立即采取行動。

P5

（1/2）So what's going on is "next-token prediction", which happens to be what many of the tasks that we associate with human intelligence also involve. This may explain why so many people are so impressed by the performance of ChatGPT. It's turning out to be useful in lots of applications: summarising long articles, for example, or producing a first draft of a presentation that can then be tweaked.

長難句分析：

So what's going on is "next-token prediction", which happens to be what many of the tasks that we associate with human intelligence also involve(涉及).

主干：So what's going on is "next-token prediction"

定語從句：which?happens to be?what?many of the tasks that we associate with human intelligence also involve

which指代next-token prediction

what引導的名詞性從句：what?many of the tasks that we associate with human intelligence also involve

what many of the tasks also involve=the thing that many of the tasks also involve

【嵌套結(jié)構(gòu)】：名詞性從句里嵌套著一個定語從句

?draft【重點詞匯】n.草稿;草案;草圖

a draft law 法律草案

• （通常指短期的）征兵，征召 The draft is the practice of ordering people to serve in the armed forces, usually for a limited period of time.?

?his effort to avoid the draft.他試圖逃避兵役

?tweak【重點詞匯】v.稍稍改進;對…作微調(diào)?

?Maybe you should tweak a few sentences before you send in the report.?

?報告交上去之前，有幾個句子你也許應該修改一下。

（2/2）One of its more unexpected capabilities is as a tool for helping to write computer code. Dan Shipper, an experienced software guy, reports that he spent Christmas experimenting with it as a programming assistant, concluding that: "It's incredibly good at helping you get started in a new project. It takes(承擔) all of the research and thinking and looking things up and eliminates it… In 5 minutes, you can have the stub of something working that previously would've taken a few hours to get up and running." His caveat, though, was that you had to know about programming first.

?experiment【重點詞匯】v.（用…）做實驗（experiment with/on something）?

?In 1857 Mendel started experimenting with peas in his monastery garden...?

?1857年，孟德爾開始在修道院的菜園里用豌豆做實驗。?

?The scientists have experimented on the tiny neck arteries of rats...?

?科學家們已經(jīng)在老鼠細小的頸動脈上做了實驗。

?stub【了解】n.票根;存根

? up and running?【固定搭配】（尤指計算機系統(tǒng)）運行中 in operation; functioning

?caveat【重點詞匯】n.警告;注意事項?

?【助記】cau-,cou- = care, 表示“小心”。?

• But before they tread this path, they should consider a few caveats.但在他們涉足前，還是要考慮一些注意事項。

?caveat emptor 顧客留心（一經(jīng)出售概不負責）

?caveat venditor 包退包換; 賣方負責

P6

（1/2）That seems to me to be the beginning of wisdom about ChatGPT: at best, it's an assistant, a tool that augments human capabilities. And it's here to stay. In that sense, it reminds me, oddly enough, of spreadsheet software, which struck the business world like a thunderbolt in 1979 when Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston wrote VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet program, for the Apple II computer, which was then sold mainly in hobbyist stores.

?wisdom【熟詞僻義】n.(社會或文化長期積累的)知識，學問（knowledge）?

?(the) conventional / received / traditional etc wisdom 普遍的看法，傳統(tǒng)的信念

?But recent studies have challenged the accepted wisdom that a cool office is more productive.但最近的研究對"涼爽的辦公室里工作效率更高"這一公認的看法提出了挑戰(zhàn)?！?020年六級聽力】

?here to stay【固定搭配】持續(xù)存在?

?She's convinced that her bad luck is here to stay.她覺得接下來一直會走霉運。?

?Higher oil prices are here to stay, so we'd better get used to them.油價只會接著漲，我們最好適應這個趨勢。

?sense【重點詞匯】n.意義，含義，角度?

?in a sense / in one sense / in some senses etc ( = in one way, in some ways etc )從某種意義上來講

• What he says is right?in a sense.?他所說的從某種意義上來講是正確的。?
• The hotel was?in no sense?(=not at all) comfortable.?這家酒店一點都不舒適。?
• George is a genius?in every sense of the word?(=in every way).無論從哪個角度講，喬治都是個天才。

?spreadsheet【了解】n.電子制表程序

? thunderbolt?【重點詞匯】n.雷電，霹靂；晴天霹靂般的事件，令人震驚的消息?

? ?The idea?hit/struck her like a thunderbolt.?這個想法讓她大吃一驚。

?hobbyist【了解】有某種嗜好的人，愛好者?

? a computer hobbyist. 電腦愛好者。

（2/2）One day, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak woke up to the realisation that many of the people buying their computer did not have beards(胡子) and ponytails(馬尾辮) but wore suits. And that software sells hardware, not the other way round.

? wake up to the realisation that【寫作推薦】突然意識到（suddenly realize）

• wake up to sth??開始覺察（認識）到〔危險、想法等〕?
• ?It's time you woke up to the fact that it's a tough world.?你該清醒了，這是一個殘酷的世界。

?wake up and smell the coffee??(非正式，主北美)清醒一點，面對現(xiàn)實?

??It’s time to wake up and smell the coffee: you’re not going to pass this course unless you start working harder.該醒醒了：再不用功就要掛科了！

?? the other way round/around【寫作推薦】相反地

?You'd think you were the one who did me the favor, and not the other way around.應該是你幫了我，而不是我?guī)土四恪?/p>

P7

（1/2）The news was not lost on IBM and prompted the company to create the PC and Mitch Kapor to write the Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet program for it. Eventually, Microsoft wrote its own version and called it Excel, which now runs on every machine in every office in the developed world.

? be lost on somebody【固定搭配】未被…理解（或注意）?

?The meaning of that?was lost on me...我沒聽懂什么意思。?

?The joke was completely lost on Chris.?這個笑話克里斯一點也沒有聽懂。

? be lost 不理解?

?'Do you understand what I mean?' 'Not really. I'm a bit?lost.'“你明白我的意思嗎？”“不很明白，我有點糊涂了。”

（2/2）It went from being an intriguing but useful augmentation of human capabilities to being a mundane accessory – not to mention the reason why Kat Norton (aka "Miss Excel") allegedly pulls in six-figure sums a day from teaching Excel tricks on TikTok. The odds are that someone, somewhere is planning to do that with ChatGPT. And using the bot to write the scripts.

?intriguing【重點詞匯】adj.（由于奇特、神秘或出人意料而）有趣的;引人入勝的?

?I was intrigued by your question.我對你的問題很感興趣。

?accessory【重點詞匯】n.附件;配件;附屬物,（衣服的）配飾

?alleged【重點詞匯】adj. （事情或人無證據(jù)而）被控的?

?It is alleged that they mistreated the prisoners.據(jù)稱他們虐待囚犯。?

?They allegedly mistreated the prisoners.同上

?the alleged murderer據(jù)稱的謀殺犯 / the alleged victim據(jù)稱的受害人

?alleged/reported/supposed

alleged：“有人指稱”的

reported：“有人報道”的

supposed：可能是說話或?qū)憟蟮勒咦约翰聹y的。

?pull in【固定搭配】 (非正式)掙一筆錢(informal)earn a sum of money.?

??You could pull in ￡100,000. 你能掙十萬英鎊。

?The odds are that...【寫作推薦】很可能（It is likely that...）?

?the odds〔事物發(fā)生的〕可能性，機會?

?The odds are that?you are going to fail.你很可能會失敗。

?What are the odds?(=how likely is it) that they will mess up??他們把事情搞砸的可能性有多大？