水自流

Today is the first working day of 2008 in Singapore, and my first class in British Council the about the predictions. And there are the reasonable predictions and other predictions which will not happen in the text books. And what’s your predictions about the 2008? I think I’ll come back to china soon, hah.

课程开始仍是self-introduction，然后开始逐句逐句讲解课文，其中还提问，小组讨论，大概就这样结束了四个小时的课程。I hope I can learn more in the next class.
今天包括永流共有8个学生，瑞士、法国（巴黎）、中国（台湾）、马来西亚和韩国各一个，中国（大陆）三个，就我跟韩国的大哥哥是男生。

突然觉得前途黯淡，毕竟这里的信息太多了，也可能是每个月总是有那么几天吧是这样的。

Predictions

Getting it right?
‘All the things we need at present to prove our identity will disappear: credit cards, driving licences, keys, and so on. Computer programmes will be able to recognize our unique appearance. Doors will open, cars will start, pay phones and parking meters will automatically bill you.’
‘It will be a very comfortable world, there will be technology to keep your house tidy and the grass in your garden green. Televisions will be able to study and learn their owners’ reactions and suggest programmes to watch. It will make sure that commercials that annoy you are not repeated.
‘The world economy will change. The wealth of a country will depend on its workers’ technical knowledge. India has already become a high-tech superpower. Any developing country could do the same in ten years.’
‘Computers themselves will design and ‘breed’ new computers programmed in ways that no human being can understand.’
‘We will have machines that are a billion times more intelligent than we are, but only in narrow, specific ways. Computers won’t ever be intelligent in the ways what a mosquito does, certainly not what a human being does. Machines will do what they are good at and people will do what they are good at. Humans will do the creative tasks, leaving the boring work to computers.

Discuss the following questions in pairs. Following is the answers which finished with my partner, of course some of the sentences has been corrected by the teacher:

Q1. Which of James Martin’s predictions would you like to happen?
A1. The prediction I would like to happen is the humans will do the creative tasks, leaving the boring work to computers. The reason is human is smarter than other animals, so the focus on creative jobs will make human beings more developed (or advanced).
And Zerlinda thinks that if television cam recognize the tastes of people because she will not need to remember the time or channel of programmes.

Q2. Which do you find worrying?
A2. Zerlinda is worried computers will do the boring work and many people will lose their jobs.
And I think if computers produce themselves without human they will make society become uncontrollable.

Q3. Which predictions do you think will come true?
A3. We think that developing countries will become wealthy if they educate their workers correctly. Many developing countries have been getting more rich when the government gives more money to education, for example, mainland China.