The Return of Artificial Intelligence – IELTS Reading Answers

The Academic passage ‘The Return of Artificial Intelligence’ is a reading passage that appeared in an IELTS Test.

Since questions get repeated in the IELTS exam, these passages for ideal for practice. If you want more practice, try taking an IELTS reading practice test. 

The question types found in this passage are:

Matching Information Questions

In matching information type of question, a list which contains information is taken from the paragraphs. You are asked to find out the paragraph from which the information is taken. Sometimes the question may be tricky because the information given might not be in exact words as given in the paragraph. Instead it will be paraphrased so you need to read the paragraph to understand the meaning/idea behind it to answer these questions.

True/False/Not Given Questions

True/False/Not Given questions are very tricky. This question consists of several statements – If the statement is present in the article as it is then you need to mark it as true. If the statement is found to be the opposite of the sentence which is there then it should be marked as false. If the statement given in the question is not at all present in the article then it should be marked as not given. Do not spend a lot of time finding the sentence which is not there.

Multiple Choice Questions

The Multiple Choice question type requires you to select the correct answer from a list of options. There are various numbers of answer options, but test takers can usually expect to choose from three or four options, all of which are letters (A, B, C, or D). The type of question requires test takers to select one out of the four alternatives, but you may also have to select two answers from five possibilities or three responses from six options.

The Return of Artificial Intelligence

Answer questions 27-40 based on your reading of the passage below.

It is becoming acceptable again to talk of computers performing human tasks such as problem-solving and pattern-recognition.

A

After years in the wilderness, the term ‘artificial intelligence’ (AI) seems poised to make a comeback. AI was big in the 1980s but vanished in the 1990s. It re-entered public consciousness with the release of Al, a movie about a robot boy. This has ignited a public debate about AI, but the term is also being used once more within the computer industry. Researchers, executives and marketing people are now using the expression without irony or inverted commas. And it is not always hype. The term is being applied, with some justification, to products that depend on technology that was originally developed by AI researchers. Admittedly, the rehabilitation of the term has a long way to go, and some firms still prefer to avoid using it. But the fact that others are starting to use it again suggests that AI has moved on from being seen as an over-ambitious and under-achieving field of research.

B

The field was launched, and the term ‘artificial intelligence’ coined, at a conference in 1956 by a group of researchers that included Marvin Minsky, John McCarthy, Herbert Simon and Alan Newell, all of whom went on to become leading figures in the field. The expression provided an attractive but informative name for a research programme that encompassed such previously disparate fields as operations research, cybernetics, logic and computer science. The goal they shared was an attempt to capture or mimic human abilities using machines. That said, different groups of researchers attacked different problems, from speech recognition to chess-playing, in different ways; AI unified the field in name only. But it was a term that captured the public imagination.

C

Most researchers agree that AI peaked around 1985. A public reared on science-fiction movies and excited by the growing power of computers had high expectations. For years, AI researchers had implied that a breakthrough was just around the corner. Marvin Minsky said in 1967 that within a generation, the problem of creating artificial intelligence’ would be substantially solved. Prototypes of medical-diagnosis programs and speech recognition software appeared to be making progress. It proved to be a false dawn. Thinking computers and household robots failed to materialise, and a backlash ensued. `There was undue optimism in the early 1980s; says David Leaky, a researcher at Indiana University. ‘Then when people realised these were hard problems, there was retrenchment. By the late 1980s, the term AI was being avoided by many researchers, who opted instead to align themselves with specific sub-disciplines such as neural networks, agent technology, case-based reasoning, and so on.

D

Ironically, in some ways, AI was a victim of its own success. Whenever an apparently mundane problem was solved, such as building a system that could land an aircraft unattended, the problem was deemed not to have been AI in the first plate. ‘If it works, it can’t be AI; as Dr Leaky characterises it. The effect of repeatedly moving the goal-posts in this way was that AI came to refer to ‘blue-sky’ research that was still years away from commercialisation. Researchers joked that AI stood for `almost implemented’. Meanwhile, the technologies that made it onto the market, such as speech recognition, language translation and decision-support software, were no longer regarded as AI. Yet all three once fell well within the umbrella of AI research.

E

But the tide may now be turning, according to Dr Leake. HNC Software of San Diego, backed by a government agency, reckon that their new approach to artificial intelligence is the most powerful and promising approach ever discovered. HNC claim that their system, based on a cluster of 30 processors, could be used to spot camouflaged vehicles on a battlefield or extract a voice signal from a noisy background – tasks humans can do well, but computers cannot. ‘Whether or not their technology lives up to the claims made for it, the fact that HNC are emphasising the use of AI is itself an interesting development; says Dr Leaky.

F

Another factor that may boost the prospects for AI in the near future is that investors are now looking for firms using clever technology, rather than just a clever business model, to differentiate themselves. In particular, the problem of information overload, exacerbated by the growth of e-mail and the explosion in the number of web pages, means there are plenty of opportunities for new technologies to help filter and categorise information – classic AI problems. That may mean that more artificial intelligence companies will start to emerge to meet this challenge.

G

The 1969 film, 2001: A Space Odyssey, featured an intelligent computer called HAL 9000. As well as understanding and speaking English, HAL could play chess and even learned to lipread. HAL thus encapsulated the optimism of the 1960s that intelligent computers would be widespread by 2001. But 2001 has been and gone, and there is still no sign of a HAL-like computer. Individual systems can play chess or transcribe speech, but a general theory of machine intelligence still remains elusive. It may be, however, that the comparison with HAL no longer seems quite so important, and AI can now be judged by what it can do, rather than by how well it matches up to a 30-year-old science-fiction film. ‘People are beginning to realise that there are impressive things that these systems can do; says Dr Leake hopefully.

Questions 27-31

The reading passage has seven paragraphs, A-G. Which paragraph contains the following information?

Write the correct letter A-G in boxes 27-31 on your answer sheet. You may use any letter more than once.

27. HowAI might have a military impact
28. The fact that AI brings together a range of separate research areas
29. The reason why AI has become a common topic of conversation again
30. How AI could help deal with difficulties related to the amount of information available electronically.
31. Where the expression AI was first used

Questions 32-37

Do the following statements agree with the information given in the reading passage?

In boxes 32-37 on your answer sheet, write

TRUE if the statement agrees with the information

FALSE if the statement contradicts the information

NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this

32. The researchers who launched the field of AI had worked together on other projects in the past.
33. In 1985, AI was at its lowest point.
34. Research into agent technology was more costly than research into neural networks.
35. Applications of AI have already had a degree of success.
36. The problems waiting to be solved by AI have not changed since 1967.
37. The film 2001: A Space Odyssey reflected contemporary ideas about the potential of AI computers.

Questions 38-40

Choose the correct answer out of A, B, C or D.

Write your answers in boxes 38-40 on your answer sheet.

38. According to researchers, in the late 1980s, there was a feeling that

1. A general theory of AI would never be developed
2. Original expectations of AI may not have been justified
3. A wide range of applications was close to fruition
4. More powerful computers were the key to further progress

39. In Dr Leake’s opinion, the reputation of AI suffered as a result of

1. changing perceptions
2. premature implementation
3. poorly planned projects
4. commercial pressures

40. The prospects for AI may benefit from

1. existing AI applications
2. new business models
3. orders from Internet-only companies
4. new investment priorities

Answers

The answers to these questions are given below with their expectations.