UNIVERSITY ENTRANCE EXAMINATION

ENGLISH LANGUAGE
Duration : 1 hours

INSTRUCTIONS TO STUDENTS

1. This paper contains ONE question and comprises EIGHT printed pages,
excluding the cover page.

2. You are not allowed to bring in materials or a dictionary to the

examination.

3. You may use page 4 to plan and organize your ideas for the essay.

4. Write your essay on the lined pages provided in this booklet.

5. Use a pen for this test. You are not allowed to use a pencil.

Name of Student: _______________________________________

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Examination venue: _________________Seat number: _________

Examiners use only

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Total marks
Examiner
 This examination assesses your ability to write in response to a prompt based on a given
text.

Write an expository essay of about 400-450 words to a university lecturer in response to

the following question:

The text predicts that due to the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI),
robots will become smarter than humans and will take control of their society.
What can human society do to prevent this possible threat?

You are required to use information from the text to support your ideas.

You have to acknowledge information taken from the text using proper academic
conventions.

You will be assessed on sophistication and sufficiency of ideas, use of information from
the reading text, clarity and logical development of ideas, and language fluency and
accuracy.

Artificial intelligence is a very real threat and robots could wipe out humanity by
accident, claims expert

From The Terminator to Transcendence, Hollywood science-fiction films have taught us not
to trust robots. Recently, one expert predicted that it is just as terrifying as the darkest plot:
that in the future, intelligent robots will be smarter and faster than humans, take over the
running of countries and have the ability to eliminate the human race altogether. Dr Stuart
Armstrong, based at Oxford University, predicted that robots will be increasingly important
to our everyday lives, doing menial tasks, but they will eventually render humans redundant
and take over the world.

He claimed that artificial intelligence (AI) is likely to produce drastic changes in anything
you can imagine the human race doing over the next 100 years. Dr Armstrong is concerned
that a simple instruction to an AI to prevent human suffering could be interpreted by a super
computer as kill all humans or that keep humans safe could lead to machines locking
people up. He explained that there is a serious risk of such dangerous behavior on the part of
AI, adding that human language is subtle and can be easily misinterpreted. You can give AI
controls, and it will be under the controls it was given, but these may not be the controls that
were meant.

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He predicts that it will be difficult to determine whether a machine has deadly intentions or
not and could act as if it is a benefit to humanity right until the point it takes control of all
functions. Professor Stephen Hawking has previously shared with the BBC: The
development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race. This echoes
his earlier claims when he pointed out that success in creating AI would be the biggest event
in human history though unfortunately, it might also be the last.

In November, Elon Musk, the entrepreneur behind Space-X and Tesla, warned that the risk of
something seriously dangerous happening as a result of machines with AI, could be in as
few as five years. He cautioned: I think we should be very careful about artificial
intelligence. If I had to guess at what our biggest existential threat is, it is probably that. So
we need to be very careful with artificial intelligence. According to Elon Musk, with AI, we
are summoning the demon. You know, like in those stories where there is a guy with the
pentagram and he is sure he can control the demon? It does not work out, he said.

While Dr Armstrong acknowledges that super intelligent computers could find cures for
cancer and other illnesses, for example, he also said that mankind is now in a race to create
safe, artificially intelligent machines, before it is too late. One suggestion is to teach robots a
moral code, but Dr Armstrong is pessimistic that this will work because humans find it hard
to separate right and wrong and are often not good role models when it comes to exemplary
behaviour.

A group of scientists and entrepreneurs, including Elon Musk and Professor Hawking, signed
an open letter in January promising to ensure AI research benefits humanity. The letter warns
that without safeguards on intelligent machines, mankind could be heading for a dark future.
The document, drafted by the Future of Life Institute, encouraged scientists to seek to
minimise risks that could wipe out mankind.

The authors claim that there is a broad consensus that AI research is making good progress
and would have a growing impact on society. It highlights speech recognition, image
analysis, driverless cars, translation and robot motion as having benefited from the research.
The potential benefits are huge, since everything that civilisation has to offer is a product
of human intelligence; we cannot predict what we might achieve when this intelligence is

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magnified by the tools AI may provide, but the eradication of disease and poverty is not
unfathomable, the authors write.

However, they issued a stark warning that research into the rewards of AI had to be matched
with an equal effort to avoid the potential damage it could wreak. For instance, in the short
term, it claims AI may put millions of people out of work. In the long term, it could have the
potential to play out like a fictional world of disasters in which intelligence greater than
humans could begin acting against their programming. The letter underscores that the AI
systems must do what humans want them to do.

To conclude, Dr Armstrong indicates that there is a general agreement among computer

scientists and economists that AI research has to be continued since its applications can
maximize the economic benefits of AI. At the same time, researchers should investigate the
ways of preventing the negative effects of AI, including increase in inequality and
unemployment.

Adapted from:
Griffiths, S. (2015, June 29). Artificial intelligence is a very real threat and robots could
wipe out humanity by accident, claims expert. MailOnline. Retrieved from
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3143275/Artificial-intelligence-real-
threat-robots-wipe-humanity-ACCIDENT-claims-expert.html

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USE THIS PAGE FOR PLANNING YOUR ESSAY

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 WRITE YOUR ESSAY ON PAGES 5-8

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END OF PAPER

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