AI agents are prediction engines using the web as their memory. They do no more than predict which words are more likely to follow any other word or group of words in a given language. When you ask ChatGPT a question, it analyzes it into words and their sequence, returning answers that match those sequences opposite. It might sound like a simple trick, and it is, yet the secret sauce is the size of the database the AIs use to perform it.

Of the very various mix of content used to train ChatGPT, 60 percent was information collected from websites, blogs or social media. Another 20 percent was content shared on Reddit and evaluated relatively highly by the users. The rest was books typically found in the public field (mostly older and general purpose), with a bit of Wikipedia (3 percent) mixed in for good measure.

AI’s store for each word the probability that any other word will follow it. The quality and value of these predictions depend very much on how often and on how many circum- stances the software encounters any two (or more words) in the neighborhood, how long a sentence goes, and which sentence might follow another. When put together, these predictions favour the most influential texts of a given culture, which shaped generations upon generations of English language teachers and the students they educated.

ChatGPT speaks like a parrot because its delivery is not automatically adjusted. More re- search and engineering are needed to adjust the tool to each request’s real-life intentions and consequences. In academic learning, these situations should be the pre- and post-stages of the research process: finding arguments and packaging them for public consumption.

In their current forms, ChatGPT and its siblings (姐弟) are like those three-year-olds who can recite entire stories read to them only once. But turning a three-year-old into a learned Person takes 20 years of labour—some, structured education. It is time to stop reading Al agents stories and send them to a real school.

Humans are fascinated by the source of their failings and virtues. This preoccupation inevitably leads to an old debate: whether nature or nurture (养育) shapes us more. A revolution in genetics has poised this as a modern political question about the character of our society: if personalities are hard-wired into our genes, what can governments do to help us? It feels morally questionable, yet claims of genetic selection by intelligence are making headlines.

This is down to “hereditarian (遗传论的)” science and a recent paper claimed “differences in exam performance between pupils attending extraordinary and ordinary schools mirror the genetic differences between them”. With such an assertion, the work was predictably greeted by a lot of absurd claims about “genetics determining academic success”. What the research revealed was the rather less surprising result: the educational benefits of extraordinary schools largely disappear once pupils’ inborn ability and socio-economic background were taken into account. That is to say, there’s nothing to support strongly either a hereditary or environmental argument.

Yet the paper does say children are “unintentionally genetically selected” by the school system. Central to hereditarian science is a tall claim: that identifiable variations in genetic sequences can predict an individual’s ability to learn, reason and solve problems. This is problematic on many levels. A teacher could not seriously tell a parent their child has a low genetic tendency to study when external factors clearly exist. Unlike-minded academics say the inheritability of human traits is scientifically unsound. At best there is a weak statistical association and not a causal link between DNA and intelligence. Yet sophisticated statistics are used to create a frightening atmosphere of scientific certainty.

While there’s an undoubted genetic basis to individual difference, it is wrong to think that socially defined groups can be genetically accounted for. The fixation on genes as destiny is surely false too. Medical predictability can rarely be based on DNA alone; the environment matters too. Something as complex as intellect is likely to be affected by many factors beyond genes. If hereditarians want to advance their cause it will require more balanced interpretation and not just acts of advocacy. Genetic selection is a way of exerting influence over others, “the ultimate collective control of human destinies,” as writer H. G. Wells put it. Knowledge becomes power and power requires a sense of responsibility. In understanding cognitive (认知的) ability, we must not elevate discrimination to a science: allowing people to climb the ladder of life only as far as their cells might suggest. This will need a more skeptical eye on the science. As technology progresses, we all have a duty to make sure that we shape a future that we would want to find ourselves in.

With an eye on urbanization, population growth and efficiency, tiny spaces were a big theme at this summer’s Dwell on Design conference in Los Angeles. Designers from around the world proudly presented housing and products for living small – from transformable furniture to 3D printed interior objects. 【小题1】Urban housing supplies are already straining (紧张) worldwide with 54% of the global population of 7.2 billion living in cities, according to the United Nation’s World Urbanization Prospects 2014 report. By 2050, that number is expected to rise to 6.33 billion, or 66% of a forecasted world population of 9.6 billion.

In North America, about 82% of the total population – roughly 473.8 million people – lives in urban areas.【小题2】Many of the new units being built are getting smaller and smaller, challenging municipal(市政的) housing codes and zoning regulations.

Micro-apartments tricked out with scaled-down, adaptable furniture and decor could make urban living more compatible (兼容的) with the way people increasingly live now – and help cities as they attempt to absorb more people in the future. The challenges include how to do so affordably, comfortably and with enough privacy to make these spaces homes as well as housing.

Re-thinking the toilet

The greater Tokyo area is the world’s most densely populated metropolitan region with some 38 million residents packed into about 5,200 sq miles.【小题3】TOTO, the Japanese bathroom fixtures and plumbing company, showcased micro-toilet design for bathrooms as small as 9 sq feet (0.84 meters) at the Dwell on Design conference.

The design also carries the EPA WaterSense label, averaging a lean 1 gallon per flush. This “saves a family of four more than $90 annually on their water bill, and $2,000 over the lifetime of the toilet”, said TOTO USA’s Lenora Campos.

Convertible furniture re-imagined

To furnish a micro-apartment comfortably, Resource Furniture has re-imagined the old Murphy beds and folding tables with sophisticated book shelves, desks and sofas that can convert into beds. Drawers pull out from under stairs.【小题4】