“Which is the right bin（垃圾箱）for my rubbish?” This may be the most asked question in Shanghai since it started a new rubbish sorting（分类）program on July 1st, 2019. When learning about different kinds of rubbish—wet, dry, recyclable（可回收的）and harmful—many people may be confused about how to sort it.

However, you can get help from your mobile phone now. For example, if you want to know which bin your paper should go in, you can just open a mini app（小程序）in WeChat or Alipay and look for “paper”. The app will give you the answer immediately. Soon, you might do it in an easier way. Maybe you can just take a photo of the rubbish and then it can tell you where it should go.

Many tech（科技）companies are making rubbish sorting robots. By “seeing” the pictures, the robot will pick up the rubbish and put it in the right place. The future of the rubbish sorting looks good. But it’s not the best way. The best thing we can do is to make less rubbish at the very beginning.

Different kinds of rubbish in Shanghai

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B．

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【小题1】 Many of them use chemicals to kill weeds (杂草). The trouble is, these weedkillers also kill wildlife, pollute rivers and are bad for the fields. 【小题2】 This kind of robot can cut weedkiller use by 90%. The robot is really smart because it only kills weeds but not crops (庄稼).

【小题3】

Several cameras are built into the robot. The cameras facing the ground take photos to help the robot “see” the plants it passes.

The robot compares each photo to a library of plant photos to decide on which plants are weeds.

Robot arms move into position to give a small dose (剂量) of weedkiller on the weeds.

The robot is energy-friendly. 【小题4】

How the robot will develop

The scientists do not want to just stop at the achievement they have made. 【小题5】 The improved model of robots will exactly discover weeds and dig them out instead of weedkillers.

Robots could be programmed to leave some harmless weeds in the fields to support wildlife living there. This will help create s more balanced ecosystem.

In November, our school went to iFLYTEK for a study tour to get a deeper understanding of artificial intelligence (AI).

The teacher first introduced some common knowledge and real-world uses of AI. For example, it beat humans in some difficult chess games. And ChatGPT could pass math exams with high scores. However, most students questioned the ability of AI. Some classmates even said, “I don’t think AI can do things better than humans in many ways.” But after visiting, we came to believe that AI may be able to do things that humans may not expect.

Then we experienced iFLYTEK’s Starfire model. To test its function, we suggested a Chinese writing topic about happiness that we had been thinking about for a long time. At first, Starfire gave us a common article, so we weren’t happy with it. One student said, “This article has no standout features. I think it should include some character descriptions. And the descriptions should be detailed.” After many suggestions and tries, the AI’s final article was really good. And it won our applause (掌声).

After that, the teacher introduced digital humans to us, which amazed us most. The digital humans can not only talk naturally, but also use real human body languages and make facial expressions. They do this with the help of special technology that reads humans’ faces and copies humans’ moves. And it makes them seem real.

We all saw the power of AI in different fields, but we also realized that it still has a long way to go. As AI technology continues to develop, it will surely meet with new challenges.