Have you heard about the recent discovery of two new planets? We are always discovering new things, including what NASA calls exoplanets, or planets outside of the earth’s solar system. Most recently, NASA and Google have discovered two new planets in a far-away “太阳系 (tài yáng xì) solar system” using cutting-edge “人工智能 (réngōng zhìnéng) artificial intelligence”, or AI.
These exoplanets were discovered using the same “人工智能 (réngōng zhìnéng) Artificial Intelligence” techniques that computers use to recognize things in images, such as animals. The Kepler Space Telescope was able to recognize these exoplanets using this intelligence. Kepler was launched in 2009 to aide in the discovery of new planets orbiting other stars. Before 2009, we had only known of 326 exoplanets. Now Kepler has discovered over 2,500!
人工 (réngōng): artificial; manual work.
智能 (zhìnéng): intellect; intelligence.
Réngōng zhìnéng bèi guǎngfàn de yīngyòng zài rìcháng shēnghuó zhōng.
人工 智能 被 广泛 地 应用 在 日常 生活 中。
Artificial intelligence is used extensively in daily life.
Réngōng zhìnéng ràng rénmen de shēnghuó yuè lái yuè fāngbiàn.
人工 智能 让 人们 的 生活 越 来 越 方便。
Artificial intelligence makes people’s life more and more convenient.
NASA jìnqī fāxiàn le dì èr gè tàiyáng xì.
NASA 近期 发现 了 第 二 个 太阳 系。
NASA finds a second solar system recently.
Tàiyáng xì lǐmiàn yǒu duōshǎo gè xíngxīng?
太阳 系 里面 有 多少 个 行星？
How many planets are in the solar system?
Isn’t it amazing how powerful and innovative “人工智能 (réngōng zhìnéng) artificial intelligence” is? Let’s look at another piece of evidence that shows how far along AI has come:
There is a game called Go, that is played by humans and most recently, also by Google’s Artificially-Intelligent AlphaGo player. On May 25th, 2017, the world’s best human Go player, 19-year-old Ke Jie, lost twice to Google’s AlphaGo.
It looks like we are now creating systems that are smarter than us!
1. Which of the following applications doesn’t apply “人工智能 (réngōng zhìnéng)“?
A. Facial Recognition
B. Photoshop
C. Google Translate
Jennifer Zhu is a professional Chinese teacher from eChineseLearning. She has many years of Chinese language teaching experience and received her B.A. and M.A. in “Teaching Chinese as a Second Language.”