VII. Прочитайте и устно переведите текст. Перепишите и письменно переведите 1, 2, 3, 4 абзацы текста.

Robots — the Ideal Workers?

1. We hear many complaints about work in factories; the work is often " boring, heavy and repetitive; the operative¹ doesn't have to think about the work; he gets no job satisfaction.

2. The answer is a robot. For many jobs a robot is much better than human operative. Once it has been program­med, it will do its job over and over again. It never gets bored; it works at a constant speed; it doesn't make mistakes; its work is always of the same standard; it doesn't get tired; it can work 24 hours a day without breaks for food, rest or sleep.

3. Robots have other advantages, too. They are designed to do almost any job. You can't change the human body, but a robot's arms, for example, can be made to move in any direction. Robots also do very heavy work and they can operate in conditions that are too.dangerous, too hot or too cold for people to work in. They work under water, in poisonous gas and in radioactive areas.

4. It is obvious that robots have many advantages over human beings. However, it is also true that humans can do many things that robots can't. For example, humans can carry out a task without having to be told exactly how to do it first — in other words, they don't always have to be programmed.

5. Humans can move, but robots are usually fixed in one place. If they are able to move, robots do it only in a very limited way. Unlike robots, people can know whether what they are doing is good or bad, and whether it is boring or interesting. Also robots are only just beginning to be able to understand speech and writing, but humans communicate easily with each other by these methods, and by many others — telephone, drawing, radio, and so on — as well.

6. And we should not forget that robots owe their existence² to humans—we make them, repair them and control them, not the other way round.

Пояснения к тексту

1. the operative – зд. – рабочий

2. to owe one’s existence – быть обязанным своим существованием.

VIII. Прочитайте 5, 6 абзацы текста, письменно ответьте на вопрос.

What allows us to say that the robots owe their existence to humans?

Контрольное задание 4

Образцы выполнения упражнений

Образец 1 (к упр. I)