【明報專訊】Dr Panda made use of artificial intelligence in developing a new security system. It will be activated when it detects an intruder, and the robot guards will drive him away. Dr Panda is testing the system by "inviting" Eason to the base!

AlphaGo is a computer program developed by Google DeepMind, a British artificial intelligence (AI) company. It is the first computer program to defeat any professional Go (圍棋) player. In March 2016, it beat Lee Sedol (李世石, front right), a Go world champion from Korea.

Go originated in ancient China over 2,500 years ago. It is one of the oldest board games played today. It is famous for its complexity of possible moves and the importance of players' reaction and intuition.

According to Demis Hassabis (哈薩比斯), who founded DeepMind, AlphaGo is not designed just to win Go games. "Ultimately we want to apply these algorithms to important real world problems," he said. Experts hope the technology of artificial intelligence can in the future be expanded to perform such tasks as modelling climate and analysing diseases.

■Mission 1

Artificial intelligence is very helpful and is widely used. Let's learn more by filling in the correct form of the adjectives!

digital / useful / virtual / near

Nowadays, we use a lot of artificial intelligence technologies in our daily lives. Some of them can be used as 1. __________ personal assistants. On 2. __________ platforms like Apple's iOS, you can talk to Siri which gives you 3. __________ information. For example, if you ask "Where is the 4. __________ Chinese restaurant?", the system will respond by giving you specific information.

■Mission 2

Dr Panda has also designed a new security device. One must press the triangular buttons in a particular sequence two minutes after entering the base, or an alarm will go off. How many triangles are there in the figure on the screen?

(see the picture)

■Mission 3

Dr Panda has drawn many drafts before assembling the robot guards! Take a look at his drafts. Can you find the same pattern as the one bounded by the box?

(see the picture)

■Key words

artificial intelligence (AI) 人工智能

board game 棋盤遊戲

■English highway﹕-words and collocations

Ultimately

It means after a process or activity has ended. It can be used to emphasise the main point you talk about.

e.g. Pat's effort has ultimately paid off.

“ Robotic Bill and Dr Panda: Intruder detected. ”

“ Eason: Uh-oh... ”

■Glossary

activate (v) 觸發

intruder (n) 侵入者

ancient (adj) 古老的

complexity (n) 複雜性

intuition (n) 直覺

algorithm (n) 規則系統

assistant (n) 助手

assemble (v) 裝配