Anglais : notion of progress

NOTION OF PROGRESS

Introduction :

I'm going to talk about the « notion of progress ». First of all, I would like to give a definition of this notion. The notion of progress is the idea of evolution in the medical field, and the future of human. This evolution may be the new technologies like AI, drone, transports…We saw this notion in class when we talk about the artificial intelligence.

I would like to answer about the following problematic “AI are an advantage or a disadvantage for us?”

First I will talk about the advantages of technological advances and secondly about the disadvantages.

1. Advantage about technological advances

To illustrate this idea I choose a reportage about the Enigma machine that we saw in class. The enigma machine was use during the WW2 by the Nazi. The purpose of this machine was send code secret message. To cope against the Nazi, the British recruited a team of cryptographers to crack the “enigma” codes. Alan Turing was a mathematician and he created a massive machine to eliminate the enigma machine, but the Nazi change the code of the “enigma” machine every 24 hours. After 9 months Alan Turing found the code and permit to save millions of life and change the course of the WW2. He permit to shortened the war of 2 years. Alan Turing was a visionary, he permit to revolutionized the computer science. He was arrested after a sexual relation with an other man and he died in 1956 after eating an apple with cyanide. He was rehabilitated by Queen Elizabeth II after his death.

1. Disadvantage of the technological advances

To illustrate this idea I choose the example of AI. In class we saw a film clip of “space Odyssey”. This film was create in 2001 and was the most significant breakthrough of the century because is marked by several themes, including human evolution, the place of technology and artificial intelligence. HAL 9000 are AI of the spacecraft. In this scene we can see HAL take the control of the spacecraft, in fact the astronaut want to return at the spacecraft but HAL doesn't want because Dave want to disconnect him. HAL refuses to die, he have a conscience. The machine is stronger than human, is in position of superiority.

During the scene HAL rest calm and polite in his way of talking, he may not feelings for the man. This film a warning to human about robots who may become dangerous for humans.

To conclude, thanks to technological advances, medicine has evolved. Many other positive points are there: communication abroad is facilitated, online shopping can avoid travel... It is also a good way to have fun, as well as to make things faster. However, we must be wary of these technological advances, especially in the AI system because many specialists like Stephan Hawking, Elton Dusk fear a turnaround or the machines are turning against men.

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