hce_kmu
111年
英文
第 49 題
📖 題組：
Klara and the Sun, published in 2021, was the eighth novel by the Nobel Prize-winning British novelist Kazuo Ishiguro. Highly anticipated, the dystopian science fiction sets in the U.S. in an uncomfortably near yet unspecified future: technology has rendered many people “postemployed” and created a blunt caste system where the so-called “lifted” are on top. With this wide-focus social backdrop of this novel, most of the time the story is told from a very limited point-of-view of Klara, a solar-powered AF—Artificial Friend. As a companion robot, Klara is highly different from her own kind: she has an appetite for observing and learning, and has the most sophisticated understanding amongst all the AFs sold in the store. She is chosen by a very sickly fourteen-year-old Josie to be her companion. Klara is loyal and tactful, and she is able to absorb difficulty and return care. Her role, as she describes it, is to prevent loneliness and to serve. As a companion robot, Klara has a deep reverence for the sun, which she regards as a deity. Solar-powered herself, Klara comes to believe that attention to sun should be a matter of survival for humans. Throughout the novel, Klara is on a mission to help Josie restore her health from a mysterious, seemingly terminally-ill disease, and she believes the sun possesses the power to cure Josie. Ishiguro’s readers are no strangers to the recurring theme from his previous works—loss, regret, sacrifice, longing, and a sense of reality afloat. And this novel is no exception. In Klara and the Sun, however, technology takes a more central role, and Ishiguro uses artificial intelligence, both biological and mechanized, to reflect on what it means to be human. Ishiguro uses the novel to contest the idea: “Can AI actually get to that empathy by understanding human emotions?” The current society seems to embrace artificial intelligence wholeheartedly, and allows AI to creep into every aspect of society, from job applications, to data mining with algorithms, or even to medicine in clinical setting. As the nature of this generation of machine learning, known as “reinforcement learning”, is vastly different from that of the old forms of AI, human beings may lose control of what AI does thereafter. With this novel, Ishiguro intends to manifest a dark allegory that speaks about the danger of unchecked technological advances, the loss of innocence, and the dignity of simple lives. Although the novel concludes with a positive note in believing how AFs like Klara would be able to provide unfailingly considerate and loyal companionship, the hauntingly beautiful story subtly addresses various looming challenges and controversies regarding AI ethics such as the limitations of machine learning and unsupervised deep learning. Many questions remain unanswered in the novel. But what is beyond doubt here is that Ishiguro has produced another masterpiece, a work that depicts the tenderness, beauty and fragility of humanity through the eyes of an AI.
Klara and the Sun, published in 2021, was the eighth novel by the Nobel Prize-winning British novelist Kazuo Ishiguro. Highly anticipated, the dystopian science fiction sets in the U.S. in an uncomfortably near yet unspecified future: technology has rendered many people “postemployed” and created a blunt caste system where the so-called “lifted” are on top. With this wide-focus social backdrop of this novel, most of the time the story is told from a very limited point-of-view of Klara, a solar-powered AF—Artificial Friend. As a companion robot, Klara is highly different from her own kind: she has an appetite for observing and learning, and has the most sophisticated understanding amongst all the AFs sold in the store. She is chosen by a very sickly fourteen-year-old Josie to be her companion. Klara is loyal and tactful, and she is able to absorb difficulty and return care. Her role, as she describes it, is to prevent loneliness and to serve. As a companion robot, Klara has a deep reverence for the sun, which she regards as a deity. Solar-powered herself, Klara comes to believe that attention to sun should be a matter of survival for humans. Throughout the novel, Klara is on a mission to help Josie restore her health from a mysterious, seemingly terminally-ill disease, and she believes the sun possesses the power to cure Josie. Ishiguro’s readers are no strangers to the recurring theme from his previous works—loss, regret, sacrifice, longing, and a sense of reality afloat. And this novel is no exception. In Klara and the Sun, however, technology takes a more central role, and Ishiguro uses artificial intelligence, both biological and mechanized, to reflect on what it means to be human. Ishiguro uses the novel to contest the idea: “Can AI actually get to that empathy by understanding human emotions?” The current society seems to embrace artificial intelligence wholeheartedly, and allows AI to creep into every aspect of society, from job applications, to data mining with algorithms, or even to medicine in clinical setting. As the nature of this generation of machine learning, known as “reinforcement learning”, is vastly different from that of the old forms of AI, human beings may lose control of what AI does thereafter. With this novel, Ishiguro intends to manifest a dark allegory that speaks about the danger of unchecked technological advances, the loss of innocence, and the dignity of simple lives. Although the novel concludes with a positive note in believing how AFs like Klara would be able to provide unfailingly considerate and loyal companionship, the hauntingly beautiful story subtly addresses various looming challenges and controversies regarding AI ethics such as the limitations of machine learning and unsupervised deep learning. Many questions remain unanswered in the novel. But what is beyond doubt here is that Ishiguro has produced another masterpiece, a work that depicts the tenderness, beauty and fragility of humanity through the eyes of an AI.
In the second paragraph, which of the following statements best demonstrates the writer’s attitude toward AI?
- A The writer casts no doubt on the technological advancements involving AI.
- B The writer despises artificial intelligence and believes that it should be renounced.
- C The writer adores the invention and intervention of artificial intelligence in every aspect of our lives.
- D The writer hopes that in the near future, artificial intelligence is the sole solution for unresolved human issues.
- E The writer believes while artificial intelligence is widely used, there should be some restrictions on the application of AI.
思路引導 VIP
請觀察第二段中，作者在描述 AI 深入社會各領域（如醫療、求職）後，緊接著用了哪些帶有警示意味的詞彙？當作者提到人類可能「失去控制」以及技術進步是「 unchecked」時，這暗示了作者認為目前的 AI 發展環境缺少了什麼樣的機制？
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AI 詳解
AI 專屬家教
恭喜你精準捕捉到了作者在文字背後隱含的立場！這題考驗的是對文章轉折語氣與作者觀點的細膩判讀，你能選對 (E) 代表你已經能看穿表面敘述，掌握更深層的批判性思考。
作者觀點的平衡與反思
在第二段中，作者雖然提到小說結尾帶有正向色彩，但也明確使用了「黑暗寓言（dark allegory）」、技術「失去控制（lose control）」以及「缺乏制約的技術進步（unchecked technological advances）」等強烈詞彙。這說明作者並非全然否定 AI 的價值（排除 B），也非盲目樂觀（排除 A、C、D），而是點出在 AI 滲透生活的同時，我們必須正視其帶來的倫理挑戰與限制。因此，「廣泛應用但需有所限制」最能貼切形容這種謹慎且反思的態度。
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