2024届高考英语外刊阅读天天练：阅读理解专题二十

高考英语外刊阅读天天练：阅读理解专题二十 ① If an unexpected meow, peculiar pose, or unusual twitch of the whiskers leaves you puzzling over what your cat is trying to tell you, artificial intelligence may soon be able to translate. Scientists are turning to new technology to unpick the meanings behind the vocal and physical cues of a host of animals. Daniel Mills, professor of veterinary behavioural medicine, said: “We could use AI to teach us a lot about what animals are trying to say to us. We have the technology to decode cats. ” Previous work, including by Mills, has shown that cats produce a variety of facial expressions when interacting with humans, while this week researchers revealed felines have a range of 276 facial expressions when interacting with other cats. Mills said the latest research highlights the complexity of feline facial manoeuvres, and new technology might help to unpick them. One approach, said Mills, was to teach AI to identify specific features such as ear position that are already known to be important for certain emotions. However another more modern approach, he said, was to allow AI to come up with its own rules for classification. While that brings its own challenges, Mills said it can also offer new insights. “It could highlight the rules it uses to distinguish data sets which can show us where to look for the best way to distinguish certain expressions,” he said. As well as offering us new ways to understand what our pets are trying to communicate, Mills noted AI could be used for animal welfare, for example to screen the faces of cows for signs of pain as they troop in for milking. “In effect they can have a daily health check of how happy they are,” he said. Among those looking at such applications is Dr Elodie Briefer of the University of Copenhagen, whose research has shown AI can be trained to classify pig vocalisations to distinguish between pigs that are happy and those that are not. The idea, she said, was that such tools could be used on