Artificial Intelligence in Daily Life
FoundationAI learns from vast data to recognise speech, translate and recommend. It serves daily life with real powers and real limits — verify its results and protect your privacy.
- AI makes computers imitate human thinking, learning from data through machine learning.
- AI is everywhere: voice assistants, translation, recommendations, photo sorting and spam filters.
- AI has powers and limits: fast but without common sense, able to err and carry bias.
文體小知識：科技應用說明文介紹人工智能怎樣走進日常生活，明白它的本領和限制，用得聰明又安全。
§Text Passage
1Artificial intelligence (AI) is the technology of making computers imitate human thinking and work. How does it learn? Scientists feed computers vast data — tens of thousands of photos of cats and dogs, for example — and the computer finds the patterns, so it can name cats and dogs in new photos. This learning from data is called machine learning; the more data, the more accurate it usually becomes.
2AI has long entered daily life: a smartphone's voice assistant hears our questions; translation software swaps Chinese and English at once; streaming platforms recommend films from viewing records; photo albums sort pictures by faces automatically; spam filters block annoying mail. Self-driving technology and facial recognition are coming into use step by step.
3AI has powers and limits. It calculates fast, remembers much and works round the clock, but it has no real feelings or common sense and sometimes errs — mistaking objects in photos or generating untrue content. Its judgement comes from training data; if the data is biased, so are the results. Important matters must be verified, never trusted blindly.
4Use AI wisely and safely: after asking a voice assistant, verify important answers; before sharing photos, check the background for other people's faces and addresses; never upload family photos to unknown apps; remember that recommendation algorithms are commercial designs, and think when ads appear. AI is a tool — it is people who use it well.
1Summary 重點摘要
AI learns from vast data to recognise speech, translate and recommend. It serves daily life with real powers and real limits — verify its results and protect your privacy.
2Vocabulary cards Vocabulary
The technology of making computers imitate human thinking and work.
The way computers find patterns in vast data.
The material computers process, such as photos, text and numbers.
Smart software that hears spoken commands and answers questions.
The technology of computers recognising faces in photos or video.
The step-by-step method a computer follows, such as the rules behind film recommendations.
The system suggesting content a user may like from their records.
Machines and programs doing repetitive work instead of people.
Personal details and photos one does not want others to know.
3Step by step Steps
- Step 1: Understand how AI learnsArtificial intelligence (AI) learns to spot patterns from huge numbers of examples, a little like us learning from books. For example, show a computer ten thousand labelled fruit photos; it notes features such as the roundness and redness of apples, and then names apples in new photos. The more examples and the more accurate the labels, the more reliable the AI's judgement; if the examples are biased, the judgement will be biased too.
- Step 2: Spot AI in daily lifeAI has quietly entered daily life, even if we do not always notice. For example, ask the phone about tomorrow's weather and hear a spoken answer; the album sorts photos by people and places automatically; the video app recommends cartoons you like; the email system blocks spam on its own. Watching the applications around us closely, we find AI silently helping to solve all kinds of problems.
- Step 3: Try translation and check itAI translation tools are very handy, but the results are not always exact, so we should check them. For example, translate I have much homework today into English and back into Chinese, and compare whether the meaning has drifted; idioms and sayings are the easiest to mistranslate. This back-and-forth check helps us find errors, and important translations — a letter to a foreign friend, say — should still be confirmed with a teacher or a dictionary.
- Step 4: Know that AI errsAI is clever but not perfect, and it sometimes makes obvious mistakes. For example, AI mistakes a bear in a photo for a dog, or generates fake-looking pictures and stories that are hard to tell from the truth. So treat AI as a helper, not an authority, and think over every answer it gives; key facts must still be checked against reliable sources before they are used.
- Step 5: Think about how recommendations workVideo and shopping platforms guess what we like; behind them are AI recommendation systems. For example, the video app records your cartoons and keeps recommending cartoons, so you rarely meet other kinds of content; recommendation is programming, not always the best choice, and commercial ads may be mixed in. We should explore new things ourselves — science and history programmes, say — to keep our horizons wide.
- Step 6: Protect privacyWhen using AI applications we must protect personal privacy so data is not misused. For example, cover the school badge, door number and car plate before uploading photos; use voice assistants and smart apps only with parents' consent; never tell unknown apps your home address. Names, addresses and schools are important personal details — think of the consequences before sharing, and then we can enjoy technology with peace of mind.
- Step 7: Use AI to help learningAI can be a good study helper if it is used in the right way. For example, let AI translation help you understand an English story, then read it aloud yourself; ask a voice assistant for a word's sound, but still practise the spelling yourself; search with AI, then check against books in the library. Letting AI assist — but never replace — our own thinking and practice is how we truly learn knowledge and skills.
4Diagrams Diagrams
5Worked example Example
Example: Kit asks a voice assistant for Hong Kong's highest mountain and it answers Tai Mo Shan. Should he write it straight into his homework? Explain the right approach.
- The assistant's answer may be right, but AI sometimes errs; homework is important, so never trust the answer blindly.
- Verify one: check an official map or government site — Tai Mo Shan stands about nine hundred and fifty-seven metres, Hong Kong's highest peak.
- Verify two: compare with the atlas in the library, and adopt the fact only when two reliable sources agree.
- Name the source in the homework, such as Source: official map, and build the habit of citing properly.
- Answer: He should not adopt it directly. AI answers must be verified on an official map or government site and used only when two reliable sources agree — with the source always named in the homework.
6Common mistakes Mistakes
7Quick check Quick check
Q1How does AI learn to recognise objects?
Q2Name two AI applications in daily life.
Q3Why must we not trust AI answers blindly?
Q4What is an algorithm?
Q5What should we check before uploading photos to apps?
8Recap Recap
- AI makes computers imitate human thinking, learning from data through machine learning.
- AI is everywhere: voice assistants, translation, recommendations, photo sorting and spam filters.
- AI has powers and limits: fast but without common sense, able to err and carry bias.
- Verify important information; recommendations are commercial designs — judge for yourself.
- Protect privacy with AI: check photo backgrounds, and use only trusted, parent-approved apps.