Who leads the world in AI? Intermediate shadowing lesson
This VOA Learning English report is about a study from WIPO, a United Nations agency, which found that the United States, China and Japan lead the world in developing AI. The voice is clear, and the report has many numbers, years and technology words. It is good shadowing practice for intermediate learners who want to sound like a news reader.
- Intermediate
- Audio
- 2:37
- 14 sentences
Free, no account needed. The app plays one sentence and waits for you to say it.
The sentences
A United Nations agency says the United States, China, and Japan are leading the world in developing artificial intelligence, or AI, technology.
The three countries were named in a new study from the UN's World Intellectual Property Organization, or WIPO.
The organization says on its website that WIPO aims to lead the development of a balanced and effective international intellectual property system.
The new study examines development activities for different AI technologies worldwide.
It also attempts to predict the future progression of AI as it relates to new inventions.
The study is based on international patent requests, legal findings, scientific publications, and other information.
It includes patent requests in machine learning through 2016, the last year for which details are available.
Much of today's AI-related technologies are powered by machine learning.
The study found that there had been as many patent applications for artificial intelligence since 2013 as there were in all the time since the term AI was first used in the 1950s.
Machine learning was the most common method of AI listed in patent requests.
It was responsible for more than one-third of all identified inventions.
Machine learning uses computer algorithms to teach machines to make independent decisions by learning from earlier or existing behavior.
Patent requests for machine learning activities grew on average by 28 percent a year between 2013 and 2016, the study found.
It also showed that 26 of the top 30 AI patent requests came from businesses.
Words and phrases
- artificial intelligence
- computer systems that can do tasks that usually need a human mind
- intellectual property
- ideas and inventions that belong to someone by law
- patent requests
- requests for the legal right to be the only one to make or sell an invention
- machine learning
- a way for computers to learn from data
- inventions
- new things that someone has made or designed
- algorithms
- sets of steps a computer follows to solve a problem
- on average
- usually, when you look at all the numbers together
- independent decisions
- choices made without help from others
How to practise this clip
Listen for how the speaker says numbers, years and percentages, such as 28 percent and the 1950s, and how key terms like machine learning are stressed.
- Listen to a sentence before you read it.
- Say it right after, at the speaker's pace, with the same pauses.
- After the first round, hide the text and practise from the sound alone.
Source
VOA Learning English (Voice of America), public domain