单选题
Many of the tech industry"s biggest companies, like Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft, are jockeying to become the leader for artificial intelligence (A.I.). In the industry"s term, the companies are engaged in a "platform war."
A platform, in technology, is essentially a piece of software that other companies build on and that consumers cannot do without. Become the platform and huge profits will follow. Microsoft dominated personal computers because its Windows software became the center of the consumer software world. Google has come to dominate the Internet through its ubiquitous search bar. If true believers in A.I. are correct that this long-promised technology is ready for the mainstream, the company that controls A.I. could steer the tech industry for years to come. "Whoever wins this race will dominate the next stage of the information age," said Pedro Domingos, a machine learning specialist and the author of "The Master Algorithm," a 2015 book that contends that A.I. and big-data technology will remake the world.
In this fight—no doubt in its early stages—the big tech companies are engaged in tit-for-tat publicity stunts, circling the same start-ups that could provide the technology pieces they are missing and, perhaps most important, trying to hire the same brains. Fei-Fei Li, a Stanford University professor who is an expert in computer vision, said one of her Ph.D. candidates had an offer for a job paying more than $1 million a year, and that was only one of four from big and small companies.
For years, tech companies have used man-versus-machine competitions to show they are making progress on A.I. In 1997, an IBM computer beat the chess champion Garry Kasparov. Five years ago, IBM went even further when its Watson system won a three-day match on the television trivia show "Jeopardy!" Today, Watson is the centerpiece of IBM"s A.I. efforts.
By 2020, the market for machine learning applications will reach $40 billion, IDC, a market research firm, estimates. And 60 percent of those applications, the firm predicts, will run on the platform software of four companies—Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft. Intelligent software applications will become commonplace, said Jeff Dean, a computer scientist who oversees Google"s A.I. development. "And machine learning will touch every industry."
单选题
The reason for Microsoft controlling personal computers is that ______.
【正确答案】
C
【答案解析】[解析] 细节题
根据题干关键词定位到第二段。根据Microsoft dominated personal computers because its Windows software became the center of the consumer software world. 可知微软以前能统治个人电脑，是因为它的Windows软件成了消费类软件领域的核心。故C项为正确答案。A项“微软已经形成一个好的平台”和B项“微软的软件已经获利很多”是对前两句的过度推断。D项“微软的软件被广泛地应用于搜索领域”属于张冠李戴，原文是说谷歌的软件被广泛地应用于搜索领域。故排除。
单选题
Google can steer the tech industry in the future on premise that ______.
【正确答案】
B
【答案解析】[解析] 细节题
根据题干关键词定位到第二段。根据If true believers in A.I. are correct that this long—promised technology is ready for the mainstream, the company that controls A.I. Could steer the tech industry for years to come. 可知如果笃信人工智能的人是正确的——这种早就被寄予厚望的技术即将成为主流，那么在未来的岁月里，掌握该技术的谷歌可能会在科技行业占据主导地位。故B项为正确答案。做对此题的关键是正确理解this long-promised technology指的是人工智能技术；联系上下文可知the company指的是谷歌公司。A项“它控制了互联网”，C项“它在信息时代获得了胜利”和D项“人工智能和大数据技术变成熟，，均是对文章片段的断章取义，均不符合题意，故排除。
单选题
The text takes "Fei-Fei Li" as an example in Paragraph 3 to show that ______.
单选题
In which way the tech companies have used to show their progress?
【正确答案】
A
【答案解析】[解析] 细节题
根据题干关键词定位到第四段。根据For years, tech companies have used man—versus—machine competitions to show they are making progress on A.I. 可知多年来，科技企业一直在用人机对战的方式来展示它们在人工智能领域取得的进展。故A项为正确答案。B项“象棋”和C项“电视节目”均是文中用来说明A项的具体实例，故排除。D项“新产品的盈利能力”文中没有提及，属于无中生有，故排除。
单选题
What"s the author"s attitude towards the future of A.I.?