微信公众号：英语沙塔
本文节选自《经济学人》2019.01.19期，Leaders版块中的一篇关于自动化武器的报道。
建议大家先自主阅读原文，再学习精读笔记。本文一共七段，可分次阅读，读完笔记后，回头再读原文段落，测试自己是否能够流畅阅读，把握文章脉络。
文末会总结此次学习写作可以使用的词句，读者也可自己总结。会定期将内容进行总结，做成word分享，希望大家也能坚持学习
1
The world has not entered the age of the killer robot, at least not yet. Today’s autonomous weapons are mostly static systems to shoot down incoming threats in self-defence, or missiles fired into narrowly defined areas. Almost all still have humans “in the loop” (eg, remotelypulling the trigger for a drone strike) or “on the loop” (ie, able to oversee and countermand an action). But tomorrow’s weapons will be able to travel farther from their human operators, move from one place to another and attack a wider range of targets with humans “out of the loop”. Will they make war even more horrible? Will they threaten civilization itself? It is time for states tothink harder about how to control them
narrowly defined areas： Narrowly defined 狭义地定义。这里指的是导弹被精确发射到某个区域。
in/out the loop：圈内（处理事务）的重要人士/圈外人士。这里指仍然需要人参与无人机的运作中【写作推荐】= being part of it
pulling the trigger：扣动扳机，开枪。这里指对无人机攻击下达指令
ie：即。后面接一句话，解释前文。【写作推荐】ie是一个比较常用的单词，句式可仿上文。
It is time for：是时候……
think harder about：更加谨慎，仔细的思考【写作推荐】think more carefully about可互换
这个世界还没有进入到杀人机器的时代，至少现在还没有。今天的自动化武器大多数都是处于自我防卫的静态系统控制下，击落来袭的威胁，或者是被精确发射到固定区域的导弹。几乎所有的自动化武器仍然需要人类“在环路中”（比如远程控制无人机进行攻击），或者“在环路之上”（即能够监管并撤销行动）。但是未来的武器可以到达距离操作员更远的位置，从一个地方到另一个地方，攻击范围更大，而人类则“在环路之外”。他们会让战争变得更加可怕吗？他们会威胁到我们的文明吗？各国是时候开始更加谨慎地思考如何控制这些自动化武器了
2
The UN’s Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) has been discussing autonomous weapons for five years, but there is little agreement. More than two dozen states (including Austria, the Vatican, Brazil and nuclear-armed Pakistan), backed by increasingly vocal activists, support a pre-emptive ban on “fully autonomous weapons”. They point to campaigns against anti-personnel landmines, cluster munitions, and biological and chemical weapons as evidence that this can succeed. Most big powers—among them America, Russia and Britain—retort that the laws of war are already good enough to control autonomous weapons. Some argue that such weapons can be more accurate and humane than today’s.
there is little agreement：几乎没有一致意见。【写作推荐】can’t reach an agreement互换
backed by：受……支持。【写作推荐】使用频率不如supported by高，可以进行补充使用
vocal：直言不讳的 = frank
pre-emptive：先发制人的。此处指的是“全自动武器”禁令较早颁步
point to A as evidence that B：point to指出（重要的事或理由），指出A这件事作为依据，that 引导定于从句，说明这个依据可以证明B，如上文
retort：反驳道 ~ that…… argue：~ that争辩；提出理由
联合国常规武器会议就自动化武器一直讨论了五年时间，但几乎没有一致意见。受到越来越多敢于发声的积极分子的支持，超过20个国家（包括奥地利、梵蒂冈、巴西和拥有核武器的巴基斯坦）支持提前一步颁布的对“全自动武器”的禁令。他们把反对伤人地雷、集束弹药和生化武器的活动作为证据，指出反对自动化武器可以成功的。大多数大国—美国、俄罗斯和英国等反驳说，战争法已足够完备来控制自动化武器。一些提出自动化武器能比今天的武器更加准确和人道。
3
A third group of countries, led by the likes of France and Germany, is urging greater transparency and scrutiny. Autonomous systems make wars more unpredictable and harder to supervise; and they make it harder to assign responsibility for what happens during conflict. This third group is surely right to try to impose at least some controls.
the likes of：诸如，像……这样的人，同类型的。
urge：强烈要求，竭力主张 ~ sth
assign responsibility for sth：为某事界定责任，分配责任
impose：强制实行
由法国和德国等领导的第三方国家，力主相关信息的透明性和审查。自主系统使战争变得不可预知，监管也更加困难；而且也更难为冲突中发生的事界定责任。第三方国家努力对自动化武器加强控制无疑是正确的。
4
The laws of war are still the right place to start. They do not seek to ban war, but to limit its worst excesses. Among other things, they require that warriors discriminate properly betweencombatants and civilians, and ensure that collateral damage is proportionate to military gains. Military actions must therefore be judged in their context. But that judgment is hard for machines to form.
sth is the right place to start：正确的做法是从某件事入手【写作推荐】句子学习。比如，vocabulary of English is the right place to start
seek to：try to试图，设法【写作推荐】相互替换
excesses：过分行为。The worst excesses committed by the occupying army 占领军犯下的残忍暴行。【一词多义】
among other things：在……中，其中。 这里是叙述了上面“限制战争中的暴行”后，例举其他事情，在其他措施之中。
discriminate between：区别，辨别。我们熟知的意思来源于discrimination歧视，这里是另外一个意思【写作推荐】distinguish between
combatants：战斗人员combat v. 战斗
is proportionate to：成比例的【写作推荐】your performance is proportionate to your work你的表现和你的努力是成比例的
in their context：放到语境中。这里引申为联合他们的实际情况，环境考虑
正确的方法是从战争法入手，不是试图去禁止战争，而是限制战争中产生的暴行。此外，战争法要求战士正确辨别战斗人员和平民，并保证附带损伤与军事收益是成正比的。因此，军事行动必须放在其具体环境下进行评估，而机器是很难做到这种事情的。
5
In addition, new rules will be difficult to negotiate and monitor. For one thing, it is hard to control what does not yet exist and cannot be precisely defined. How long may a drone hover above the battlefield, empowered to strike, before it has slipped out of the hands of the humans who sent it there? The difference between machines under human control and those beyond it may be a few thousand lines of secret code.
In addition：另外
For one thing：第一，首先
empowered to strike：empower sb to do sth是指授予某人权利去做某事，此处是另一个意思，增加（某人的）自主权，使控制局势。
另外，新的规则会变得很难协商和监控。首先，目前不存在的事情是很难掌控和明确界定的。一架可以自主攻击的无人机，在脱离其控制者的操控前，可以在战场盘旋多久？受控和脱离人类操控的机器之间的区别，可能只是几千行代码而已。
6
That said, two principles make sense. First, the more a weapon is permitted to roam about over large areas, or for long periods, the more important it is that humans remain “on the loop”—able to supervise its actions and step in if necessary, as circumstances change. That requires robustcommunication links. If these are lost or jammed, the weapon should hold fire, or return.
is permitted to do：被允许做某事
roam about：游荡，流浪，后接over some place。这里形象描写自动化武器在战争中的使用。
step in：介入，干涉
as circumstances change：随着情况改变。即战争环境不断变化
robust：耐用的，稳固的。
这就是说，两个原则是合理的：第一，一件武器被允许在越大的地方使用，或使用时间越长，人类在“环路之上”就越为重要—随着情况不断改变，可以监管武器的行为，在必要的时刻介入。这需要稳固的信息联接，如果联接中断或阻塞，武器应停火或返回。
7
A second tenet is that autonomous systems, whether civilian ones like self-driving cars or those that drop bombs, should be “explainable”. Humans should be able to understand how a machine took a decision when things go wrong. On one point, at least, all states agree: that the buck must stop with humans. “Accountability cannot be transferred to machines,” noted a report of the CCW in October. Intelligent or not, weapons are tools used by humans, not moral agents in their own right. Those who introduce a weapon into the battlefield must remain on the hook for its actions.
Tenet：原则
On one point：在一点上
the buck：责任，过失。
moral agents：道德行动者
in their own right：不靠别人地，单独地
introduce into：除了，介绍到的意思外，还有引进引入的意思，比如，introduce a new way of teaching 引进一种新的教学方法
on the hook：hook是钩子的意思，on the hook是上钩，陷入圈套的意思，这里形象指出引进武器的人必须为武器的行为负责。用我们常用的话来说，武器和引进人上了一条贼船
第二个原则是：不管是平民的无人驾驶车，还是那些投弹的无人机，自主系统应当是“可解释的”。当发生故障时，人们应当能理解这些机器是如何做决定的。至少，所有国家都同意一点，责任必须止于人。“责任不能归咎于机器身上”。智能还是非智能，武器都是人类的工具，不是独立的道德行动者。那些把武器引入战场的人同时必须为武器的行为负责。
总结
in/out the loop：圈内（处理事务）的重要人士/圈外人士。这里指仍然需要人参与无人机的运作中【写作推荐】= being part of it
ie：即。后面接一句话，解释前文。【写作推荐】ie是一个比较常用的单词，句式可仿上文。
think harder about：更加谨慎，仔细的思考【写作推荐】think more carefully about可互换
there is little agreement：几乎没有一致意见。【写作推荐】can’t reach an agreement互换
backed by：受……支持。【写作推荐】使用频率不如supported by高，可以进行补充使用
sth is the right place to start：正确的做法是从某件事入手【写作推荐】句子学习。比如，vocabulary of English is the right place to start
seek to：try to试图，设法【写作推荐】相互替换
excesses：过分行为。The worst excesses committed by the occupying army 占领军犯下的残忍暴行。【一词多义】
discriminate between：区别，辨别。我们熟知的意思来源于discrimination歧视，这里是另外一个意思【写作推荐】distinguish between
is proportionate to：成比例的【写作推荐】your performance is proportionate to your work你的表现和你的努力是成比例的
网友评论