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The BBC's Karen Allen explores the consequences of Brexit for companies in South Africa.

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Taking Control with Dr  Josh  Managing Stress at Work   CBS 42

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Amazon Employees Speak Out About Workplace Conditions | NBC Nightly News

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The PM says the UK will not have to choose between a free trade deal with the EU and a deal with the rest of the world.

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This May Be The Future Of Office Workspace

They're showing off the office of the future at the Neocon Trade Show.

It could feature reindeer moss for beauty and soundproofing, and desks with built-in bikes for exercise (3:09).

WCCO Mid-Morning - June 14, 2018

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This May Be The Future Of Office Workspace

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This May Be The Future Of Office Workspace: They're showing off the office of the future at the Neocon Trade Show. It could feature reindeer moss for beauty and soundproofing, and desks with built-in bikes for exercise (3:09). WCCO Mid-Morning..

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The Rise of Artificial Intelligence | Off Book

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Artificial intelligence is an ever evolving goal for researchers.

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1. Who needs humans?
2. Can machines think?
3. Posthumanism : is it ok?

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BILAN PREPARATION SOUTENANCE 05th Feb 2019

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BILAN PREPARATION SOUTENANCE 05th Feb 2019

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Clément -> Entreprise ok ;
Yoni -> a voir ?
Mélissa -> Entreprise ok + un doc
Kalyan ->Entreprise + un doc
Wilfried -> un doc
Shaban -> Tout
Jérémy -> A voir ?
Florian ->  Entreprise + un plan
Joseph -> Enteprise + un doc
Florent -> Entreprise

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Compréhension orale anglais : Artificial intelligence

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B2 Word formation 75
mins

Artificial Intelligence has been a hot topic for some time now. When asked about the topic most people think about a humanized fully conscious machine hell-bent on dominating the world and making us its slaves 😊The reality is a bit different and less dramatic. In this lesson plan, your students will learn how AI technology (aka artificial intelligence) is being used in our everyday lives. While doing so, there will be plenty of chances to confront the stereotype and have an interesting future-oriented discussion. On top of that, this worksheet includes a word formation task focused on using suffixes.

LESSON OVERVIEW

This lesson consists of two main sections and a warm-up pairwork speaking exercise. In the first task, your students will have to talk about some basics concerning artificial intelligence. The pictures on the left could give them a couple of clues but these introductory talking points are very general and lead students into the lesson topic. What follows is a vocabulary section, i.e. word formation tasks.

VOCABULARY - WORD FORMATION TASKS

The first task for word formation is a modified version of the classic FCE Use of English Part 4 exercise, where you need to transform a given word so that it fits into the gap grammatically and logically. Our version is a bit easier. It's because students also have a list of possible suffixes they need to use to create appropriate words for the gap. The suffixes used here are those characteristic for nouns and adjectives. It might be an extra point to emphasize after the task to let your students remember which suffixes they can use for creating nouns or adjectives. If your students are not familiar with such activities, clarify that the spelling in the base word may change a bit too (do the first sentence with them to show that in practice) so it's not just about adding a suffix.

Next, you have a quick game for practising using the suffixes to create new words. Split your class into groups and give each group 2 suffixes from the previous exercise (one for adjectives and for nouns). Ask them then to write down as many words with those suffixes within a set time limit. The team with most proper words wins! If you have time, follow up with a short sub-task for them: creating gapped sentences with 2 of the words they had on the list. However, if you're running low on time, you can turn that into homework and use it as a quick warm-up on your next classes.

LISTENING COMPREHENSION AND DISCUSSION

This section will include 2 videos, 2 listening comprehension tasks and 2 sets of discussion points. You'll kick off with a video that introduces the topic of artificial intelligence and give your students some background for the speaking parts. There are two comprehension tasks for that video. In the first one they need to listen for specific information related to AI, while the other requires them to listen for particular words. That task also includes some nice phrases you might consider highlighting, i.e. call the shots, coin a term or venture capitalist. After that listening comprehension, you move to a pair (or group) discussion on how artificial intelligence is used now and what the prospects for the future are. Afterwards, watch another video with your students where you will show them what Google has recently achieved in applying AI technology which should lead into an interesting discussion as well.

LAST REMARKS

This lesson plan is surely more appealing to your IT/tech-oriented students. I've done it mostly with people who either work in IT or are interested in technology in general. However, the way it is structured as well as the content of the videos make it accessible to everyone (at least in my opinion 😊) . Feel free to share with us your comments about this lesson plan below, especially after trying it out with your students! Have fun and don't worry Skynet is not coming for us.... yet 😊

Word formation - suffixes for nouns and adjectives

Listening comprehension: details / specific vocabulary

Discussion in pairs / Word challenge

Video 1

Video 2

Get to know some other tech-focused lesson plans at our Technology page.

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Artificial Intelligence in your everyday life (with word formation tasks) | ESL Lesson Plan

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B2 Word formation 75 mins Artificial Intelligence has been a hot topic for some time now. When asked about the topic most people think about a humanized fully conscious machine hell-bent on dominating the world and making us its slaves 😊The reality is a bit different and less dramatic.

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Isaac Asimov: The Three Laws of Robotics

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The promise of intelligence

The quest for artificial intelligence (AI) began over 70 years ago, with the idea that computers would one day be able to think like us. Ambitious predictions attracted generous funding, but after a few decades there was little to show for it.

But, in the last 25 years, new approaches to AI, coupled with advances in technology, mean that we may now be on the brink of realising those pioneers' dreams.

A 'top-down' approach

The term 'artificial intelligence' was coined for a summer conference at Dartmouth University, organised by a young computer scientist, John McCarthy.

Top scientists debated how to tackle AI. Some, like influential academic Marvin Minsky, favoured a top-down approach: pre-programming a computer with the rules that govern human behaviour. Others preferred a bottom-up approach, such as neural networks that simulated brain cells and learned new behaviours. Over time Minsky's views dominated, and together with McCarthy he won substantial funding from the US government, who hoped AI might give them the upper hand in the Cold War.
Stanford University: 1956 Dartmouth Conferences proposal

Tough problems to crack

AI was lagging far behind the lofty predictions made by advocates like Minsky - something made apparent by Shakey the Robot.

Shakey was the first general-purpose mobile robot able to make decisions about its own actions by reasoning about its surroundings. It built a spatial map of what it saw, before moving. But it was painfully slow, even in an area with few obstacles. Each time it nudged forward, Shakey would have to update its map. A moving object in its field of view could easily bewilder it, sometimes stopping it in its tracks for an hour while it planned its next move.
New York Times: Watch Shakey in action

A solution for big business

The moment that historians pinpoint as the end of the AI winter was when AI's commercial value started to be realised, attracting new investment.

The new commercial systems were far less ambitious than early AI. Instead of trying to create a general intelligence, these 'expert systems' focused on much narrower tasks. That meant they only needed to be programmed with the rules of a very particular problem. The first successful commercial expert system, known as the RI, began operation at the Digital Equipment Corporation helping configure orders for new computer systems. By 1986 it was saving the company an estimated $40m a year.
Wikipedia: Expert systems

The first robot for the home

Rodney Brook's spin-off company, iRobot, created the first commercially successful robot for the home - an autonomous vacuum cleaner called Roomba.

Cleaning the carpet was a far cry from the early AI pioneers' ambitions. But Roomba was a big achievement. Its few layers of behaviour-generating systems were far simpler than Shakey the Robot's algorithms, and were more like Grey Walter's robots over half a century before. Despite relatively simple sensors and minimal processing power, the device had enough intelligence to reliably and efficiently clean a home. Roomba ushered in a new era of autonomous robots, focused on specific tasks.

Starting to crack the big problems

In November 2008, a small feature appeared on the new Apple iPhone - a Google app with speech recognition.

It seemed simple. But this heralded a major breakthrough. Despite speech recognition being one of AI's key goals, decades of investment had never lifted it above 80% accuracy. Google pioneered a new approach: thousands of powerful computers, running parallel neural networks, learning to spot patterns in the vast volumes of data streaming in from Google's many users. At first it was still fairly inaccurate but, after years of learning and improvements, Google now claims it is 92% accurate.
Tech Hive: Speech recognition through the decades

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AI: 15 key moments in the story of artificial intelligence

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The quest for artificial intelligence (AI) began over 70 years ago, with the idea that computers would one day be able to think like us. Ambitious predictions attracted generous funding, but after a few decades there was little to show for it.