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There are some human attributes robots could never replace - or at least that's what you might hope.
有一些工作是机器人永远无法替代的--至少你可能是这样认为的。
But one university has brought that into question by replacing one of their teaching assistants with a machine. And none of the students realized.
然而，一所大学在使用一款新型机器人代替助教之后，对此观点表示怀疑。因为没有一个学生意识到这一问题。
Jill Watson, an IBM-designed bot, has been helping graduate students at Georgia Institute of Technology solve problems with their design projects since January.
IBM公司研发出的这款名为吉尔·沃特森的机器人，自今年1月起，就开始帮助美国佐治亚理工大学的毕业生们解答设计项目中的问题。
Responding to questions over email and posted on forums, Jill had a casual, colloquial tone, and was able to offer nuanced and accurate responses within minutes. Her replies included 'yep!' and 'we'd love to'.
通过邮件或者论坛回复问题时，吉尔的语气很随意、很口语化，并能在很短时间内做出精确绝妙的答复。她常常会说，“耶普（表赞同的口头禅）”和“我很喜欢”。
The students had no idea until they were told - and many were shocked.
学生们直到被告知后才得知她是机器人，许多人都震惊了。
'We were taking an AI course, so I had to imagine that it was possible there might be an AI lurking around,' said Bailey, who lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
来自美国新墨西哥洲阿尔伯克基的贝利表示：“没想到我们每天是在和人工智能打交道，所以我估计，有可能还有一台机器人潜伏在我们身边。”
'It seemed very much like a normal conversation with a human being,' Jennifer Gavin, one of the students, told the Wall Street Journal.
学生詹妮弗·加文在接受华尔街日报采访时则表示：“我们之间的交流完全就像两个普通人一样”。
Another student, Petr Bela, told the newspaper: 'Just when I wanted to nominate Jill Watson as an outstanding TA.'
而另一个学生佩特·贝拉表示：“我正准备将吉尔·沃特森提名为最佳助教”。
The experiment sent shockwaves through the tech industry, with many questioning the ethics of covertly inserting artificial intelligence into real-life situations.
这个实验给科技行业带来了巨大的冲击，同时，对于其私自将人工智能加入到真实的生活中，也有很多人质疑其伦理性。
But Ashok Goel, the computer science professor who designed the project, insisted it was a worthwhile experiment - and Jill performed a necessary task.
但是这个项目的设计者、计算机科学教授阿肖克·戈尔 坚称，这是一个值得进行的实验，吉尔承担着一些必要的任务。
'Students posted upwards of 10,000 messages on forums, taking up professors' time with routine responses. One of the main reasons many students drop out is because they don't receive enough teaching support. We created Jill as a way to provide faster answers and feedback.'
“学生们在论坛上提出了10000多个问题，这将占用教授大量的时间去解答。很多学生退学的一个主要原因是因为他们没有得到足够的教学帮助。所以我们创造出了吉尔，来提供更快捷的反馈和答复。”
Once Watson had a number of potential solutions, it was able to check against its database to make sure the answers made sense. Watson then evaluated the response and determined whether to virtually press the buzzer.
当吉尔有很多潜在的解决方案时，她还可以去数据库检查，以确保答案正确。接着，吉尔会评估这个答案，决定是否按下蜂鸣器。
The bot would then speak with an electronic voice synthesized from recordings that actor Jeff Woodman made for an IBM text-to-speech program in 2004.
之后，她再用电子声音讲出来。该声音是由演员杰夫·伍德曼在2004年为IBM的文本语音合成程序录制的声音。
