Listening : Inventions and Technology

Extract 1 : Computer basics

Throughout human history, technology had many developments. However, the most significant one was of humans.
Our brainpower has kept improving (1)_________ ever since the 1960s, enabling computers to decrease in size and get
more efficient simultaneously. The process is bound to reach its physical limitations as parts are going down to atomic
size. A computer consists of extremely ordinary (2)______, capable of bare tasks. Showing information, ways of
(3)__________ and controls. Computer processors are made up of modules, which function thanks to logic gates, which
work because of transistors. A transistor is regarded as the most common form of a data processor in computers, a
switch that can either close, or open the flow of (4)___________. This is made up of bits, which can be set to either 0 or
1. More bits are combined to demonstrate advanced data. Transistors are put together to create logic gates which are in
charge of basic functions. For instance, an AND Gate sends an output of 1 if all of its inputs are 1, and vice versa.
Combinations of logic gates create meaningful modules, say, for adding two numbers. Once you can add, you can also
multiply and anything is possible once you can multiply. Since all basic operations are literally simpler than first grade
math, you can imagine a computer as a group of 7-year-olds answering really basic math questions. A large enough
bunch of them could compute anything from (5)____________ to Zelda.

Extract 2 : Quantum physics

With parts getting tinier and tinier, quantum physics are making things tricky. In a (1)______________, a transistor is
just an electric switch. Electricity is electrons moving from one place to another. So, a switch is a passage that can block
electrons from moving in one direction. Today, a typical scale for transistors is 14 nanometers, which is about 8 times
less than the HIV virus (2)_________________ and 500 times smaller than a red blood cell. As transistors are shrinking
to the size of only a few atoms, electrons may just transfer themselves to the other side of a blocked passage via a
process called Quantum (3)___________. In the quantum realm, physics works quite differently from the predictable
ways we’re used to, and traditional computers just stop making sense. We are approaching a real physical barrier for our
technological progress. To solve this problem, scientists are trying to use these unusual quantum properties to their
advantage by building quantum computers. In normal computers, bits are the smallest unit of information. Quantum
computers use qubits which can also be set to one of two values. A qubit can be any two-level quantum systems, such as
a spin and a magnetic field, or a single photon. 0 and 1 are this system’s possible states, like the photons horizontal or
vertical (4)__________________. In the quantum world, the qubit doesn’t have to be just one of those, it can be in ant
proportions of both states at once. This is called superposition. But as soon as you test its value, say, by sending the
photon through a filter, it has to decide to be either vertically or horizontally polarized. So as long as it’s (5)_________,
the qubit is in a superposition of probabilities for 0 and 1, and you can’t predict which it’ll be. But the instant you
measure it, it collapses into one of the definite states. Superposition is a game changer. Four classical bits can be in one
of two to the power of four different configurations at a time. That’s 16 possible combinations, out of which you can use
just one. Four qubits in superposition, however, can be in all of those 16 combinations at once. This number grows
exponentially with each extra qubit. Twenty of them can already store a million values in (6)__________. A really weird
and unintuitive property qubits can have is Entanglement, a close connection that makes each of the qubits react to a
change in the other’s state (7)______________, no matter how far they are apart. This means when measuring just one
entangled qubit, you can directly (8)____________ properties of its partners without having to look. Qubit Manipulation
is a mind (9)_______________ as well. A normal logic gate gets a simple set of inputs and produces one definite input. A
quantum gate manipulates an input of superpositions, rotates probabilities and produces another superposition as its
output. So a quantum computer sets up some qubits, applies quantum gates to entangle them and manipulate
probabilities then finally measures the outcome, collapsing superpositions to an actual sequence of 0s and 1s. What this
means is that you get the entire lot of calculations that are possible with your setup, all done at the same time.
Ultimately, you can only measure one of the results and it’ll only probably be the one you want so you may have to
double check and try again. But by cleverly (10)___________ superposition and entanglement, this can be exponentially
more efficient than it would ever be possible on a normal computer. So, while quantum computers will not probably
replace our home computers, in some areas, they are vastly superior. One of them is database searching, to find
something in a database, a normal computer may have to test every single on of its (11)________. Quantum computers
(12)__________ need only the square root of that time, which for large databases, is a huge difference. The most
famous use of quantum computers is ruining IT security. Right now, your browsing, email, and banking data is being kept
secure by an encryption system in which you give everyone a public key to encode messages only you can decode. The
problem is that this public key can actually be used to calculate your secret private key. Luckily, doing the necessary
math on any normal computer would literally take years of (13)_____________ and error. But a quantum computer with
exponential speed-up could do it in a (14)__________. Another really exciting new use is simulations. Simulations of the
quantum world are very intense on resources, and even for bigger structures, such as molecules, they often lack
accuracy. So why not simulate quantum physics with actual quantum physics? Quantum simulations could provide new
(15)__________ on proteins that might revolutionize medicine. Right now, we don’t know if quantum computers will be
just a specialized tool or a big revolution for humanity. We have no idea where the limits of technology are, and there is
only one way to find out.

Extract 3 : Innovation

Automation was understood as factorial repetitive (1)________ done by robots. The (2)_______ of aircrafts, diagnoses
and (3)____________ on the stock market can all be done by them nowadays. A new age of automation is about to
emerge. According to a 2013 study, almost half of all jobs in the US could potentially be automated in the next two
decades. But wait; Hasn’t automation been around for decades? What’s different this time? Things used to be simple.
Innovations made human work easier and productivity rose, which means that more staff or services could be produced
per hour using the same amount of human workers. This eliminated many jobs, but also created other jobs that were
better which was important because the growing population needed work. So, in a nutshell, innovation, higher
productivity, fewer old jobs, and many new and often better jobs. Overall, this worked well for a majority of people and
living standards improved. There’s a clear progression in terms of what humans did for a living. For the longest time, we
worked in agriculture. With the Industrial Revolution, this shift into production jobs and as automation became more
widespread, humans shifted in to service jobs. And then only a few moments ago in human history, the Information Age
happened. Suddenly, the rules were different. Our jobs are now being taken over by machines much faster than they
were in the past. That’s worrying of course…but innovation will clearly save us, right? While new information age
industries are (4)___________, they are creating fewer and fewer new jobs. In 1979, General Motors employed more
than 800,000 workers made about $11 billion US dollars. In 2012, Google made about $14 billion US dollars while
employing 58,000 people. You may not like this comparison, but Google is an example of what created new jobs in the
past. Innovative new industries. Old innovative industries are running out of (5)_______. Just look at cars, when they
became a thing 100 years ago, they created huge industries. Cars transformed our way of life, our (6)___________, and
our cities. Millions of people found jobs either directly or indirectly. Decades of investment kept this momentum going.
Today, this process is largely complete. Innovation in the car industry does not create as many jobs as it used to. While
electric cars are great and all, they won’t create millions of new jobs. But wait, what about the internet? Some
(7)____________ argue that the internet is an innovation on a (8)______ of the introduction of electricity. If we go with
this comparison, we see how our modern innovation differs from the old one. The internet created new industries, but
they’re not creating enough jobs to keep up with population growth or to (9)___________ for the industries the Internet
is killing. As its peak in 2004, Blockbuster had 84,000 employees and made $6 billion US dollars in revenue. In 2016,
Netflix had 4500 employees and made $9 billion dollars in revenue. Or take us, for example. With a full-time team of just
12 people, Kurzgesagt reaches millions of people. A TV station with the same amount of viewers needs way more
employees. Innovation in the Information Age doesn’t (10)_________ to the creation of enough new jobs, which would
be bad enough on its own but now, a new wave of automation and a new generation of machines is slowly taking over.

Extract 4 : Human progress

To understand this, we need to understand ourselves first. Human progress is based on the division of (1)______. As we
advanced over thousands of years, our jobs became more and more specialized. While even our smartest machines are
bad ad doing complicated jobs, they are extremely good at doing narrowly defined and predictable tasks. This is what
destroyed factory jobs. But look at a complex job long and hard enough and you’ll find that it’s really just many narrowly
defined and predictable tasks one after another. Machines are on the brink of becoming so good at breaking down
complex jobs into many predictable ones, that for a lot of people, there will be no further room to specialize. We are on
the verge of being (2)_______________. Digital machines do this via machine learning which enables them to acquire
information and skills by analyzing data. This makes them become better at something through the relationships they
discover. Machines teach themselves. We make this possible by giving a computer a lot of data about the thing we
wanted to become better at. Show a machine all the things you bought online and it will slowly learn what to
recommend to you, so you buy more things. Machine learning is now meeting more of its potential because in recent
years, humans have started to gather data about everything. Behavior, weather (3)______________, medical
(4)___________, communication systems, travel data, and of course data about what we do at work. What we’ve
created by accident is huge library machines can use to learn how humans do things and learn to do them better. These
digital machines might be the biggest job killer of all. They can be replicated instantly and for free. When they improve,
you don’t need to invest in big metal things, you can just use the new code. And they have the ability to get better fast.
How fast? If your work involves complex work on a computer today, you might be out of work even sooner than the
people who still have jobs in factories. There are actual real-world examples of how this transition might be happening.
A San Francisco company offers a project management software for big corporations, which is supposed to eliminate
(5)________ management positions. When it’s hired for a new project, the software first decides which jobs can be
automated and (6)_________ where it needs actual and professional humans. It then helps assemble a team of
freelancers over the Internet. The software than distributes tasks to the humans, and control the quality of work,
tracking individual performance until the project is complete. Okay. This doesn’t sound too bad. While this machine is
killing one job, it creates jobs for freelancers, right? Well, as the freelancers complete their tasks, learning algorithms
track them, and gather data about their work, and which tasks it consists of. So what’s actually happening is that the
freelancers are teaching a machine how to replace them. On average, this software reduces (7)__________ by about
50% in the first year, and by another 25% in the second year. This is only one example of many. There are machines and
programs getting as good or better than humans in all kinds of (8)____________. From pharmacists to analysts,
journalists to (9)_________________, cashiers to bank tellers, or the (10)_______ worker flipping burgers. All of these
jobs won’t disappear overnight but fewer and fewer humans will be doing them.

Extract 5 : Some of the planet-saving inventions

Early 1800s. During the Napoleonic Wars somewhere in continental Europe, clocking at midnight. Captain Charles
Barbier on the side of Napoleon is making an effort to pass down information to soldiers under his command. But
communicating through written messages, especially on the (1)_____________ is considered unwise and extremely
detrimental for the (2)_________. Any kind of lighting to identify the missive information can be a dead (3)__________
to positions, coordinates of squads, single soldiers to opposing forces. In a moment of vision, Barbier pokes a series of
holes onto a sheet of paper with his blade, making a specially coded message that can be (4)_____________ by fingertip,
even in the pitch black. The merits of his so-called night writing are never acknowledged by the military, but in 1821,
Barbier approaches the Royal Institute for Blind Youth in Paris in the hopes that they might find a use for his innovative,
new communication method. There, a (5)________________teen by the name of Louis Barille does just that. Louis
spends the next several years improving on Barbier’s idea, creating an organized alphabet fitting into a six-dot
standardized cell. The system catches on. Today, Braille is the universally accepted system for writing for the blind,
adapted for more than 130 languages.