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，一所大学对此表示怀疑，使用一款新型机器人代替助教为学生们授课，竟无一人发现。

　　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，就在美国佐治亚理工大学担任助教，为学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’.

　　吉尔通过邮件或者论坛回复问题时，语气很随意，随俗易懂，且能在很短时间内给予精确绝妙的问题。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.

　　学生们一直不知道她是机器人，直到真相大白——许多人都很惊讶。

　　Tyson Bailey began to wonder if Jill was a computer and posted his suspicions on Piazza.

　　Tyson Bailey开始猜测吉尔是否真的是机器人，并把他的怀疑发到了Piazza平台上。

　　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Bailey说，“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Jennifer Gavin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Petr Bela说，“我正准备将吉尔.沃特森提名为最佳助教”。

　　The bot was named Jill Watson after the IBM Watson analytics system that all her responses come from - essentially her brain.

　　IBM沃特森分析系统开发了她的智能，尤其是大脑，所以她被命名为吉尔.沃特森。

　　She was trained by Georgia Tech researchers before being thrown into the mix with nine other TAs.

　　在接受了美国佐治亚理工大学研究人员的培训之后，她才和其他9名助教一起上岗。

　　Some students were suspicious at how swiftly she responded. And once she used the word ’design’ instead of ’project’. But none actually suspected she was a bot.

　　她回复的总是超级快，这也曾引起了一些学生的怀疑。有一次在说计划这个词时，她没有用“project”而用了“design”。但是一直没有人怀疑她是机器人。

　　And they said many of the TAs are sharp, impersonal, and quick to respond anyway.

　　他们说，很多助教都很机敏，回复时都比较客观，反应很快。

　　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冲击波，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.

　　然而，这个项目的设计者，电脑科技教授Ashok Goel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.

　　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。

　　One of the main reasons many students drop out is because they don’t receive enough teaching support.

　　“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。”

　　We created Jill as a way to provide faster answers and feedback.’

　　“所以我们创造出了吉尔，提供更快捷的反馈和答复。”

　　The bot has helped medical research teams diagnose illnesses in patients.

　　一直以来，医疗团队都有使用机器人帮忙诊断病人。

　　And in 2013 it took on the role of customer service manager.

　　2013年还曾担任过客户服务经理的角色。

　　According to Goel, Jill Watson’s capabilities were far more nuanced than that. She answers only to questions that she is 97 per cent certain of the answer to.

　　据Goel教授称，吉尔的能力可远不止这些，她更精细一些。当她对问题有97%的把握时，她才会回答。

　　Once Watson had a number of potential solutions, it was able to check against its database to make sure the answers made sense.

　　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。

　　Watson then evaluated the response and determined whether to virtually press the buzzer.

　　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。这是演员Jeff Woodman 在2004年为IBM的文本语音合成程序录制的合成声音。

（编辑：何莹莹）