CAT 2024 Slot 1 — VARC Question 24
The passage below is accompanied by four questions. Based on the passage, choose the best answer for each question.
Fears of artificial intelligence (AI) have haunted humanity since the very beginning of the computer age. Hitherto these fears focused on machines using physical means to kill, enslave or replace people. But over the past couple of years new AI tools have emerged that threaten the survival of human civilisation from an unexpected direction. AI has gained some remarkable abilities to manipulate and generate language, whether with words, sounds or images. AI has thereby hacked the operating system of our civilisation.
Language is the stuff almost all human culture is made of. Human rights, for example, aren’t inscribed in our DNA. Rather, they are cultural artefacts we created by telling stories and writing laws. Gods aren’t physical realities. Rather, they are cultural artefacts we created by inventing myths and writing scriptures….What would happen once a non-human intelligence becomes better than the average human at telling stories, composing melodies, drawing images, and writing laws and scriptures? When people think about Chatgpt and other new AI tools, they are often drawn to examples like school children using AI to write their essays. What will happen to the school system when kids do that? But this kind of question misses the big picture. Forget about school essays. Think of the next American presidential race in 2024, and try to imagine the impact of AI tools that can be made to mass-produce political content, fake-news stories and scriptures for new cults…
Through its mastery of language, AI could even form intimate relationships with people, and use the power of intimacy to change our opinions and worldviews. Although there is no indication that AI has any consciousness or feelings of its own, to foster fake intimacy with humans it is enough if the AI can make them feel emotionally attached to it….
What will happen to the course of history when AI takes over culture, and begins producing stories, melodies, laws and religions? Previous tools like the printing press and radio helped spread the cultural ideas of humans, but they never created new cultural ideas of their own. AI is fundamentally different. AI can create completely new ideas, completely new culture…. Of course, the new power of AI could be used for good purposes as well. I won’t dwell on this, because the people who develop AI talk about it enough….
We can still regulate the new AI tools, but we must act quickly. Whereas nukes cannot invent more powerful nukes, AI can make exponentially more powerful AI.… Unregulated AI deployments would create social chaos, which would benefit autocrats and ruin democracies. Democracy is a conversation, and conversations rely on language. When AI hacks language, it could destroy our ability to have meaningful conversations, thereby destroying democracy….And the first regulation I would suggest is to make it mandatory for AI to disclose that it is an AI. If I am having a conversation with someone, and I cannot tell whether it is a human or an AI—that’s the end of democracy. This text has been generated by a human. Or has it?
There is a sentence that is missing in the paragraph below. Look at the paragraph and decide where (option 1, 2, 3, or 4) the following sentence would best fit.
Sentence: Taken outside the village of Trang Bang on June 8, 1972, the picture captured the trauma and indiscriminate violence of a conflict that claimed, by some estimates, a million or more civilian lives.
Paragraph: The horrifying photograph of children fleeing a deadly napalm attack has become a defining image not only of the Vietnam War but the 20th century. ___(1)___. Dark smoke billowing behind them, the young subjects’ faces are painted with a mixture of terror, pain and confusion. ___(2)___. Soldiers from the South Vietnamese army’s 25th Division follow helplessly behind. ___(3)___. The picture was officially titled “The Terror of War,” but the photo is better known by the nickname given to naked 9-year-old at its centre “Napalm Girl”. ___(4)___.
Answer & solution
- A
Option 2
- B
Option 1
- C
Option 4
Option 3
Medium
The missing sentence supplies the photograph's provenance: "Taken outside the village of Trang Bang on June 8, 1972, the picture captured the trauma and indiscriminate violence of a conflict that claimed… a million or more civilian lives." It is a factual caption-style line giving place, date and the war's toll, so it fits where the paragraph turns from describing the scene to formally documenting the image.
Option 1. Gap (1) follows the opening line and precedes "Dark smoke billowing behind them, the young subjects' faces…"—a continuous vivid description of the children in the frame. Dropping a date-and-toll caption here interrupts the visual description. Reject.
Option 2. Gap (2) lies between the children's faces and "Soldiers… follow helplessly behind"—still inside the description of who is in the photograph. The provenance line would break that running depiction. Reject.
Option 3. Gap (3) comes after the scene is fully described (children, smoke, trailing soldiers) and before "The picture was officially titled 'The Terror of War'…"—the point where the paragraph shifts from describing the image to documenting it. The missing sentence ("Taken outside… June 8, 1972… captured… a million or more civilian lives") is precisely such documentation and leads naturally into the official title. Accept.
Option 4. Gap (4) is the paragraph's end, after the "Napalm Girl" nickname. Adding the place/date provenance here arrives too late—the documentation should precede the official title and nickname, not trail them. Reject.
Option 3. The provenance sentence (place, date, civilian toll) fits where the paragraph turns from describing the photo to documenting it, just before its official title.