听力原文：W: Hi, Paul. All set for your speech club presentation this evening? M: Yeh, I'm going to discuss robots. W: Robots? You mean those machines that walk and talk like in the movies? M: No, industrial robots, like those which were used in automotive and electronics industries. W: Come to think of it, I saw an article about that kind of robot the other day. There were pictures of robots welding cars, but they certainly didn't look the way 1 thought robot should look. M: The robots we usually imagine are made up in science fiction. In industry robots are designed to do specific set of operations, such as welding car frames. They are rarely built to resemble humans. W: Actually, all they need is a kind of brain to give signals and mechanism such as an arm to carry out instructions, right? M: Right! Tiny computers become the brains of these robots. The computers send signal in a form. of electrical impulses that move an arm and a claw. The claw does particular kind of work. W: Ok. but we have machines on the assembly line doing work for people for years. That's what started the Industrial Revolution, remember? M: But each of those machines can only perform. a single operation and it takes months to modify them, The new industrial robots can each do a number of tasks and it's easy to reprogram them to perform. totally different operations. That's one reason why they're becoming so popular. W: They increase productivity, don't they? I read that even though they are still quite expensive, they often cost less per year than a worker doing the same job. I imagine robots will be used more and more. (20)