Questões para Concursos

The philosopher Jeremy Bentham was regarded as the founder of utilitarianism and a leading advocate of the separation of church and state, freedom of expression, and individual legal rights. Furthermore, the “panopticon” is a type of institutional building that has long dominated Bentham’s legacy. As a work of architecture, the panopticon allows a watchman in a central tower to observe occupants of surrounding cells without the occupants knowing whether or not they are being watched. As a metaphor, the panopticon was commandeered in the latter half of the 20 th century as a way to trace the surveillance tendencies of disciplinarian societies. Is it still a useful way to think about surveillance today?
The French philosopher Michel Foucault used the idea of the panopticon as a way to illustrate the proclivity of disciplinary societies to subjugate its citizens. He describes the prisoner of a panopticon as being at the receiving end of asymmetrical surveillance: “He is seen, but he does not see.” As a consequence, the inmate polices himself for fear of punishment.
The parallels between the panopticon and surveillance cameras may be obvious, but what happens when you step into the world of digital surveillance and data capture? Unlike the panopticon, citizens don’t know they are being watched. Jake Goldenfein, from the University of Melbourne, tells me it’s important to remember the corrective purposes of Bentham’s panopticon when considering it as a metaphor for modern surveillance. “The relevance of the panopticon as a metaphor begins to wither when we start thinking about whether contemporary types of visuality are analogous to the central tower concept. For example, whether this type of visuality is as asymmetrical, and being co-opted for the same political exercise.” In the panopticon the occupants are constantly aware of the threat of being watched — this is the whole point — but state surveillance on the Internet is invisible; there is no looming tower, no dead-eye lens staring at you every time you enter a URL. There may not be a central tower, but there will be communicating sensors in our most intimate objects.

Internet: (adapted).

Based on the previous text, judge the following items

Text II
This book wants to show the newcomer the lie of the land without confusing him with details. In writing it I thought first and foremost of readers in their teens. But I have never believed that books for young people should differ from books for adults except for the fact that they must reckon with the most exacting class of critics, critics who are quick to detect and resent any trace of pretentious jargon or bogus sentiment. I know from experience that these are the vices which may render people suspicious of all writings. I have striven to use plain language even at the risk of sounding casual or unprofessional. I hope that no reader will attribute my decision to get along with a minimum of the art historian’s conventional terms to any desire on my part of ‘talking down’ to him. Apart from this decision, I have tried to follow a number of more specific self-imposed rules, such as limiting myself to real works of art and cutting out anything which might merely be interesting as a specimen of taste or fashion. This decision entailed a considerable sacrifice of literary effects. Praise is so much duller than criticism, and the inclusion of some amusing monstrosities might have offered some light relief. Thus, while I do not claim that all the works illustrated represent the highest standard of perfection, I did make an effort not to include anything which I considered to be without a peculiar merit of its own.
A second rule also demanded a little self-denial. I vowed to resist any temptation to be original in my selection, lest the well-known masterpieces be crowded out by my own personal favourites. This book, after all, is not intended merely as an anthology of beautiful things; it is meant for those who look for bearings in a new field, and for them the familiar appearance of apparently ‘hackneyed’ examples may serve as welcome landmarks.
One more rule I have followed. When in doubt I have always preferred to discuss a work which I had seen in the original rather than one I knew only from photographs. I should have liked to make this an absolute rule, but I did not want the reader to be penalized by the accidents of travel restrictions which sometimes dog the life of the art-lover.
E. H. Gombrich. The Story of Art.
Phaidon, New York – London: 1995, p. 7-8 (adapted).
Considering text II, judge whether the following statements are right ( C ) or wrong ( E ).

Back in October 2011, Stanford professors launched three free online courses, open to the public. One by one, these courses went massive, with enrollments topping 100.000 students each. Soon the media was calling these courses MOOCs, short for massive open online courses.
Since then, more than 1.200 universities around the world have launched free online courses. In addition to the larger global MOOC platforms, many national governments around the world have launched their own country-specific MOOC platforms, including India, Italy, Israel, Mexico and Thailand.
After a decade of popularization, in 2021, over 220 million students had signed up for at least one course on one of these platforms, and 40 million did so in 2021 alone. MOOCs and MOOC platforms are still growing, even after the crazy “Year of the MOOC” prompted by the pandemic and travel restrictions.
At Class Central, we try to catalog as many MOOCs as possible, and our listing currently includes more than 150.000 of them, from MOOC platforms and other online learning platforms. But due to limited resources, we cannot index every single one. If you’re looking for MOOCs from around the world, this list is our best attempt to catalog all different MOOC platforms that are out there.
Internet: (adapted).
Keeping in mind the ideas expressed above and the linguistic aspects of the text, judge the following items.

Drones are an integral part of the defense and supply-chain industry. However, their prowess and versatility extend beyond these sectors. As the demand for UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) continues to increase, the drone market is now estimated to be valued at over 127 billion dollars.
These uncrewed aircrafts can potentially develop numerous sectors, including transport and travel, exponentially. This is primarily due to their remarkable evolution of collision-avoidance technologies through computer vision and artificial intelligence, allowing them to operate autonomously.
The dynamic innovation of drone transportation can positively impact emergency services by decreasing emergency response time, offering valuable data from inaccessible regions, and identifying victims via thermal imaging.
Though the concept of a UAV emerges from being “unmanned,” its autonomous power can be used to create functional, personal transportation. Well-known companies like Uber, Airbus, and Boeing are constantly working on developing self-flying drones that can take people from one place to another.
In conclusion, drone transportation has a lot of untapped potential beyond supply chain and security surveillance. Whether it is for emergencies, luxury, or space exploration, the future is optimistic for the travel industry.
Internet: (adapted).
Based on the previous text, judge the following items.

A lawyer used ChatGPT to prepare a court filing. It went horribly awry.
A lawyer who relied on ChatGPT to prepare a court filing on behalf of a man suing an airline is now all too familiar with the artificial intelligence (AI) tool’s shortcomings — including its propensity to invent facts.
Roberto Mata sued Colombian airline Avianca last year, alleging that a metal food and beverage cart injured his knee on a flight to Kennedy International Airport in New York. When Avianca asked a Manhattan judge to dismiss the lawsuit based on the statute of limitations, his lawyer submitted a brief based on research done by ChatGPT.
While ChatGPT can be useful to professionals in numerous industries, including the legal profession, it has proved itself to be both limited and unreliable. In this case, the AI invented court cases that didn’t exist, and asserted that they were real. The fabrications were revealed when Avianca’s lawyers approached the case’s judge, saying they couldn’t locate the cases cited in Mata’s lawyers’ brief in legal databases.
“It seemed clear when we didn’t recognize any of the cases in their opposition brief that something was amiss,” said the airline’s lawyer. And soon they figured it was some sort of chatbot of some kind. On the other hand, the passenger’s lawyer said that it was the first time he’d used ChatGPT for work and, therefore, he was unaware of the possibility that its content could be false.

Internet: (adapted).

Based on the preceding text, judge the items that follow.

Text 18A3-I
The roar of a waterfall suggests the power of water. Rampaging floodwaters can uproot strong trees and twist railroad tracks. When the power of water is harnessed, however, it can do useful work for humans.
Since ancient times, people have put the energy in the flow of water to work. They first made water work for them with the waterwheel, a wheel with paddles around its rim. Flowing water rotated the waterwheel, which in turn ran machinery that was linked to it. Today, new kinds of waterwheels – turbines – spin generators that produce electricity. Electricity from waterturned generators is known as hydroelectricity.
By building a dam across a river, the natural upstream water level is elevated and a difference in head is created that can be used to drive turbines and generate electricity. A large upstream reservoir may balance seasonal water flow; rain or melted snow can be stored in the reservoir during the wet season to provide electricity during dry seasons.
Waterpower is distributed unevenly among the continents and nations of the world. Europe and North America have developed much of their waterpower. Asia, South America, and Africa have abundant waterpower potential, but while countries such as China and Brazil have become leading hydroelectric producers, much of the waterpower resource on those continents remains undeveloped.
Elizabeth Lachner. Hydroelectricity . Rosen Publishing Group, 2018 (adapted).

According to researchers in Mechanical Engineering at Penn State University, hummingbirds have extreme aerial agility and flight forms, which is why many drones and other aerial vehicles are designed to mimic hummingbird movement. Using a novel modeling method, Professor Bo Cheng and his team of researchers gained new insights into how hummingbirds produce wing movement, which could lead to design improvements in flying robots.
“We essentially reverse-engineered the inner working of the wing musculoskeletal system — how the muscles and skeleton work in hummingbirds to flap the wings,” said first author and Penn State mechanical engineering graduate student Suyash Agrawal. “The traditional methods have mostly focused on measuring activity of a bird or insect when they are in natural flight or in an artificial environment where flight-like conditions are simulated. But most insects and, among birds specifically, hummingbirds are very small. The data that we can get from those measurements are limited.”
Penn State researchers used muscle anatomy literature, computational fluid dynamics simulation data and wing-skeletal movement information captured using micro-CT and X-ray methods to inform their model. They also used an optimization algorithm based on evolutionary strategies, known as the genetic algorithm, to calibrate the parameters of the model. According to the researchers, their approach is the first to integrate these disparate parts for biological fliers.
With this model, the researchers uncovered previously unknown principles of hummingbird wing actuation. While Cheng emphasized that the results from the optimized model are predictions that will need validation, he said that it has implications for technological development of aerial vehicles.
Internet: (adapted).
Judge the following items according to the previous text.

The Internet, as anyone who works deep in its trenches will tell you, is not a smooth, well-oiled machine. It’s a messy patchwork that has been assembled over decades, and it is held together with the digital equivalent of duct tape and bubble gum. Much of it relies on open-source software that is thanklessly maintained by a small army of volunteer programmers who fix the bugs.

Internet: (adapted).
Considering the previous text and its linguistic aspects, judge the following items.

Text CB1A8

The idea of giving rights to animals has long been contentious, but a deeper look into the reasoning behind the philosophy reveals ideas that aren’t all that radical. Animal rights advocates want to distinguish animals from inanimate objects, as they are so often considered by exploitative industries and the law. The animal rights movement strives to make the public aware of the fact that animals are sensitive, emotional, and intelligent beings who deserve dignity and respect. But first, it’s important to understand what the term “animal rights” really means.
Animal rights are moral principles grounded in the belief that non-human animals deserve the ability to live as they wish, without being subjected to the desires of human beings. At the core of animal rights is autonomy, which is another way of saying choice. In many countries, human rights are enshrined to protect certain freedoms, such as the right to expression, freedom from torture, and access to democracy. Of course, these choices are constrained depending on social locations like race, class, and gender, but generally speaking, human rights safeguard the basic tenets of what makes human lives worth living. Animal rights aim to do something similar, only for non-human animals.
Animal rights come into direct opposition with animal exploitation, which includes animals used by humans for a variety of reasons, be it for food, as experimental objects, or even pets. Animal rights can also be violated when it comes to human destruction of animal habitats. This negatively impacts the ability of animals to lead full lives of their choosing.

Internet: (adapted).

Considering the ideas and linguistic aspects of the text above, judge the items below.

Text CB1A7

Whenever a global economic transformation takes place, a single city usually drives it forward. Ghent, in modern-day Belgium, was at the core of the burgeoning global wool trade in the 13th century. The first initial public offering took place in Amsterdam in 1602. London was the financial centre of the first wave of globalisation during the 19th century. Today the city is San Francisco.
California’s commercial capital has no serious rival in generative artificial intelligence (AI), a breakthrough technology that has caused a bull market in American stocks and which, many economists hope, will power a global productivity surge. Almost all big AI start-up companies are based in the Bay Area, which comprises the city of San Francisco and Silicon Valley (largely based in Santa Clara county, to the south). OpenAI is there, of course; so are Anthropic, Databricks and Scale AI. Tech giants, including Meta and Microsoft, are also spending big on AI in San Francisco. According to Brookings Metro, a think tank, last year San Francisco accounted for close to a tenth of generative AI job postings in America, more than any other city of the country. New York, with four times as many residents, was second.

Internet:http://www.economist.com/ (adapted).