I. Learn the pronunciation of the words below. Translate them into Russian.

Psychopath, manslaughter, grandiosity, empathy, psychiatric, narcissist, charismatic, courteousness, visionary, abrasiveness, segue, awry, archetype.

 

II. Define the words and word combinations below. Say ho they were used in the article.

A cosseted child, sb’s jet-set lifestyle, to max out sb’s credit card, to be convicted of manslaughter on grounds of diminished responsibility, far-reaching changes, hard-charging, to keep a low profile and a modest lifestyle, high achievers, self-aware, a hot-button issue, to fester, the brunt of sth, to solicit advice, self-promotion, to face up to sth, to go awry, idea-driven approach, chieftain.

 

III. Explain what the following abbreviations mean.

CEOs, NPD, GE.

 

IV. Scan the article for the English equivalents of:

основать попечительский фонд; выписать чек на какую-л. сумму; молоток для вытаскивания гвоздей; представлять собой тяжелый случай какого-л. заболевания; студент-отличник; стать отличным менеджером; воодушевлять, заражать энергией; разительно отличаться от кого-л.; приземленный, ограниченный; находить достойное применение чьим-л. умениям; человек-мозг; быть благодатной почвой для чего-л.; помещение офиса, конторы; стремиться к богатству и карьере; возглавлять группу психологов; незаметно; проявлять радушие по отношению к кому-л.; разглядеть симптомы чего-л.

 

V. Interpret the lines below.

1. The $90,000 check bounced.

2. “A narcissist, who breaks new ground, can be the optimal, innovative business personality.”

3. Managers like Southwest Airlines cofounder Herb Kelleher “smash the old economic rules and create an entirely new game with their own rules.”

4. The most effective narcissistic CEOs are also self-aware enough to surround themselves with people whose complementary personalities act as a check on their own.

5. The line between visionary leader and loose cannon can be thin indeed.

6. …and these unassimilated feelings get projected onto employees.

7. Bullying and other self-centered behavior can leave legions of employees “battered and bruised,” says Board.

8. But the shadow of Brian Blackwell – or Enron, where narcissism was institutionalized – is a reminder that sometimes more sober heads need to prevail.

9. The queen of home entertaining ran afoul of the law.

 

VI. Say what you know about:

Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Steve Jobs, Bernie Ebbers, Dennis Kozlowski.

 

VII. Sum up the key points of the article and formulate the author’s thesis.

VIII. Comment on the choice of the headline.

IX. Points for discussion.

1. What is the main difference between creative visionaries and deluded psychopaths?

2. What do you think of Blackwell’s case?

3. What does the author believe make an exceptional manager? Does his behavior have anything to do with that of a criminal?

4. How can one deal with narcissistic CEOs? Should their aggressiveness and selfishness be condoned for the sake of their business skills?

5. What’s the ultimate goal of the Peoplewise organization? Should there be more organizations of the kind?

 

 

THE BIONIC MAN

A British researcher envisions a world in which language is dead and police respond to the mere thought of crime

To get an idea of the lengths Kevin Warwick will go to satisfy his scientific curiosity, check out the purple two-inch scar on his left wrist. Last March surgeons hammered a tiny silicon chip stud­ded with 100 electrodes directly into one of his arm’s main nerves. The two-hour opera­tion had never been tried before, and it might have left his hand paralyzed. When surgeons hit the nerve, it felt like a lightning strike. “It was exhilarating,” says Warwick, a British cybernetics professor. “I wouldn’t have missed it for the earth.” The pain quick­ly passed and for the first time, Warwick says, the nervous system of a human being could trade messages with a computer. Man and machine had merged.

Warwick's four-month spell as a protocyborg might be a first step toward augmenting the human mind with machine in­telligence. The chip, which linked to a com­puter, was removed in June after he'd con­ducted a range of experiments. This is the first step, he believes, to augmenting the hu­man mind with machine intelligence. In im­portant ways, he says, the brain trails far be­hind the computer. The brain has a woefully limited memory, it doesn’t oper­ate efficiently in a network and it’s slow to download data. “From my research with robots, I can see their intelligence,” says Warwick. “Why not look at this technology to explore the possibility of upgrading people?” In time, he says, an implant or an injection might deliv­er a simple microdevice that turns the aver­age Joe into an imposing cyborg, with super­human powers.

For the moment, Warwick’s efforts have gone toward proving that implant technol­ogy can create a new form of mind-ma­chine communication. Since the human nervous system uses electrochemical sig­nals to carry messages, there’s no reason it can’t be made compatible with the elec­tronic signals of a computer. In his latest groundbreaking experiments (detailed in his autobiography, “I, Cyborg,” recently published in the United King­dom), Warwick has already tested the concept. He’s linked himself to computers via both wires and radio transmitters and passed signals back and forth between his nervous sys­tem and electromechanical de­vices. The electrode in his arm picked up neural signals and sent them on to a computer, which con­verted them into instructions for a three-fingered robot hand elsewhere in his lab. When Warwick clenched his hand, so did the robot. Similarly, Warwick used the chip to control a small robot on wheels. He’s even rigged up a computer-mediated mind meld of sorts. He fitted himself and his wife, Irena, with matching chips, each linked to a computer. When Irena clenched her hand, Warwick’s left index finger got a shot of current—a “beautiful, sweet, deliciously sexy charge,” he says. The first cy­borg foreplay?

In his native Britain, Warwick, 48, is something of a cyber bad boy. Some of his colleagues dismiss his work as a pointless sideshow and deride his forecasts of a cy­borg future. He's got a knack for attention-grabbing. British Airways once refused a seat for his robotic cat. He's done research purportedly showing that a ba­con sandwich for breakfast boosts a child’s IQ and he re­cently offered to plant a microchip into an 11-year-old girl so her worried parents could track her movements. There's even a Web site that pokes fun at his frequent media ap­pearances. He admits to a thirst for the kind of publicity that helps scare up funding from corporate backers. “If you are doing something that interests people, then the media are going to get interested,” says Warwick. “This is all completely scientific and has important medical aspects.”

Antics aside, his background and credentials are impressive. Academically, he was a late starter. He left school at 16 and worked as a telephone engineer, but after studying on his own he qualified for Aston University and graduated with first-class honors in electrical and elec­tronic engineering. He taught at Oxford and, at age 32, was named a professor at Reading University.

Warwick’s work could have some prac­tical applications. Amputees might someday use brain signals to operate prosthetic limbs. Computers might send electronic messages to areas of the nervous system afflicted by, say, Parkinson's disease or epilepsy. Some day the handicapped might open doors just by thinking about it. But Warwick doesn't stop there. Down the road, he says, brain implants may allow human minds to commune with each other directly – without need for "the silly noises of speech." The patterns of neural signals associated with sex­ual pleasure or a drug high could be stored on computer and downloaded on command.

His ideas get weirder. In the wildly speculative final chapter of his book, War­wick looks forward to the day when implants might allow the body’s functions like heart rate, blood pressure and tem­perature to be monitored in real time, helping to push up average life expectancy by 30 years. With apparent relish, he delivers his most bizarre vision: the world of 2050 dominated by a master race of cyborgs, their brains all linked to a global network, sharing access to a common superintelligence. Policing would be straightforward. The network would be aware of even the thought of crime cross­ing another cyborg’s mind.

Few share such fantasies, but that doesn't bother Warwick. He’s convinced that humankind has a lot to gain by a closer association with machines. “When we compare ourselves with technology, the way humans currently communicate is so poor as to be embarrassing. Human speech is an incredibly slow way of communicating.” Why remain a dolt when there’s a chance to improve? “If you could have a five-second operation that would increase your memory capa­bility tenfold, would you accept it? A lot of people would.” Just hold the mind control, please.

William Underhill

/ Newsweek, October 7, 2002/

 

Set Work