But the input can be pushed in certain directions. A quarter-century ago, an electronic surveillance consultant named Scott French used a supercharged Mac to imitate Jacqueline Susann's sex-drenched tales. His approach was different from Mr. Sloan's. Mr. French wrote thousands of computer-coded rules suggesting how certain character types derived from Ms. Susann's works might plausibly interact. It took Mr. French and his Mac eight years to finish the tale -- he reckoned he could have done it by himself in one.

Three former executives at Google, Tesla and Uber who once raced to be the first to develop self-driving cars have adopted a new strategy: Slow down. At their new company Aurora Innovation, which is developing self-driving technology for carmakers including Volkswagen and Hyundai, the rules are simple: No flashy launches, mind-blowing timelines or hyper-choreographed performances on closed tracks. "No demo candy," said Chris Urmson, a co-founder and former head of Google's self-driving car team. Aurora's long-game technique reflects a new phase for the hyped promise of computer-piloted supercars: a more subdued, more pragmatic way of addressing the tough realities of the most complicated robotic system ever built. In the wake of several high-profile crashes that dented public enthusiasm in autonomous cars, Aurora's executives are urging their own industry to face a reality check, saying lofty promises risk confusing passengers and dooming the technology before it can truly take off.

Artificial intelligence, often used to identify specific patterns in data, can detect anomalies in the way a person types that may be attributable to specific disorders. Researchers are experimenting with artificial intelligence (AI) software that is increasingly able to tell whether you suffer from Parkinson's disease, schizophrenia, depression, or other types of mental disorders, simply from watching the way you type. The researchers are able to make these astounding diagnoses, they say, because the capabilities of computing devices have become so granular that smartphones, tablets, and computers all can measure typing activity down to the millisecond. Essentially, today's technologies, along with the capability of AI to learn to identify specific patterns in data, offer researchers a powerful lens on even the slightest abnormalities in everyday typing behavior. In a University of Texas study published earlier this year, for example, researchers were able to identify typists suffering from Parkinson's disease simply by capturing how study subjects worked a keyboard over time, then running that data through pattern-finding AI software.

For weeks, computer scientist Siwei Lyu had watched his team's deepfake videos with a gnawing sense of unease. Created by a machine learning algorithm, these falsified films showed celebrities doing things they'd never done. They felt eerie to him, and not just because he knew they'd been ginned up. "They don't look right," he recalls thinking, "but it's very hard to pinpoint where that feeling comes from." He, like many kids, had held staring contests with his open-eyed peers. "I always lost those games," he says, "because when I watch their faces and they don't blink, it makes me very uncomfortable."

It's now possible to check in automatically at Shanghai's Hongqiao airport using facial recognition technology, part of an ambitious rollout of facial recognition systems in China that has raised privacy concerns as Beijing pushes to become a global leader in the field. The airport unveiled self-service kiosks for flight and baggage check-in, security clearance and boarding powered by facial recognition technology, according to the Civil Aviation Administration of China.

When Whitney Bailey bought an Amazon Echo, she wanted to use the hands-free calling feature in case she fell and couldn't reach her phone. She hoped that it would offer her family some peace of mind and help make life a little easier. In some ways, she says, it does. But because she has cerebral palsy, her voice is strained when she talks, and she struggles to get Alexa to understand her. To make matters worse, having to repeat commands strains her voice even more.

Delivery drones are real and they're operating on a national level, but they're not dropping off impulse purchases, and some of the most important applications are not in the United States. Zipline, a Bay Area startup, inked a deal with the government of Rwanda in 2016 and now uses small, autonomous planes to deliver medical supplies, and in particular blood, to rural communities across the African country. "It's a pretty cool paradigm shift for people who think all technological revolution is going on in US, and it'll trickle down to poor countries," says Zipline CEO, Keller Rinaudo, presenting his vision for drone deliveries on stage at the WIRED25 summit in San Francisco on Monday. "This is the opposite of that." Amazon created an internet-wide buzz when it announced it wanted to start delivering online shopping via drone, in a 60 Minutes interview in 2013.

America's first autonomous robot farm launched last week, in the hopes that artificial intelligence (AI) can remake an industry facing a serious labor shortage and pressure to produce more crops. Claiming an ability to "grow 30 times more produce than traditional farms" on the strength of AI software, year-round, soilless hydroponic processes, and moving plants as they grow to efficiently use space, the San Carlos, California-based company Iron Ox aims to address some of the agricultural industry's biggest challenges. Such challenges have also caught the attention of investors, who made more than $10bn in investments last year, representing a 29% increase from 2016. In a 2,000-sq ft grow space, leafy greens and herbs are planted in individual pots housed in 4ft by 8ft white "grow modules", which weigh about 800lb. Autonomous machines do the heavy lifting, farming and sensing.

Atlas, the robot developed by tech firm Boston Dynamics, has learned the art of parkour.

Other companies experimenting in Arizona with similar technology include Waymo. The Google spinoff has been trying out robotic cars to help commuters get to stops on Phoenix's transit system. The company is also conducting a pilot program with Walmart shoppers taking the vehicles to pick up online grocery orders. Supermarket chain Kroger Co. recently partnered with Nuro, a Silicon Valley startup founded by ex-Google engineers, to test delivering groceries with driverless cars in the suburb of Scottsdale.