Last year, two million units of vehicle-simulation games for PCs and consoles were sold world-wide, the most common being flight simulators, according to the market-research firm NPD Group. Josh Edgar, a 25-year-old technology consultant who lives in Dallas, recently spent about $500 on a flight-simulation setup. He said that when he was in grade school, an airline pilot let him briefly step into the cockpit. "Seeing all the lights and switches definitely piqued my curiosity," he said. Howard Penley, a recently retired United Airlines captain, said passengers who once toured his flight deck often would remark on the complexity of all the buttons and dials.

These artificial cities and towns were built for all kinds of reasons. One example in Russia was dressed up with faux facades for a visit from Putin in 2013, closely following the mold of the Potemkin villages of yore. Some, like China's replica cities, were built by developers to architecturally mimic Western cities like Paris. Others were constructed by the military or self-driving car companies to provide realistic urban environments in which to practice maneuvers or test new tech. "These Potemkin villages are for me an interesting symbol of the sometimes absurd developments of our society," Sailer says, referring to the illusions, fakes, and manipulations that governments and companies employ to maintain and extend their power.

It has become increasingly apparent that there is a tremendous opportunity when it comes to infusing artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain platforms. AI, otherwise known as machine learning in some circle, as the ability to take blockchain operations and effectiveness to the next level. Alternatively, blockchain technology can also work in the opposite direction, allowing cutting-edge tech leaders to understand AI in greater depths and essentially create more efficient and smarter intelligence platforms. By decentralizing the market, blockchain and AI will work together to make transactions more secure, while simultaneously generating large amounts of new revenues. Already multi-billion dollar industries on their own, blockchain and AI are poised to benefit on a high scale financially as the two become more intertwined.

Google has pledged not to use its powerful artificial intelligence (AI) to create weapons of war, illegal surveillance or to cause "overall harm". On Thursday, Sundar Pichai, CEO for Alphabet Inc.'s Google, set out a series of principles about AI at the company. The announcement follows more than 4,500 Google employees having written a letter in April, calling on the company to get out of the "business of war" and cancel Pentagon work. Pichai said in Thursday's post that Google recognizes that its powerful technology "raises equally powerful questions about its use". AI is being used for good, he said, citing use cases such as machine-learning sensors being built by higher schoolers to predict the risk of wildfires; farmers using it to monitor their cows' health; and doctors who are using it to diagnose breast cancer and to prevent blindness.

Princeton Univ, $29.95 (288p) ISBN 978-0-691-18351-0 The Greeks thought of everything, including sci-fi tropes such as androids and artificial intelligence, according to this lively study of mythology and technology. Stanford classicist Mayor (The Amazons) surveys myths from ancient Greece (with excursions to India and China) about bio-techne, life crafted by artifice. She finds a trove of them, including those of the bronze warrior-robot Talos, who patrolled Crete, hurling boulders at ships and roasting soldiers alive; statues by the legendary engineer Daedalus, so lifelike that they had to be tethered to stay put; and marvels by the blacksmith god Hephaestus, including automated rolling tripods that served Olympian feasts and talking robot servants to help at his forge. Taking a more organic approach, the witch Medea, after defeating Talos with sweet talk and trickery, invented herbal drugs to reverse aging. Mayor also looks at real-life automata in ancient Alexandria--mechanical beasts and people that moved, vocalized, and dispensed milk to bemused onlookers.

The story should have specified that the plaintiffs say they are asking that a system already in place that uses paper ballots and scanners under some circumstances be expanded provisionally across the state. They say it would cost less than the current electronic system and would be feasible to install by November.

What's New: Today Intel hosts the NASA Frontier Development Lab (FDL)* Event Horizon 2018: AI Space Challenge Review Event (view live webcast) in Santa Clara, California. It concludes an eight-week research program that applies artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to challenges faced in space exploration. For the third year, NASA Ames Research Center*, the SETI Institute* and participating program partners have provided support to ongoing research for interdisciplinary AI approaches, leveraging the latest hardware technology with advanced machine learning tools. "Artificial intelligence is expected to significantly influence the future of the space industry and power the solutions that create, use and analyze the massive amounts of data generated. The NASA FDL summer program represents an incredible opportunity to take AI applications and implement them across different challenges facing space science and exploration today."

Hundreds of Google employees have signed a protest letter over the company's reported work on a censor-friendly search engine to get back into China, The New York Times said Thursday. The employees are demanding more transparency so they can understand the moral implications of their work, said the Times, which obtained a copy of the letter. It has been signed by 1,400 employees and is circulating on the company's internal communications system, the newspaper said, quoting three people who are familiar with the document. While China is home to the world's largest number of internet users, a 2015 report by US think tank Freedom House found that the country had the most restrictive online use policies of 65 nations it studied, ranking below Iran and Syria. But China has maintained that its various forms of web censorship are necessary for protecting its national security.

There are about a million games releasing, Gamescom is next week, PAX in two weeks--it's starting to get pretty damn busy around here again. Both Brad Chacos and I will be in Germany for Gamescom next week, so keep an eye out for previews, announcements, and maybe even a video or two. It's mostly QuakeCon news this week, including 25 minutes of Doom talk, but you'll also find a smattering of early Gamescom trailers below, a tease for Vermintide II's first DLC, and a surprise TimeSplitters acquisition by Deep Silver. This is gaming news for August 13 to 17. As I said, Gamescom is still four or five days away--but not for everyone, evidently. Tropico 6 got out ahead of the competition and dropped this so-called "Gamescom Trailer" this week.

Google executives on Thursday addressed the company's plans to reintroduce a search service in China, following an employee backlash over concerns about complying with Beijing's censorship laws, according to reports of an all-hands company meeting. Chief executive Sundar Pichai told staff that Google is in the "early stages" of considering a return to China, Bloomberg reported, but that the company is not close to finalizing a search product. Pichai pledged transparency as the development process advances and cast the potential for business in China as a boost to Google's mission. "I genuinely do believe we have a positive impact when we engage around the world, and I don't see any reason why that would be different in China," Pichai said, according to Bloomberg. Google did not respond to a request for comment from The Washington Post.