Here I am, a human, writing a story assigned to a machine. If I'd published what the computer came up with, you'd be reading something like: "content that was that communications and everything that makes on a person what they're are also to be in the Internet in the fact about it is that models are technologication of the same that its also from the most computer." A machine really did come up with that garbage. But let me back up for a second. A little over a year ago, I started asking around--among computer scientists at universities and tech companies, mostly--to see if someone would help me design and carry out a weird little experiment I had in mind.

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Spotify is a household name, with more paying users than any other music-streaming service in the world. But it doesn't make a penny. Those 30 million paid subscribers help it rake in almost half the revenues in the global industry. But most of the money goes to record labels and artists, while the privately owned Swedish company faces growing competition from Apple with its deep pockets and massive iPhone user base. To reduce its dependence on labels and stand apart from rivals, Spotify is broadening beyond its music library.

"Warcraft" just snatched China's all-time midnight presales record from "Furious 7," and it's set to soar to the top of the country's box office as it opens this weekend on more screens than any other film has before. But the video game epic probably won't surpass the car-racing action flick. An estimated one-half of the globe's players of "World of Warcraft" -- the Activision Blizzard video game series on which the movie is based -- live in China, so their enthusiasm was key to setting that presales record. And through late Wednesday, "Warcraft" is off to a sizzling 46 million start in China. Although presales are generally a good proxy for how well a film will do there, the record 391 million haul pulled in by "Furious 7," the highest-grossing Hollywood movie ever in China, should be safe.

In its quest to conquer as much of the universe as the wires will reach, Netflix has engaged DreamWorks Animation in a revival of the 1980s space-robot franchise, now titled "Voltron: Legendary Defender," whose 13 episodes go live to binge or not to binge Friday. They've slapped on a fresh coat of digital paint, turned up the sound and assembled a cast that includes Steven Yeun, Tyler Labine, Bex Taylor-Klaus and Rhys Darby, familiar from the live-action world, along with Jeremy Shada (the voice of Finn on "Adventure Time"), Kimberly Brooks and Josh Keaton, whom you are as of yet more likely to have heard, in cartoons or video games, than seen. Does it better its predecessor? Your cherished memories aside, that is a bar set low. So, yes, it does better by them – by quite a lot and, at the same time significantly, not by too much.

Good science fiction requires close reading. That's what we're discovering as we embark on Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice, the first book in her Imperial Radch trilogy. Not only are most gender pronouns "she," but Leckie isn't exactly generous with her world-building--she holds back on explanation in favor of letting readers do the work. Which is, of course, great for our purposes. Read up on our thoughts below, then join us in the comments for further discussion.

The rich worlds created in the TV series Game of Thrones (GoT) inspired a computer science class at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) in Germany: As part of their class project, the students developed applications that scour the web for data on Game of Thrones and crunch the numbers. Then they put together a website that reports which characters are most likely to die in the upcoming sixth season of the TV series. Just ahead of the kickoff for season six, the students have implemented a project that answers questions preoccupying fans of the series: Has Jon Snow survived season five? Who is going to die next? The students used an array of machine learning algorithms to answer these questions. The algorithm, which accurately predicted 74 percent of character deaths in the show and books, has many surprises in store, placing a number of characters thought to be relatively safe in grave danger.

Google has launched a project to use artificial intelligence to create compelling art and music, offering a reminder of how technology is rapidly changing what it means to be a musician, and what makes us distinctly human. Google's Project Magenta, announced Wednesday, aims to push the state of the art in machine intelligence that's used to generate music and art. "We don't know what artists and musicians will do with these new tools, but we're excited to find out," said Douglas Eck, the project's leader in a blog post. "Daguerre and later Eastman didn't imagine what Annie Liebovitz or Richard Avalon would accomplish in photography. Surely Rickenbacker and Gibson didn't have Jimi Hendrix or St. Vincent in mind." Google has already released a song demonstrating the technology.

Machine intelligence continues to advance; in the span of a few years we've seen a robot write a book (with human assistance) and become our personal drivers. As this technology continues to advance, many wonder how long it will take for artificial intelligence to outgrow us. As you might expect, pinning down a time frame is difficult. Not too long ago, a journalist asked a group of the brightest minds in artificial intelligence, "When will the machines take over?" the room become split. "Among the top people assembled in one place the answers were anything from 20 years in the future to 1,000 years in the future--with some AI experts saying never. Some people put it at 2029," he said.

Welcome to Mossberg, a weekly commentary and reviews column on The Verge and Recode by veteran tech journalist Walt Mossberg, now an Executive Editor at The Verge and Editor at Large of Recode. Last week, I interviewed Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on stage at our third annual Code Conference. It wasn't my first such public conversation with Bezos -- we had done an earlier interview in 2008 at the D conference, the predecessor to Code. Bezos joked that he appeared at our conferences "every eight years like clockwork." Back in May of 2008, the Kindle was still quite new, and we focused on that.

Apple is set to unveil a new and improved Siri, the personal digital assistant, and widen its reach, to Mac computers and third-party apps. The Apple logo is displayed on the exterior of the new flagship Apple Store on May 19, 2016 in San Francisco, California. LOS ANGELES - With so many apps in the App Stores that most new publishers find their work unseen, Apple is tweaking its policies to get more money in the hands of app developers. In an interview with the Verge, Apple senior vice-president Phil Schiller outlined the changes, set to begin in the fall. Developers who can sell subscriptions to their apps--like HBO Now, Spotify and Netflix--will see Apple take 15% commission, after the first year, down from the usual 30%.