Future Tense Newsletter: Do Robots Dream of Spaghetti?

Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society. Just take a look at the definitions Google provides for basic tasks, like breathing and eating, and you'll see how robots are already distorting collective knowledge, argues Jacob Brogan. According to Benjamin Frisch, the way we think about robots today owes a big debt to a 1999 music video from Bjork. Twitter is trying to crack down on hate speech, but its new approach blurs the lines between words and action, argues Thomas Kadri. Will Oremus writes about Facebook's own struggle with online speech and what could go wrong with its new system for combating fake news.