"Future" Tech That's Hiding in Plain Sight: Artificial Intelligence

As hot as stories about artificial intelligence (AI), augmented/virtual reality (AR/VR), blockchain, and the Internet of Things (IoT) have been in recent months, we often can't help but think of these technologies as a long way off from mainstream adoption. Movies like Ready Player One and Avengers: Infinity Wars only perpetuate this perception by mixing real technologies with fantasy, making the tech we wield in the real world seem primitive in the process. AI, AR/VR, blockchain, and IoT are already playing an important role in our everyday lives, with countless examples hiding in plain sight. In this first article, we're going to look at Artificial Intelligence (AI). In pop culture, AI is often represented as a highly-evolved and self-aware artificial "brain" in a robot capable of overthrowing the human race, as in Ex Machina or The Terminator movies.