April 2019 Australia's colonial history is dotted with fires so enormous they have their own names. The worst, Black Saturday, struck the state of Victoria on February 7, 2009. While Australia is notorious for spectacular blazes, it actually ranks below the United States, Indonesia, Canada, Portugal, and Spain when it comes to the economic damage caused by wildfires over the past century. That's because while other nations argue about the best way to tackle the issue, the horrors of Black Saturday led Australia to drastically change its response--one of the biggest of which was also one of the most basic: taking another look at the way fire risk is rated. The friendship between a cat and rabbit is the most heartwarming thing you'll see today.

ChatGPT was released just nine months ago, and we are still learning how it will affect our daily lives, our careers, and even our systems of self-governance.  But when it comes to how AI may threaten our democracy, much of the public conversation lacks imagination. People talk about the danger of campaigns that attack opponents…