In early 2021, the writer Lucy Sante sent an e-mail to her closest friends. Its subject was "A Bombshell," which Sante later joked was an unintentional pun. In the text she attached, she explained that at the age of sixty-six she was accepting her long-suppressed identity as a transgender woman. Her transition had been catalyzed by an interaction with artificial intelligence. That February, Sante had downloaded FaceApp, a photo-editing application that uses neural networks to generate realistic transformations of people's faces.

"Deepfakes" are digitally altered images that make incidents appear real when they are not. Such altered files could have broad implications for politics. "Deepfakes" are digitally altered images that make incidents appear real when they are not. Such altered files could have broad implications for politics. Sophisticated fake media hasn't emerged as a factor in the disinformation wars in the ways once feared -- and two specialists say it may have missed its moment.

In July of 2016, I left Tampa, Florida, to go on a life journey exploring coworking spaces around the world. I started this coworking exploration to experience, first hand, the management and culture variations in different offices and to learn how each community's culture is created and maintained. So far I have worked remotely in 16 states, 2 provinces, 3 countries, and over 30 coworking spaces.

Cars, door locks, contact lenses, clothes, toasters, refrigerators, industrial robots, fish tanks, sex toys, light bulbs, toothbrushes, motorcycle helmets -- these and other everyday objects are all on the menu for getting "smart." Hundreds of small start-ups are taking part in this trend -- known by the marketing catchphrase "the internet of things" -- but like everything else in tech, the movement is led by giants, among them Amazon, Apple and Samsung. For instance, Amazon last month showed off a microwave powered by Alexa, its voice assistant. Amazon will sell the microwave for $60, but it is also selling the chip that gives the device its smarts to other manufacturers, making Alexa connectivity a just-add-water proposition for a wide variety of home appliances, like fans and toasters and coffee makers. And this week, both Facebook and Google unveiled their own home "hub" devices that let you watch videos and perform other digital tricks by voice.

Much of our current understanding about Artificial Intelligence is informed by what we see in popular culture. Due to ignorance and popular cultural portrayals of A.I. and machine learning, many people fear machines that are capable of computing complex tasks. There exists the belief that artificial intelligence could operate in a way that is counter to humanity's best interests, conjuring images of The Terminator and other similar films. As we explore the boundaries of the technology with consumer-facing technology like self-driving cars, and machine-learning algorithms such as recommendation engines, the general public is learning more and more about how these things work. But will we get to a point where people accept AI? A.I. refers to software that models its programming on human behaviour, mimicking rational and logical decision making processes.