The consumer relationship with artificial intelligence (AI) has had its rough patches. But initial terror at the specter of job-gobbling automation and affront at the insurgence of'inhuman' interactions is waning as the promise of support, entertainment, connectivity and even protection emerges - presenting retailers who dare to deal in the un-real with major opportunities. The sentiment was starkly illustrated when Italian fashion giant Prada promoted its Autumn/Winter 2018 catwalk show in league with'Instagram's first virtual influencer', superseding the fashion industry's vast pool of human bloggers, many of whom now represent retail's heftiest marketing spends. Lil Miquela, who may or may not be based on an LA-based blogger, is a bone fide CGI superstar; as of May 2018, she has a whopping 1.1M Instagram followers, a figure that's rocketed from an already robust 600k during the February show. She teased followers with videos, GIFs of the new collection and archival pieces, Instagram stories (micro videos) and even a tour of the venue via a drone that she controlled before the show kicked off.

The 89th annual Academy Awards ceremony is Sunday, and Alexa and Google Assistant have opinions about who will win Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Actress. The Oscars ceremony is Sunday at 5:30 p.m. Pacific. Red carpet action begins at 4 p.m. Pacific. When you ask Google Assistant "Who will win Best Picture at the Oscars?" it says: "I'm rooting for Arrival -- a movie about translation is right up my alley. Plus I loved those aliens." "Best film is tough this year.

Arrival Amy Adams stars in this elegant, involving science-fiction drama that is simultaneously old and new, revisiting many alien-invasion conventions but with unexpected intelligence, visual style and heart. The Eagle Huntress A portrait of a 13-year-old Kazakh girl from Mongolia who defies eons of tradition by learning to hunt with fierce golden eagles is a documentary so satisfying it makes you feel good about feeling good. The Edge of Seventeen Hailee Steinfeld gives a superb performance as a high-school misfit in Kelly Fremon Craig's disarmingly smart teen dramedy, the rare coming-of-age picture that feels less like a retread than a renewal. Elle Paul Verhoeven's brilliantly booby-trapped thriller starring Isabelle Huppert is a gripping whodunit, a tour de force of psychological suspense and a wickedly droll comedy of manners. The Handmaiden The most absorbing feature in years from South Korean director Park Chan-wook ("Oldboy") is a teasingly witty and elegant puzzle-box of a thriller about two women (played by Kim Tae-ri and Kim Min-hee) pursuing their destinies in 1930s Japanese-occupied Korea.

Arrival Amy Adams stars in this elegant, involving science fiction drama that is simultaneously old and new, revisiting many alien invasion conventions but with unexpected intelligence, visual style and heart. Certain Women Laura Dern, Michelle Williams, Kristen Stewart and a revelatory Lily Gladstone star in writer-director Kelly Reichardt's beautifully understated triptych about four women making their way through life in small-town Montana. The Eagle Huntress A portrait of a 13-year-old Kazakh girl from Mongolia who defies eons of tradition by learning to hunt with fierce golden eagles is a documentary so satisfying it makes you feel good about feeling good. The Handmaiden The most absorbing feature in years from the South Korean director Park Chan-wook ("Oldboy") is a teasingly witty and elegant puzzle-box of a thriller about two women (played by Kim Tae-ri and Kim Min-hee) pursuing their destinies in 1930s Japanese-occupied Korea. Kubo and the Two Strings In this 3-D wonderment steeped in ancient Japanese folklore and brought to life by the stop-motion innovators at Laika Entertainment, magic is both an eye-popping phenomenon and an everyday reality.

"Loving" is an unpretentious film about unassuming real people, but don't let that mislead you. Just as Richard and Mildred Loving ended up overturning the status quo and making American legal history, so this feature on their lives by writer-director Jeff Nichols turns out to be a film of quiet but quite significant strengths. Nichols, responsible for "Mud," "Take Shelter" and the underappreciated humanistic science fiction epic "Midnight Special," has gone in a different, more historical direction here. He's made an involving socially conscious drama about the interracial couple whose marriage, illegal in their home state of Virginia, led to the unanimous 1967 Supreme Court ruling that racist anti-miscegenation laws were unconstitutional. But "Loving" is hardly a legal drama rife with attorney strategies and courtroom scenes.

There's not much to do in Virginia. I'm sitting in a diner watching as a waitress drops the bill on the table and my FBI partner gets up to leave. I pick up the bill, then – jump! I'm standing outside a house watching as a man opens the door and my partner holds up her badge. I hold up my own, then – jump!