Six months after its November 12 debut, the PlayStation 5 is well on its way to being a success story for Sony. As of March 31, the company had sold 7.8 million of the new video game consoles worldwide--enough, in both units and dollars, to make it the biggest console launch in US history. And who knows what that number might be if everyone who wanted one was actually able to buy one. It's not engineering scarcity to create marketing buzz like a streetwear company; it's trying to get its $399 console into customers' hands. Which is exactly why, in the same breath that he's using to discuss how the PS5 is outpacing even its mega-selling predecessor, Sony Interactive Entertainment president and CEO Jim Ryan is apologizing.

Many enterprises are using artificial intelligence (AI) technologies as part of their overall security strategy, but results are mixed on the post-deployment usefulness of AI in cybersecurity settings. This trend is supported by a new white paper from Osterman Research titled "The State of AI in Cybersecurity: The Benefits, Limitations and Evolving Questions." According to the study, which included responses from 400 organizations with more than 1,000 employees, 73 percent of organizations have implemented security products that incorporate at least some level of AI. However, 46 percent agree that rules creation and implementation are burdensome, and 25 percent said they do not plan to implement additional AI-enabled security solutions in the future. These findings may indicate that AI is still in the early stages of practical use and its true potential is still to come. "Any ITDM should approach AI for security very cautiously," said Steve Tcherchian, chief information security officer (CISO) and director of product at XYPRO Technology.

From the moment we humans first imagined having mechanical servants at our beck and call, we've assumed they would be constructed in our own image. Outfitted with arms and legs, heads and torsos, they would perform everyday tasks that we'd otherwise have to do ourselves. Like the indefatigable maid Rosie on "The Jetsons," the officious droid C-3PO in "Star Wars" and the tortured "host" Dolores Abernathy in "Westworld," the robotic helpmates of popular culture have been humanoid in form and function. It's time to rethink our assumptions. A robot invasion of our homes is underway, but the machines -- so-called smart speakers like Amazon Echo, Google Home and the forthcoming Apple HomePod -- look nothing like what we expected.

AI has applications in every area in which data are processed and decisions required. Wired founding editor Kevin Kelly likened AI to electricity: a cheap, reliable, industrial-grade digital smartness running behind everything. He said that it "will enliven inert objects, much as electricity did more than a century ago. Everything that we formerly electrified we will now "cognitize." This new utilitarian AI will also augment us individually as people (deepening our memory, speeding our recognition) and collectively as a species.

We have been hearing predictions for decades of a takeover of the world by artificial intelligence. In 1957, Herbert A. Simon predicted that within 10 years a digital computer would be the world's chess champion. That didn't happen until 1996. And despite Marvin Minsky's 1970 prediction that "in from three to eight years we will have a machine with the general intelligence of an average human being," we still consider that a feat of science fiction. The pioneers of artificial intelligence were surely off on the timing, but they weren't wrong; AI is coming.