It sounds like the stuff of science fiction. LEONARDO DICAPRIO: (As Dom Cobb) The seed that we plant in this man's mind will grow into an idea. This idea will define him. FOLKENFLIK: Something lifted from the movie "Inception." DICAPRIO: (As Dom Cobb) Well, it may come to change everything about him.

Racing fans will recognize this whiny drone. The race will begin shortly in five seconds. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: It's Sophy Rouge followed by Yamanaka (ph). In this play-by-play, some of the world's top human gamers are facing off against cars driven by an artificial intelligence agent named Gran Turismo Sophy. The red car, Sophy Rouge, is pulling ahead.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is a video game from Nintendo that's bringing comfort to millions of socially distant people around the world. MEGAN MANATA, BYLINE: It's a new day, perfect weather to go outside and water your flowers or maybe you'd like to spend your morning fishing. Maybe catching bugs is more your speed. Whatever way you want to spend your day, you can also pop by for a quick chat with your friendly furry neighbors. VANESSA NGUYEN: Right now, my favorite is Flo.

This week we learned that ICE has searched millions of American driver's license photos, using facial recognition tools; the aim - to look for immigrants who are in this country illegally. Now privacy rights supporters and immigration advocates are calling for more transparency and oversight. But as NPR's Joel Rose reports, some version of all this has happened once before. JOEL ROSE, BYLINE: Dozens of protesters gathered in Manhattan yesterday outside the office of a tech company that's growing but still unknown to many Americans. UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER: You hear that, Palantir?

San Francisco could become the first large city to bar police from using facial recognition software. They tried a facial recognition system for a time, but sources in the department say they gave up on it because it wasn't much good. But what is significant about this legislation is the way the city has now singled-out facial recognition going forward. AARON PESKIN: Facial recognition technology is uniquely dangerous and oppressive. KASTE: That's the legislation's author, Supervisor Aaron Peskin, explaining yesterday why his legislation allows for other kinds of surveillance tech but not facial recognition.

Can artificial intelligence make the hiring process fairer? We look at that question in All Tech Considered. SHAPIRO: Lots of Fortune 500 companies use some sort of AI to screen job candidates. In Sweden, recruiters are testing an AI-powered recruitment robot. Reporter Maddy Savage went to check it out. MADDY SAVAGE, BYLINE: I'm outside the offices of TNG, one of Sweden's largest recruiting companies, which has a glass-fronted office in downtown Stockholm.

Tomorrow, Germany begins auctioning frequencies to build 5G mobile networks. It is both a highly technical event and the center of a geopolitical storm. Like much of Europe, Germany is squeezed between its economic ties to China and its longtime alliance with the U.S. NPR's Joanna Kakissis reports from Berlin. COMPUTER-GENERATED VOICE: To keep your estimated arrival time... JOANNA KAKISSIS, BYLINE: 5G will not just allow you to download movies in seconds on your smartphone. Since it's supposed to be up to 1,000 times faster than current mobile speeds, it can handle communication for self-driving cars, for example.

Now it's time for All Tech Considered. SHAPIRO: We've spent the last few weeks taking stock of the changes 2018 brought to the tech world and our relationship with the technology we use every day. Now let's look at one particular advancement. The voice of artificial intelligence took a big step forward this year. SIRI: My name is Siri.

You don't usually find companies asking for regulation on the technology that they're developing, but Microsoft is doing just that. The company wants Congress to write laws for its facial recognition technology in 2019. Microsoft is positioning itself as an outspoken elder statesman while still trying to beat its competitors. ALINA SELYUKH, BYLINE: For Silicon Valley, this has been a troubled year. UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #3: Facebook just had what might be the biggest wipeout in stock market history.

Yuval Noah Harari says data is the new source of political power, and he worries that big data and AI technology threaten to destroy liberal democracy. Yuval Noah Harari is a historian, lecturer, and author. He is the author of the international bestseller Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, as well as Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century. Harari received his PhD from Oxford. He is currently a lecturer in the history department at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.