Colleges across the country are scrambling to pandemic-proof their campuses. And everything from contact-tracing apps to facial recognition is on the table. The University of Alabama, for instance, is rolling out a suite of apps aimed at monitoring the coronavirus on campus. The school plans to release an app by the end of July that would notify students if they crossed paths with someone who tested positive for coronavirus, using Bluetooth technology. Other schools, such as the University of Arizona, say they are testing similar apps.

Law enforcement's use of facial recognition technology was always controversial. Amazon's surprise announcement that it would put a moratorium on police use of its facial recognition software for the next year underscores the big questions surrounding the technology as protests spark a nationwide debate about police brutality and surveillance tactics. Amazon's brief news release never mentioned the words George Floyd, but my Post colleague Jay Greene notes the company hinted that recent events drove this decision. "We've advocated that governments should put in place stronger regulations to govern the ethical use of facial recognition technology, and in recent days, Congress appears ready to take on this challenge," the company said in a statement. "We hope this one-year moratorium might give Congress enough time to implement appropriate rules, and we stand ready to help if requested."

To me, the San Francisco streets seemed deserted. To my self-driving car, they were full of hazards. In mid-March, just as the coronavirus outbreak started to change the world as we knew it, I took a ride in an autonomous vehicle through the narrow and winding, topsy-turvy streets of downtown San Francisco -- from the hairpin turns of Lombard Street to the steep hills surrounding Coit Tower and the famed Embarcadero waterfront. Even with tens of thousands of workers staying put as the first work-from-home orders hit, in the back of a Toyota Highlander piloted by autonomous vehicle start-up Zoox, I started to become hyper-aware of the circus of hazards robocars encounter on a daily basis. There was a cyclist or skateboarder in the blind spot.

A live demonstration uses artificial intelligence and facial recognition in dense crowd spatial-temporal technology at the Horizon Robotics exhibit at the Las Vegas Convention Center during CES 2019 in Las Vegas on January 10, 2019. Venture capitalists are warning the Trump administration not to overly restrict the export of new technology such as artificial intelligence -- insisting that could make it much harder for American start-ups to sell their products abroad. The Commerce Department is considering whether to slap tighter export controls on a long list of new technologies, including AI and quantum computers, to prevent U.S. technology from falling into the hands of foreign adversaries. But the National Venture Capital Association, in public comments on the potential rule last week, voiced concerns that the list of technology the government defines as critical to national security is far too broad. The venture capitalists only want to see the department limit the export of technology specific to defense -- not a whole category of technology so broad it could include consumer products such as self-driving cars and voice assistants.