At one point, Luis assumes that he and Esteban have been abandoned, only to realize, with a start, that their newfound friends are actually circling back to help. In such moments, we grasp the source of the story's mysterious power: a tough-minded understanding that kindness is rare yet persistent, and quite possibly an affront to the laws of nature. "Sirāt" is a chain of defiantly compassionate acts--noble human improbabilities that take on, in retrospect, an air of fatalistic inevitability. Laxe, a restless wanderer himself, knows Morocco well. He shot his first feature, "You All Are Captains" (2011), in Tangier, where he'd spent several years working at a shelter for disadvantaged children. Several of these children appeared in the movie--a formally playful collision of fiction and documentary in which Laxe, also making an appearance, slyly interrogated his European outsider-artist role. Next came "Mimosas" (2016), an elusive, arrestingly gorgeous drama about a caravan bearing a dying sheikh across Morocco's Atlas Mountains to his homeland. The film had the beauty of a travelogue and the opacity of a parable. Its most dynamic character was a fiery Muslim preacher who warned his fellow-travellers not to stray, geographically or morally.

In little over a decade, AI has moved out of the laboratories and into the consumer's hands. AI has already begun to make big waves in military and strategic affairs too. Almost all defence experts agree that the application of AI in the armed forces could impact every sphere and degree of warfare. This draft report focuses on the key opportunities, challenges and uncertainties AI presents for defence and security. It takes some deep dives into: • AI's impact on information and decision support and robotic autonomous systems; • crucial technical and non-technical challenges – including the debate about lethal autonomous weapons systems, and; • some potential strategic implications.