Artificial Intelligence doesn’t have to do things the way you and I do them to do them better. We only believe that to flatter ourselves. The opening of Christopher Mims new Wall Street Journal article about AI, which demonstrates how it has quietly wormed its way into our lives:

“The age of intelligent machines has arrived—only they don’t look at all like we expected. Forget what you’ve seen in movies; this is no HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey, and it’s certainly not Scarlett Johansson’s disembodied voice in Her. It’s more akin to what happens when insects, or even fungi, do when they ‘think.’ (What, you didn’t know that slime molds can solve mazes?)

Artificial intelligence has lately been transformed from an academic curiosity to something that has measurable impact on our lives. Google Inc. used it to increase the accuracy of voice recognition in Android by 25%. The Associated Press is printing business stories written by it. Facebook Inc. is toying with it as a way to improve the relevance of the posts it shows you.

What is especially interesting about this point in the history of AI is that it’s no longer just for technology companies. Startups are beginning to adapt it to problems where, at least to me, its applicability is genuinely surprising.”