Kenneth Cukier reviews “Possible Minds: Twenty-Five Ways of Looking at AI,” a collection of essays edited by John Brockman.

China is the world leader in facial recognition technology. But is the state using it to violate the human rights of its citizens?
David Marcus has written a post intended to give “clarity” to the critics of Libra, the blockchain network Facebook is trying to seed.
First, to those who say the system is not really decentralized: “We totally get the point,” Marcus wrote in the July 3 post. “But it was important to start with trusted entities that could operate in a regulated environment and with the operational expertise required to ensure the integrity of the network in its foundational stage.”
He reiterated that “we’re committed to gradually transitioning to a permissionless state in the years to come,” and added that in the meantime, “I’d argue that one hundred geographically distributed, industry-diverse organizations is quite decentralized.” ( There are only 28 so far, however.)