It’s lazy to think that a manufacturing process is better just because it’s automated. While the effort going on right now at the Tesla factory in Fremont is anything but lazy, it brings into the spotlight one of the core problems with the simplistic “automation for automation’s sake” strategy: processes that aren’t stable to begin with cannot be made stable with robots.

The gold market could be using the technology behind cryptocurrencies to track an almost-$200bn supply chain as soon as next year.

A watchdog group is calling on Amazon.com Inc. to improve conditions for factory workers in China who make Echo speakers and Kindle e-readers, renewing criticisms that CEO Jeff Bezos became the world’s wealthiest man on the backs of low-paid laborers.

Big tech companies such as Amazon, Netflix and Facebook have been challenged by Governor Jerry Brown and UN Climate Chief Patricia Espinosa to start reporting environmental data by the time of a major conference this September.

While the impacts of machine intelligence have been hotly debated, and even provoke anxiety in some, this group of technologies continues to accelerate at a remarkable pace.