Romania, the 1980s. Shops with shelves, display counters and, more often than not, nothing to put on them. Shopping was largely a matter of hope — hope that something had come in. You never knew what it was, when it had arrived, or which shop had it. But once the word got around, you went. You joined the queue and hoped for the best. In a country where shortages were a fact of everyday life, Romanians had another kind of currency: PCR. Not just the Partidul Comunist Român — the Romanian...

Series: The Dream Waterfalls of New Zealand We set out from Ohakune, the homeland of the carrot, on a clear morning. The light accompanies us like an invisible guide, drifting above the rooftops and the still-damp grass, like a promise that the day will be beautiful. The air is cold and pure, scented with the smell of wet grass and sun-warmed stone—a blend that awakens the senses far better than coffee. The houses fall behind us like pencil drawings: simple, fragile, their outlines already...

Artificial intelligence often appears to be a technology that develops on its own—algorithms that can "see," "understand," and "make decisions." The reality, however, is far more human. Machines learn to see only because people patiently teach them about the world, one image at a time, one pixel at a time. Sometimes, these teachers are found in places we would never expect—including prisons. How Machines Learn to See Before an AI system can recognize a pedestrian, a tree, or a road sign,...