Car as a service: Used to be people would train their dog to bring them the morning paper. In a world of self-driving cars, could yours complete the Starbucks run for you?

— Tech Cheat sheet has a run down on 6 potential applications for self-driving vehicles (h/t Jess Bolluyt)

— And Bloomberg points out that cars that can pilot themselves could also steer you into the nearest McDonalds should you mention feeling peckish — and enabling that kind of geo-centric marketing is forcing car makers to compete with software companies (strong rumors that Apple is looking to enter this space are also part of the impetus, natch.) (h/t Elisabeth Behrmann)

Jon Fingas at Engadget has a brief, but, you know, terrifying post about the military applications for machine learning and picture recognition. ISIS may want to post fewer selfies.

On the more-classical, less-tactical side of A.I. and art appreciation, A.P.’s Holly Ramer has the lowdown on a Dartmouth prof wants to see if an A.I. can write a coherent short story. Seems unfair on the bot, I’ve been in creative writing workshop and most humans can’t….

Interesting Atlantic think piece from Robinson Meyer on whether you have a right not to be recognized

And in what’s clearly the most important robot news of the day: Challenge Accepted. A Japanese company will allow its giant mecha bots to fight an American competitor’s.