Axios

In the 19th century, the Industrial Revolution cemented Great Britain's claims to global superiority, and later catapulted the United States into dominance. But they were not alone. Japan and Germany also arose as major industrial, military and political powers.

What's going on: In a transition that could be as momentous, the U.S. and China today are racing to master artificial intelligence. But it's no longer clear, as had seemed the case, that one or the other will hold the field to itself. According to a new study, the winner may be forced to share geopolitical sway with smaller nations like Israel, Russia or Singapore.

In the 1930s, New York building commissioner Robert Moses built one highway and bridge after another, with the aim of relieving congestion in America's biggest city. But each time, the result was the same: worse traffic.

What's going on: Eight decades later, transportation experts are observing a similar phenomenon with the world's newest urban innovation: ride-hailing services. According to a major new study, Uber, Lyft and their smaller rivals are clogging major U.S. cities — not relieving congestion — and even more traffic may be on the way when self-driving cars are commonplace.

Artificial intelligence experts — concerned about reported blunders with high-stakes AI systems from makers like Amazon and IBM — are urging more oversight, testing, and perhaps a fundamental rethinking of the underlying technology.

Why it matters: Wall Street, the military, and other sectors expect AI to make increasingly weighty decisions in the future — with less and less human involvement. But if the systems behave inaccurately or display biases, the consequences outside the lab could cause harm to real people.

"Federal air marshals have begun following ordinary US citizens not suspected of a crime or on any terrorist watch list and collecting extensive information about their movements and behavior," reports Jana Winter, a Boston Globe Spotlight fellow.

Why it matters: Some air marshals say it's "a time-consuming and costly assignment...which saps their ability to do more vital law enforcement work."

We know that Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and all the other social media platforms "moderate" the content users post, typically aiming to remove material that violates either a host country's law or the platform's own standards.

The big picture: Moderation is usually understood to be the onerous and thankless cleanup task that these social media giants have had to shoulder as they scaled up to global ubiquity. But the choices companies make about what to delete and who to boot are actually central to their identities, argues scholar Tarleton Gillespie in a new book on the subject.

Old Silicon Valley nostalgia descended upon a San Jose theater as "General Magic," a recently released documentary about a 90s startup by the same name, held its local premiere on Thursday (its initial debut was at the Tribeca Film Festival in April).

Why it matters: Though the company in the movie — an offshoot from Apple — ultimately failed, its original software product was a precursor to the PDA (personal digital assistant) and eventually the smartphone. It was also an assembly of some of Silicon Valley's future technology stars, including Tony Fadell (later co-creator of the iPod), Megan Smith (later Google exec and U.S. CTO), and Andy Rubin (later Android co-founder), among others.