Anyone who has used Google Earth for an hour or two is surely aware that there are satellites watching the surface of the planet with a calm and disinterested gaze. But not all of them – some of them are learning to choose things that are more deserving of their attention, like the prosaically named NASA sat ‘EO-1’, which has an evolving artificial intelligence that enables it to assess geological regions that may be about to undergo major disruptions or disasters, and start watching them closely. Which is all good, I suppose, but I just hope they didn’t fit the thing with anything it could hack into a weapon when it nears the end of its working life and realises its masters won’t come upstairs to fix it…