In 2017, technology research firm Gartner ranked virtual assistants and machine learning at the “peak of inflated expectations” on its much-quoted emerging technologies hype cycle, but it also named AI as one of three big megatrends that will provide unrivalled intelligence and create profoundly new experiences in the next five to 10 years.

We were pondering this projection this week having read up on a stunning yarn that has utterly transfixed the health IT and the wider IT industry in New Zealand. In two seriously good stories in Kiwi independent site The Spinoff – here's the first, and here's the follow-up – Auckland journalist David Farrier took a look at a purported artificial intelligence technology called Zach, the creation of a supposed charity called The Terrible Foundation and its founder Albi Whale, which was set to revolutionise healthcare as we know it.