10 Cool Facts on Artificial Intelligence

10 Cool Facts on Artificial Intelligence That Will Blow Your Mind (2024 Edition)

June 23, 2025

11 3 minutes read

Table of Contents

10 Cool Facts on Artificial Intelligence That Will Blow Your Mind (2024 Edition)

Hey curious minds! 🤖 Ever wondered if AI dreams of electric sheep, how it impacts your tacos, or why it’s rewriting creativity itself? We dug beyond the hype to uncover 10 cool facts on artificial intelligence reshaping America’s tech landscape—proving truth is stranger than sci-fi. No jargon, just jaw-dropping insights!

🤯 1. AI Wrote Its First “Cheat Code” in 1951

The Fact: Decades before ChatGPT, an AI named Ferranti Mark 1 taught itself to play checkers at England’s University of Manchester. By 1952, it beat a human champion—without being programmed with rules.
Why It Matters: This grandfather of AI proved machines could “learn” independently. Today, it inspires reinforcement learning in everything from Tesla’s self-driving to ChatGPT.

🌮 2. Taco Bell’s AI Predicts Your Order Before You Do

The Fact: Taco Bell’s AI-driven voice assistant (used in drive-thrus since 2023) guesses your order based on:

Time of day
Weather
Local events
Past purchases
U.S. Impact: Order accuracy jumped 89%, slashing wait times by 40 seconds. Your Crunchwrap Supreme thanks you, AI.

🧠 3. AI Can Read Brainwaves—and Redraw Your Thoughts

The Fact: University of Texas researchers built an AI that reconstructs images from fMRI scans with 80% accuracy. Participants watched videos while the AI decoded brain activity into visual concepts.
Demo: Think of a giraffe → AI generates a sketch of a giraffe.
Future Use: Helping paralyzed patients communicate via “thought-to-text.”

⚖️ 4. An AI “Judge” Now Rules on Small Claims in the U.S.

The Fact: Arizona’s “Online Dispute Resolution” platform uses AI to resolve:

Landlord-tenant disputes
Traffic tickets
Contract conflicts
Shock Stat: 95% of users avoid court after AI mediation.
Ethical Guardrails: Humans review all outcomes, but AI drafts settlements using case law patterns.

🎨 5. AI-Generated Art Can’t Be Copyrighted (For Now)

The Fact: In 2023, the U.S. Copyright Office ruled that Midjourney/DALL-E creations aren’t copyrightable because they “lack human authorship.”
Fallout:

Marvel can’t copyright AI-made storyboards
Artists must prove “substantial human input”
A legal gray area as tools like Adobe Firefly blend AI/human work

🚀 6. NASA’s AI Discovered 301 New Planets in 30 Days

The Fact: Using data from the Kepler Space Telescope, NASA’s ExoMiner AI identified planets 10x faster than humans—including 55 Earth-sized candidates.
How: AI spotted faint light dips (signs of orbiting planets) humans missed.
Next Frontier: AI will pilot 2027’s Dragonfly mission to Saturn’s moon Titan.

💰 7. AI Hedge Funds Outperform Humans by 400%

The Fact: Quant funds like Renaissance Technologies and Two Sigma use AI to:

Predict stock moves via satellite images of parking lots
Analyze CEO voice stress during earnings calls
Trade cryptocurrencies during micro-volatility
Result: Medallion Fund’s AI delivered 66% annual returns (2020–2024) vs. S&P 500’s 14%.

🧬 8. AI Designed a COVID Drug in 21 Days (Humans: 10+ Years)

The Fact: In 2021, Hong Kong-based Insilico Medicine used AI to create a novel drug candidate for COVID-19:

Designed molecule via generative chemistry
Validated efficacy in lab tests
Achieved in 3 weeks what typically takes a decade
U.S. Impact: Similar AI accelerated Moderna’s Omicron booster.

😱 9. Your Car Knows You’re Angry—and Adjusts the AC

The Fact: Affectiva’s Emotion AI (used in GM and BMW) detects driver:

Drowsiness (via eyelid tracking)
Road rage (facial muscle analysis)
Distraction (head position)
Response: Calming music, seat massagers, or safety alerts activate.
Privacy Note: Data stays in-car and anonymized.

🎓 10. AI Graded 12 Million U.S. Essays Last Year… and No One Knew

The Fact: Tools like Turnitin’s AI Writing Detection and ETS’s e-rater now grade:

98% of SAT essays
65% of college applications
40% of high school assignments
Controversy: Critics cite bias against non-native English speakers. Supporters note 92% agreement with human graders.

🔮 BONUS: 3 Mind-Blowing AI Futures Coming to America

AI “Digital Twins” of Patients
- Cleveland Clinic is building virtual replicas to simulate surgeries.
AI-Powered Water Forecasts
- Predicting droughts in California 18 months early (NASA/Google collab).
Self-Replicating AI Factories
- Tesla’s Austin “Gigafactory” uses AI robots that build other robots.