Unlike the story’s human protagonists, the “black cloud” of bots was incapable of reasoning beyond the simple logic of animal instincts. That’s according to Interesting Engineering, which recently published a rundown of the state of present-day smart dust after decades of development. While various militaries are keen on developing smart dust for intelligence reasons, much of the present research is carried in university and corporate labs. One thing’s abundantly clear: now might be a good time to invest in an air purifier. More on tiny tech: Chinese Military Shows Off Fly-Sized Drones for Covert Ops