Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott believes understanding AI in the future will help people become better citizens. "I think to be a well-informed citizen in the 21st century, you need to know a little bit about this stuff [AI] because you want to be able to participate in the debates. You don't want to be someone to whom AI is sort of this thing that happens to you. You want to be an active agent in the whole ecosystem," he said. In an interview with VentureBeat in San Francisco this week, Scott shared his thoughts on the future of AI, including facial recognition software and manufacturing automation.

Until last year, Brandon Tory, a senior software Artificial Intelligence engineer at Google and rapper, led a secret double life. Raised in Brockton, Massachusetts, a neighborhood known for crime and drugs, he lived with his family in a shelter as a teenager. Tory knew he wanted to be some kind of scientist, but also had a passion for music. He wanted to have a huge impact in both creativity and science. At University of Massachusetts Amherst he studied computer engineering and then worked as a senior Apple engineer in Cupertino.

Artificial intelligence promises to have a dramatic--and yes, disruptive--effect on U.S. education and jobs in the next decade. But that technology won't be entirely homegrown: Chinese companies, particularly those building products or services laced with the machine learning algorithms, are increasingly playing a role in the tools that we call "AI." There are few that understand what these forces mean for the world--and for education and learning--better than Kai-Fu Lee. Lee has been an enormously influential researcher, driving forward work on AI. Originally from Taiwan, he came the U.S. at age 11 and went on to earn degrees from Columbia University and Carnegie Mellon University. He then went on to work at Apple, Microsoft and Google, where he served as president of Google China.

It's a bright September morning in San Carlos, California, and Masayoshi Son, chairman of SoftBank, is throwing me off schedule. I'd come, as he had, to meet with the people he's tapped to run the Vision Fund, his $100 billion bet on the future of, well, everything. After almost four decades of building SoftBank into a telecom conglomerate, Son, an inveterate dealmaker, launched this unprecedented venture two years ago to back startups that he believes are driving a new wave of digital upheaval. He has staked everything on its success–his company, his reputation, his fortune. We'd both arrived with the same basic question: Where is this massive vehicle heading? But because I wasn't the one footing the 12-figure allowance, I understood that I'd be the one to wait. When I finally arrive at the Vision Fund's offices, just off California's Highway 101, I'm struck by how mundane they are. Son is known for big, showy statements. He reportedly paid $117 million for a home in Woodside in 2013, the highest price ever in the U.S. This glass and concrete building, on the other hand, could be found in any part of suburban America. The room where I wait is spartan.

Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott believes understanding AI in the future will help people be better citizens. "I think to be a well-informed citizen in the 21st century, you need to know a little bit about this stuff [AI] because you want to be able to participate in the debates. You don't want to be someone to whom AI is sort of this thing that happens to you. You want to be an active agent in the whole ecosystem," he said. In an interview with VentureBeat in San Francisco this week, Scott shared his thoughts on the future of AI, including facial recognition software and manufacturing automation.

It's no secret that Google is one of the most innovative companies on the planet. Besides pioneering and then dominating the search industry, it has also become a leader in developing futuristic technologies such as artificial intelligence, driverless cars and quantum computing. It has even launched a life science company. What makes Google so successful is not one particular process, but how it integrates multiple strategies into a seamless whole. For example, Google Brain started out as a 20% time project, then migrated out to its "X" Division to accelerate development and finally came back to the mothership, where it now collaborates closely with engineering teams to build new products. Yet perhaps its most important strategy, in fact the one that makes much of the rest possible, is how it partners with top scientists in the academic world.

We met Eduardo over the summer via Aline Noizet, of course. He is the data science equivalent of McGyver. What did you work on in 2018? I have 2 jobs, one as an AI consultant doing projects for health-related companies that I cannot talk about because of an NDA. And I also lead AIScope, an NGO that uses AI to diagnose the deadliest diseases in low and middle-income areas, diseases like Malaria, tuberculosis or diarrhea-related diseases that kill thousands of people every day.

What inspired you to take an interest in robots? I've always played with robots. For example, I remember a competition in high school where my friends and I built a robotic arm to move the chess pieces on the chessboard. It seems very trivial now, but way back then, the robots were all primitive and as high school students, we thought that building a robot that could do that was a big deal. Graduate students Ashutosh Saxena, left, and Morgan Quigley, center, and Ng were part of a large effort to develop a robot to see an unfamiliar object and ascertain the best spot to grasp it.

Patrick Bower has a wide area of expertise, including S&OP, Demand Planning, Inventory, Network Optimization, and Production Scheduling. A recognized expert on demand planning and S&OP, and a self-professed "S&OP geek", Patrick was previously Practice Manager of Supply Chain Planning at the consulting firm Plan4Demand, where his client list included Diageo, Bayer, GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, Foster Farms, Cabot Industries and American Girl. Patrick's experience encompasses tenures with Cadbury, Kraft Foods, Unisys, and Snapple. Patrick also worked for the supply chain software company Numelix. He was the recipient of IBF's 2012 award for Excellence in Business Forecasting & Planning.

Add a Stephen King book to your cart? This season, we thought we'd replicate the "You Might Also Like" algorithm feature with a human touch. We've covered kitchen gifts, and now, we're doing tech gadgets. Amazon Smart Plug ($25) A smart plug admittedly sounds like a boring gift, but for a person who already owns and loves their Amazon Echo, this Amazon model is a great addition. It has a simple Wi-Fi set-up and will seamlessly integrate into their system, using either their hub or the Alexa app.