CHENNAI, India, Aug 9 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - With more than 20 million humans working as modern slaves, a technology developer is hoping artificial intelligence will help clean up the world's supply chains and root out worker abuse. Developer Padmini Ranganathan said mobile phones, media reports and surveillance cameras can all be mined for real-time data, which can in turn be fed into machines to create artificial intelligence (AI) that helps companies see more clearly what is happening down the line. "The time to do this now is better than ever before, with so many countries and companies focusing on modern slavery," she said in an interview with the Thomson Reuters Foundation. "At the start of the decade, the driving force for compliance was fear of being penalised. Now companies are looking at social impact and saying they want to do this."

Ray Kurzweil has invented a few things in his time. In his teens, he built a computer that composed classical music, which won him an audience with President Lyndon B. Johnson. In his 20s, he pioneered software that could digitize printed text, and in his 30s he cofounded a synthesizer company with Stevie Wonder. More recently, he's known for popularizing the idea of the singularity--a moment sometime in the future when superintelligent machines transform humanity--and making optimistic predictions about immortality. For now, though, Kurzweil, 69, leads a team of about 35 people at Google whose code helps you write emails.

Sally Gonzales joined Fireman & Company in May as the Toronto-headquartered legal management consultant's newest senior consultant. Recognised as an authority in knowledge management and strategic technology planning, here Gonzales, who has held senior IT and KM roles at firms including Dentons, Norton Rose Fulbright, Akin Gump and Jones Day, tells us what led to her move to Fireman; how KM has evolved in the legal space; the major KM trends ahead; and discusses some of the biggest questions around AI. "I think we are on the cusp of KM 4.0," she says. What led you on this path to Fireman & Company? I've been fortunate to have a long and stimulating career in KM and IT management, with about 15 years spent in-house in top IT leadership positions at several global law firms, most recently Dentons, and about 18 years consulting to law firms and law departments in the US, Canada, and the UK. I recently returned to the US after two years in London working for Norton Rose Fulbright as KM Program Manager for their global enterprise search implementation. After a brief sabbatical, I knew I wanted to continue consulting and I wanted to find the right team to partner with to focus in on the two areas about which I am most passionate: KM and AI.

We arrive a few minutes late, thanks to a traffic jam that is now routine on the Outer Ring Road in Bengaluru. In the lobby of a hotel in Cessna Business Park, which houses Cisco, Flipkart and InMobi, D J Patil settles into a chat with my colleague Sriram Sharma. Patil comes across as an easygoing guy for a scientist. He was the first chief data scientist at the White House, handpicked by then US president Barack Obama. Patil and Jeff Hammerbacher coined the term "data scientist" in 2008.

A musician improvises alongside A.I. Duet, software developed in part by Google's Magenta That's a question bordering on the philosophical, but artificial intelligence (AI) can certainly make music and artwork that people find pleasing. Last year, Google launched Magenta, a research project aimed at pushing the limits of what AI can do in the arts. Science spoke with Douglas Eck, the team's lead in San Francisco, California, about the past, present, and future of creative AI. This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity. Q: How does Magenta compose music?

A company can have the best technology in the world. It can have the strongest talent. It can have the coolest product ideas. But to train the algorithms that will deliver the intelligence to transform our cities, it needs data. Sign up to get Backchannel's weekly newsletter. That's why earlier this year, after leaving Microsoft the previous fall, legendary engineer Qi Lu headed to Beijing to become Baidu's chief operating officer. At his former job, he was, among other things, CEO Satya Nadella's top deputy in helping to lead the company's AI strategy. Clearly, he saw more opportunity across the Pacific: In China, 731 million people--nearly twice the entire population of the United States--are online.

Andrew Ng, one of the world's best-known artificial-intelligence experts, is launching an online effort to create millions more AI experts across a range of industries. Ng, an early pioneer in online learning, hopes his new deep-learning course on Coursera will train people to use the most powerful idea to have emerged in AI in recent years. AI experts have become some of the most sought-after and well-paid employees in today's tech economy. Deep learning involves teaching a machine to perform a complex task using large amounts of data along with a large simulated neural network. The technique has typically required deep technical knowledge and expertise to master (see "10 Breakthrough Technologies 2013: Deep Learning").

Say Machine Learning to someone, and if they recognize the term, they'll probably think, "tech company." But while the origin stories of transformative technologies like machine learning, deep learning, and artificial intelligence often seem to take root in Silicon Valley, the truth is these are industry-agnostic innovations. Their impact is being felt across countless fields you might never have thought of as being ripe for technological advancement. Think about it like this: If you were a farmer, and someone came to you and said, there's a technology out there that can accurately predict your crop yields, would you be interested? Well, this is exactly what Descartes Labs does.

Andrew Ng, one of the world's best-known artificial-intelligence experts, is launching an online effort to create millions more AI experts across a range of industries. Ng, an early pioneer in online learning, hopes his new deep-learning course on Coursera will train people to use the most powerful idea to have emerged in AI in recent years. AI experts have become some of the most sought-after and well-paid employees in today's tech economy. Deep learning involves teaching a machine to perform a complex task using large amounts of data along with a large simulated neural network. The technique has typically required deep technical knowledge and expertise to master (see "10 Breakthrough Technologies 2013: Deep Learning").

Over the last few years, AI assistants have been on the rise. First, as a fun feature set, now ingrained as part of our daily lives. The personal brand experience, that is, how you interact with technology and brands is rapidly transforming. But will AI assistants and voice platforms rule the space? What do you think about the voice platform?