Artificial intelligence technologies offer a lot of potential to improve the world. Simulations could speed up disease and drug research, autonomous vehicles could cut energy use and its impact on the environment, and facial recognition could help quickly identify missing children. But there's a flip side to the good, and some major technology companies acknowledged the potential issues with facial recognition software last week, with IBM halting development while Amazon and Microsoft pledged to not sell the technology to the police for a set period of time. The moves come in the wake of incidents of police violence at widespread protests across the country in response to the death of George Floyd at the hands of police in Minneapolis in May. Privacy advocates have opposed the use of facial recognition software for years, saying it could be abused by the government to surveille and harass citizens.

CHENNAI, INDIA – Indian police have reunited thousands of missing and trafficked children with their families using a new facial recognition app that campaigners said is a "game changer" in tackling the problem. Tens of thousands of children go missing every year in India, and many are trafficked to work as beggars or in eateries, handicraft industries, factories or brothels. Police in the southern state of Telangana developed the facial recognition tool as part of Operation Smile, a periodic drive to tackle child labor and missing children. They scanned through more than 3,000 records on the app and were able to reunite more than half the children with their families in January. "The results are very encouraging," said senior officer Swathi Lakra, who oversaw the campaign.

Back in the '70s, renowned mathematician James Lighthill predicted that machines would never be capable of reasoning or even simple tasks, like being able to checkmate a chess pro. Fifty years later, artificial intelligence programs have not only defeated the world's top chess players, but they can match -- and in some cases, outperform -- humans when it comes to art, science and even companionship. Here's a look at nine outrageous things AI can do. Vincent van Gogh's painting technique was considered to be so revolutionary that art critics thought it was inimitable, but scientists from Germany's Bethge Lab invented a program that can replicate his iconic brush strokes. The AI system analysed the colours, shadows and highlights of "Starry Night," then used the same techniques to create an original painting of the Neckar river in Tuebingen, Germany.

The child labor activist, who works for Indian NGO Bachpan Bachao Andolan, had launched a pilot program 15 months prior to match a police database containing photos of all of India's missing children with another one comprising shots of all the minors living in the country's child care institutions. He had just found out the results. "We were able to match 10,561 missing children with those living in institutions," he told CNN. "They are currently in the process of being reunited with their families." Most of them were victims of trafficking, forced to work in the fields, in garment factories or in brothels, according to Ribhu. This momentous undertaking was made possible by facial recognition technology provided by New Delhi's police.

NEW DELHI – As India prepares to install a nationwide facial recognition system in an effort to catch criminals and find missing children, human rights and technology experts warn of the risks to privacy from increased surveillance. Use of the camera technology is an effort in "modernizing the police force, information gathering, criminal identification, verification," according to India's national crime bureau. Likely to be among the world's biggest facial recognition systems, the government contract was due to be awarded Friday. But there is little information on where it will be deployed, what the data will be used for and how data storage will be regulated, said Apar Gupta, executive director of the nonprofit Internet Freedom Foundation. "It is a mass surveillance system that gathers data in public places without there being an underlying cause to do so," he said.

NEW DELHI – As India prepares to install a nationwide facial recognition system in an effort to catch criminals and find missing children, human rights and technology experts on Thursday warned of the risks to privacy from increased surveillance. Use of the camera technology is an effort in "modernizing the police force, information gathering, criminal identification, verification," according to India's national crime bureau. Likely to be among the world's biggest facial recognition systems, the government contract is due to be awarded Friday. But there is little information on where it will be deployed, what the data will be used for and how data storage will be regulated, said Apar Gupta, executive director of non-profit Internet Freedom Foundation. "It is a mass surveillance system that gathers data in public places without there being an underlying cause to do so," he said.

As San Francisco moves to regulate the use of facial recognition systems, we reflect on some of the many'faces' of the fast-growing technology Last week, San Francisco became the first city in the United States to ban the use of facial recognition technology, at least by law enforcement, local agencies, and the city's transport authority. My immediate reaction to the headlines was that this was great for individuals' privacy, a truly bold decision by the San Francisco board of supervisors. The ordinance actually covers more than just facial recognition, as it states the following: "'Surveillance Technology' means any software, electronic device, system utilizing an electronic device, or similar device used, designed, or primarily intended to collect, retain, process, or share audio, electronic, visual, location, thermal, biometric, olfactory or similar information specifically associated with, or capable of being associated with, any individual or group.". The ban excludes San Francisco's airport and sea port as these are operated by federal agencies. Nor does it mean that no individual, company or other organizations installing surveillance systems that include facial recognition, and the agencies banned from using the technology, can cooperate with the people allowed to use it.

Last week, Amazon made the unexpected move of calling for regulation on facial recognition. In a blog post published on Thursday, Michael Punke, VP of global public policy at Amazon Web Services, expressed support for a "national legislative framework that protects individual civil rights and ensures that governments are transparent in their use of facial recognition technology." Facial recognition is one of the fastest-growing areas of the artificial intelligence industry. It has drawn interest from both the public and private sector and is already worth billions of dollars. Amazon has been moving fast to establish itself as a leader in facial recognition technology, actively marketing its Rekognition service to different customers, including law enforcement agencies.

In 2005, Danish brothers David and Christopher Mikkelsen met a young Afghan refugee called Mansour. Four months after fleeing Kabul and the Taliban with his parents and five siblings, Mansour became separated from them, ending up in Denmark with no idea what had happened to his family or where they were.

Thousands of children go missing every year in India, many victims of human trafficking. Facial recognition software is now helping reunite them with their families. In a recent trial police in the capital New Delhi used the technology to scour photos from a government database called TrackChild, which combines reports of missing children filed with police and records of children being held in childcare institutions.