The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) looks to new artificial intelligence (AI) tech to solve and deter the horrors of human trafficking and child abduction. From gathering leads that can help law enforcement find kids at risk to catching the criminals who exploit them, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) relies heavily on its CyberTipline. What once was a trickle of data has turned into a flood of images, written reports, IP addresses, email addresses and much more. NCMEC's ambitions are to not only cope with the flood of information, but turn it into better, more actionable insights, more quickly. The organization increasingly turns to technology, including emerging Artificial Intelligence (AI) capabilities -- from finding patterns in reams of IP addresses to matching background items in a sea of grainy photographs.

The new superhero in the fight to find missing and exploited children is artificial intelligence. In 2016, there were 465,676 entries for missing children in the Federal Bureau of Investigation's National Crime Information Center. And in an effort to find missing children, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and Intel Corp. recently formed a new program, called Intel Inside, Safer Children Outside, to apply AI to the problem. During the South by Southwest event held in Austin TX, an "AI for Good: Harnessing Power to Solve Problems" panel convened. Mark Gianturco, Ph.D., PMP, vice president and chief technology officer of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, participated in the discussion.

Nataliia Dmytriievska was 15 years old and enveloped by flames when she first heard the call of outer space. A year earlier her boyfriend had taught her the basics of poi, a Maori dance in which performers swing flaming, tethered weights to describe bright geometric shapes in the dark. Despite the burns and bruises she earned, Dmytriievska was a determined pupil. She would practice for hours each day, drawing flowers and other outlines around her body using dummy weights, before attempting the same perilous tricks using fire. Although money was never the primary motivation – "I simply love the fire; there is something magical when you feel like it's in your control," she said – after a few years Dmytriievska turned semi-professional. She joined a circus troupe in her home city of Kiev, Ukraine to help support her university studies. In June 2007, the troupe began rehearsals for an interpretation of Edgar Allan Poe's poem, The Raven. As the backing music sounded out for the first time – a pipe organ, played rhythmically, as if calling people to worship, soon joined by galloping guitars and a furious drumbeat – Dmytriievska took to the stage. But her mind was not on the performance. As soon as she finished the routine she left the stage, walked up to her friend on the mixing desk and asked: "Where is that music from?" Eve Online: how a virtual world went to the edge of apocalypse and back. The track, he said, came from Eve Online, a science-fiction video game. It is, he explained, a game set in a vast galaxy comprised of tens of thousands of stars and planets, and inhabited by half a million or so people from around the world, who explore and do battle together daily via the internet.

Alex Gianturco was a successful corporate lawyer based in Washington, D.C. Then, in 2011, he gave up his day job at Zuckerman Spaeder LLP, moved to Madison, Wisconsin, and focused all his efforts on his other passion: being a space pirate. Known as The Mittani within the virtual world of "Eve Online," Gianturco commands an army of 40,000 space pilots loyal to his Imperium coalition. He has a trusted band of lieutenants and uses propaganda, espionage and deception to retain his position as the game's most powerful player, describing himself as the Vladimir Putin of the "Eve" universe. He has even leveraged his position to earn a living from "Eve Online," setting up his own website and even renting out his army of mercenaries to other video games.