By 2021, digital transformation will add an estimated USD 154 billion to India's GDP, and increase the growth rate by 1 percent annually, according to an IDC study commissioned by Microsoft. The study also predicts that approximately 60 percent of India's GDP will be derived from digital products or services by 2021. With the government's vision of becoming a USD 5 trillion economy by 2024, Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog believes technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) will propel India to achieve that target and even go beyond. "Our ambition should not just be to become a USD 5 trillion economy. Instead, we should aim to become a USD 10 trillion economy in the long run, growing at 9-10 percent year after year for three decades or more, to be able to lift our young population above the poverty line. All of this is not possible without using a large amount of data, AI and Machine Learning (ML) and bringing disruption in a vast range of areas," Kant said during a fireside chat with Anant Maheshwari, President Microsoft India at the Digital Governance Tech Summit 2019 in New Delhi.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has a perception problem in India. In the emerging debate around AI, it is either a bugaboo or the tech industry's secret potion for profiteering. It is also seen as a gigantic steamroller that is flattening the IT jobs landscape. Nothing could be farther from the truth. AI is making the future brighter; it represents civilizational progress.

Work means everything to us. But our beliefs around work are no longer plausible. In fact, they've become ridiculous, because there's not enough work to go around, and what there is of it won't pay the bills, writes James Livingston. The following is the first of two adapted excerpts from historian James Livingston's new book, "No More Work: Why Full Employment is a Bad Idea." Work means everything to us.

By combining satellite data and sophisticated machine learning, researchers have developed a technique to estimate household consumption and income. Such data is particularly difficult to obtain in poorer countries, yet it is critical for informing research and policy, and for efforts including resource allocation and targeted intervention in these developing nations. The African continent provides a particularly striking example of limited insights into economic wellbeing. According to World Bank data from 2000 to 2010, 39 out of 59 African countries conducted less than two surveys substantial enough to result in poverty measures. Surveys are costly, infrequent, and cannot always reach countries or regions within countries, for instance, due to armed conflict.

Matt Krisiloff is in a small, glass-walled conference room off the lobby of Y Combinator's office in San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood, shouting distance from some of the country's wealthiest startups, many of which Y Combinator has nurtured and helped fund. Krisiloff, who manages the operations of the tech incubator's program for very early-stage companies, is explaining why it is committed to investing an amount said to be in the tens of millions of dollars in a venture that is guaranteed never to make a penny. It's the simplest business model conceivable: hand thousands of dollars over to individuals in return for nothing, no strings attached. Krisiloff insists he and his Y Combinator colleagues can't wait to get started giving away the money. "This could be really transformative," he says. "It may help change how humans, society, and technology all operate together in the future."

Matt Krisiloff is in a small, glass-walled conference room off the lobby of Y Combinator's office in San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood, shouting distance from some of the country's wealthiest startups, many of which Y Combinator has nurtured and helped fund. Krisiloff, who manages the operations of the tech incubator's program for very early-stage companies, is explaining why it is committed to investing an amount said to be in the tens of millions of dollars in a venture that is guaranteed never to make a penny. It's the simplest business model conceivable: hand thousands of dollars over to individuals in return for nothing, no strings attached. Krisiloff insists he and his Y Combinator colleagues can't wait to get started giving away the money. "This could be really transformative," he says. "It may help change how humans, society, and technology all operate together in the future."