In 2020, we find ourselves at the cusp of transformation in how humanity solves its challenges, leverages technology to find clues to uncover hitherto mysteries, and drives transformation in the way we work, get things done, fight climate change, interact with others, and use artificial intelligence.
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have identified a number of breakthrough technologies that, if standardized and open-sourced, could find cures for the rarest of rare diseases, make our devices faster and smarter, the Internet unhackable, find out reasons behind natural calamities to prevent their occurrance in the future, and make data collection possible without impacting individual privacy.
Here are five breakthrough technologies being shaped by the tech industry that have the capability to redefine areas like healthcare, environment protection, artificial intelligence, the Web, and data privacy in the coming years.
Unhackable Internet
With data breaches becoming a daily life occurrence, companies losing control over data at an alarming scale, and personal details of billions of people being traded around by hackers on underground forums, data privacy has become more of a joke than a topic of relevance or concern. Despite the alacrity with which cybercriminals are breaking down security walls everywhere and feeding on the honey within, there are still scientists that haven’t lost hope. Yet.
Discovered by MIT, a group of researchers at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands are building an Internet based on quantum physics which, they claim with absolute confidence, can just not be hacked into. The team is working on a plan of connecting four cities- including Hague and Delft, using the new technology.
The technology involves transmitting pairs of photons across fiber-optic cables in a way that it is impossible to intercept information stored in them. It is based on a quantum behavior of atomic particles that prevents the reading of entangled photons without disrupting their content.
Differential Privacy
A unique solution to preserve the integrity of citizens’ personal data is the attempt to de-anonymize data and prevent anyone from narrowing down to individuals from bulk data used for statistics. This solution was attempted at scale by the U.S. Census Bureau which played around with data labels in census data without interfering with the totals of each age or ethnic group.
This method proves that injecting noise into data without impacting overall figures and totals can prevent the malicious identification of individuals through bulk data collected about a certain population. If employed at scale, this can prevent covert estimation of voting patterns of individuals and their likes and preferences.
Climate Change Attribution
While technology has so far played a massive role in proving that climate change is real and is an inescapable truth, new techniques are coming up that can link natural disasters like storms, floods, and eruptions to their precise causations. The use of weather-monitoring satellites and increased computational power is now enabling scientists to run weather simulations and virtual experiments.
These techniques have enabled scientists to prove that climate change is fueling more dangerous weather events and allow nations to prepare for impending crises by generating advance warnings about events like heat waves, flooding, and storms. If used at scale and evolved over the coming years, these techniques will help in many other objectives such as reversing desertification, increasing water tables, and preventing floods.
AI-discovered Molecules
According to MIT, the total number of molecules that can be turned into life-saving drugs is more than all the atoms in the solar system, but it is incredibly difficult to find the right ones and carry out repeated tests to ascertain their usefulness. There just isn’t enough time.
But thanks to new machine learning and deep learning tools, researchers are now able to identify such molecules at a surprising pace. Recently, researchers at Hong Kong–based Insilico Medicine and the University of Toronto used deep learning models to identify around 30,000 molecules with the required properties. If used at scale and improved in the long run, these technologies could prove to be a blessing for the healthcare industry in the future.
Tiny AI
While many technology companies have been offering AI-powered software and services to customers around the world, many of them using centralized cloud services means that devices have to send and receive packets of data at all times, thereby increasing latency and impacting the efficiency of operations. But thanks to new developments in AI technologies, researchers are now able to shrink AI algorithms and models into smaller boxes without impacting their abilities.
The evolution of Tiny AI has enabled data processing at the Edge- which means that AI-powered chips in smartphones, smart speakers, and other gadgets can analyze data and process it without having to interact with a centralized data center.
“Existing services like voice assistants, autocorrect, and digital cameras will get better and faster without having to ping the cloud every time they need access to a deep-learning model. Tiny AI will also make new applications possible, like mobile-based medical-image analysis or self-driving cars with faster reaction times. Finally, localized AI is better for privacy, since your data no longer needs to leave your device to improve a service or a feature,†notes MITOpens a new window .
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