In 1609, Galileo invented the telescope and saw our cosmos in an entirely new way. He proved the theory that Earth and other planets in our solar system revolve around the Sun, which until then was impossible to observe. IBM Research continues this work through the pursuit of new scientific instruments – whether physical devices or advanced software tools – designed to make what’s invisible in our world visible, from the macroscopic level down to the nanoscale.

Consider five innovations that will change our lives in the next five years:

1. With AI, our words will be a window into our mental health.

In five years, what we say and write will be used as indicators of our mental health and physical wellbeing. Patterns in our speech and writing analyzed by new cognitive systems will provide tell-tale signs of early-stage developmental disorders, mental illness and degenerative neurological diseases that can help doctors and patients better predict, monitor and track these conditions.

Brain disorders, including developmental, psychiatric and neurodegenerative diseases, represent an enormous disease burden, in terms of human suffering and economic cost.

...Cognitive computers will analyze a patient’s speech or written words to look for tell-tale indicators found in language, including meaning, syntax and intonation.

... What were once invisible signs will become clear signals of patients’ likelihood of entering a certain mental state or how well their treatment plan is working, complementing regular clinical visits with daily assessments from the comfort of their homes.

2. Hyperimaging and AI will give us superhero vision

In five years, new imaging devices using hyperimaging technology and AI will help us see broadly beyond the domain of visible light by combining multiple bands of the electromagnetic spectrum to reveal valuable insights or potential dangers that would otherwise be unknown or hidden from view. Most importantly, these devices will be portable, affordable and accessible, so superhero vision can be part of our everyday experiences.

More than 99.9 percent of the electromagnetic spectrum cannot be observed by the naked eye.

...A view of the invisible or vaguely visible physical phenomena all around us could help make road and traffic conditions clearer for drivers and self-driving cars. For example, using millimeter wave imaging, a camera and other sensors, hyperimaging technology could help a car see through fog or rain, detect hazardous and hard-to-see road conditions such as black ice, or tell us if there is some object up ahead and its distance and size. Cognitive computing technologies will reason about this data and recognize what might be a tipped over garbage can versus a deer crossing the road, or a pot hole that could result in a flat tire.

3. Macroscopes will help us understand Earth's complexity in infinite detail

In five years, we will use machine-learning algorithms and software to help us organize the information about the physical world to help bring the vast and complex data gathered by billions of devices within the range of our vision and understanding. We call this a "macroscope" – but unlike the microscope to see the very small, or the telescope that can see far away, it is a system of software and algorithms to bring all of Earth's complex data together to analyze it by space and time for meaning.

Today, the physical world only gives us a glimpse into our interconnected and complex ecosystem. We collect exabytes of data – but most of it is unorganized. In fact, an estimated 80 percent of a data scientist’s time is spent scrubbing data instead of analyzing and understanding what that data is trying to tell us.

...Thanks to the Internet of Things, new sources of data are pouring in from millions of connected objects -- from refrigerators, light bulbs and your heart rate monitor to remote sensors such as drones, cameras, satellites and telescope arrays.

...Macroscope technology will transform many industries while revealing new insights about some of the most fundamental problems we face, such as the availability of food, water and energy.

... Beyond our own planet, macroscope technologies could handle, for example, the complicated indexing and correlation of various layers and volumes of data collected by telescopes to predict asteroid collisions with one another and learn more about their composition.

4. Medical labs “on a chip” will serve as health detectives for tracing disease at the nanoscale

In 5 years, new medical labs on a chip will serve as nanotechnology health detectives – tracing invisible clues in our bodily fluids and letting us know immediately if we have reason to see a doctor. The goal is to shrink down to a single silicon chip all of the processes necessary to analyze a disease that would normally be carried out in a full-scale biochemistry lab.

Early detection of disease is crucial. In most cases, the earlier the disease is diagnosed, the more likely it is to be cured or well controlled. However, diseases like cancer or Parkinson’s can be hard to detect – hiding in our bodies before symptoms appear. Information about the state of our health can be extracted from tiny bioparticles in bodily fluids such as saliva, tears, blood, urine and sweat. Existing scientific techniques face challenges for capturing and analyzing these bioparticles, which are thousands of times smaller than the diameter of a strand of human hair.

Lab-on-a-chip technology could ultimately be packaged in a convenient handheld device to allow people to quickly and regularly measure the presence of biomarkers found in small amounts of bodily fluids, sending this information securely streaming into the cloud from the convenience of their home. There it could be combined with real-time health data from other IoT-enabled devices, like sleep monitors and smartwatches, and analyzed by AI systems for insights. When taken together, this data set will give us an in depth view of our health and alert us to the first signs of trouble, helping to stop disease before it progresses.

5. Smart sensors will detect environmental pollution at the speed of light

In five years, new, affordable sensing technologies deployed near natural gas extraction wells, around storage facilities, and along distribution pipelines will enable the industry to pinpoint invisible leaks in real-time.

Most pollutants are invisible to the human eye, until their effects make them impossible to ignore.

...In the United States, emissions from oil and gas systems are the largest industrial source of methane gas in the atmosphere.

...Networks of IoT sensors wirelessly connected to the cloud will provide continuous monitoring of the vast natural gas infrastructure, allowing leaks to be found in a matter of minutes instead of weeks, reducing pollution and waste and the likelihood of catastrophic events.

Discussion questions:

• 1. What is interesting about this article?

  2. What are some innovations that you think or heard about that will change people's lives, in your region of the world, in the near future?

  3. What are some negative effects that these new innovations could have on our lives?

  4. Do you think computer will ever replace man?