Bangkok--14 Jan--IBM
IBM Predicts – in Five Years Everything will Learn
IBM has unveiled its eighth annual "IBM 5 in 5" – a list of innovations that have the potential to change the way people work, live and interact during the next five years.
This year’s IBM 5 in 5 explores the idea that everything will learn – driven by a new era of cognitive systems where machines will learn, reason and engage with us in a more natural and personalized way. These innovations are beginning to emerge enabled by cloud computing, big data analytics and learning technologies all coming together, with the appropriate privacy and security considerations, for consumers, citizens, students and patients.
Over time these computers will get smarter and more customized through interactions with data, devices and people, helping us take on what may have been seen as unsolvable problems by using all the information that surrounds us and bringing the right insight or suggestion to our fingertips right when it’s most needed. A new era in computing will lead to breakthroughs that will amplify human abilities, assist us in making good choices, look out for us and help us navigate our world in powerful new ways.
The IBM 5 in 5 is based on market and societal trends as well as emerging technologies from IBM’s Research labs around the world that can make these transformations possible.
Here are the five predictions that will define the future and impact us at a personal level:
The classroom will learn you
The number of individuals who don’t have a sufficient education is a major global challenge. Estimates show that, on a global basis, nearly 2 out of every 3 adults have not achieved the equivalent of a high school education. What if a student could go through their entire stages of education and master the skills critical to meeting their personal goals in life?
The classroom of the future will give educators the tools to learn about every student, providing them with a tailored curriculum from kindergarten to high school and on to employment. In the next five years the classroom will learn about each student using longitudinal data such as test scores, attendance and student’s behavior on e-learning platforms, not just aptitude tests. Sophisticated analytics delivered over the cloud will provide decision support to teachers so they can predict students who are most at risk, their roadblocks, and then suggest measures to help students conquer their challenges based on their individual learning style.
IBM scientists are already getting to work in the classroom. In a first-of-a-kind research project with Gwinnett County Public Schools, the 14th largest school district in the US, IBM will leverage big data analytics and learning technologies for population analysis of longitudinal student records. The project aims to identify similarities of learning, predict performance and learning needs, then align specific content and successful teaching techniques to improve outcomes for each of the district’s 170,000 students and ultimately increase the district's graduation rate.
Buying local will beat online
Shopping online is a national past time. Online sales topped $1 trillion worldwide for the first time last year, and are growing faster than in-store sales.
Online stores currently have an advantage in their ability to learn from the choices we make on the web. Today, most physical stores are limited to the insights they can gain at the point of sale – and the trend of showrooming is making it harder to compete with online retailers who compete solely on price.
In five years, new innovations will make buying local du jour once again. Savvy retailers will use the immediacy of the store and proximity to customers to create experiences that cannot be replicated by online-only retail. They will magnify the digital experience by bringing the web right to where the shopper can physically touch it.
In five years, retailers could rely on Watson-like technologies to equip sales associates to be expert about every product in the store. With technologies such as augmented reality and the recently announced plan to open Watson as an app development platform, IBM is providing shoppers’ with better in-store browsing and buying experiences.
As mobile devices supported by cloud computing enable individuals to share what makes them tick, their health or nutritional needs, virtual closets, social networks, retailers will soon be able to anticipate with incredible accuracy the products a shopper most wants and needs. As a result, stores will transform into immersive destinations with experiences customized for each individual.
And given their proximity and multiple footprints, stores will be able to offer shoppers a variety of fast pick-up or delivery options, wherever the customer is. Two day shipping will feel like snail mail.
Doctors will routinely use your DNA to keep you well
Cancer is a complicated disease and despite tremendous advances in research and treatment, cancer incidences have risen more than 10 percent since 2008, striking more than 14 million patients and claiming the lives of 8.1 million every year around the world.
Imagine if treatment could be more specific and precise – where computers could help doctors understand how a tumor affects a patient down to their DNA and present a collective set of medications shown to best attack the cancer.
In five years, advances in big data analytics and emerging cloud-based cognitive systems coupled with breakthroughs in genomic research and testing could help doctors to accurately diagnose cancer and create personalized cancer treatment plans for millions of patients around the world. Smart machines will take the output of full genome sequencing and scour vast repositories of medical records and publications to learn and quickly provide specific and actionable insights on treatment options for oncologists.
Cancer care, personalized right down to a genomic level, has been on the horizon since scientists first sequenced the human genome, but few clinicians have access to the tools and time to assess the insights available at this level. Within five years, cloud-based cognitive systems could make such personalized medicine available at a scale and speed never before possible.
IBM is beginning to explore this opportunity, working with health care partners to develop systems that could deliver genomic insights and reduce the time it takes to find the right treatment for a patient from weeks and months to days and minutes.
These systems are destined to get even smarter over time by learning about people, their genomic information and response to drugs – opening up the possibility to provide DNA-specific personalized treatment options for conditions such as stroke and heart disease. Through the cloud, smarter healthcare could scale to reach more people in more locations, while also giving a global community of healthcare providers access to vital information.