The Biggest Ways Tech Will Transform Our Lives In The Next 5 Years
In the not too distant future, your next checkup could be conducted by a virtual doctor. And your smartphone will not only have access to digital assistants like Alexa and Siri, but also vastly intelligent artificial intelligence systems that are capable of doing much more than reciting the weather or fetching answers to questions.
That’s according to Dr. James Canton, CEO and chairman of the Institute for Global Futures, a San Francisco-based think tank that advises clients on upcoming business and technology trends.
For years, large tech firms like Facebook and Google have been emphasizing the impact that emerging fields like AI and augmented reality could have on our everyday lives. But because these technologies are still in their early stages, it can be difficult to appreciate how significant they will really be.
That’s where Canton comes in.
In an interview with Business Insider, he described how our lives will change over the next five years as a result of advances in several important technologies.
“There’s so much more innovation that’s available than people are capable of embracing,” Canton said. “So there’s always a lag between the innovation breakthroughs and the actual application in the marketplace.”
Reality will be a “blend” of the physical environment and data streams
Artificial intelligence technology is advancing very rapidly and is going to fundamentally change how we get our healthcare, with virtual doctors and AI-powered diagnostics on the horizon, Canton said.
“We came out of the AI winter,” he said, referring to a period when AI tech fell out of favor within the industry. Canton attributes today’s AI renaissance to advances in how computers can learn — such as reinforced machine learning — and the abundance of data now available for machines to learn from. Innovations like 3D-printed organs will also have a big impact on healthcare by boosting lifespans, he said.
The AI sector is set to grow financially in the coming years too. Market research firm Gartner predicts that the global business value derived from artificial intelligence could hit $3.9 trillion in 2022.
Another area that’s likely to boom in the coming years is what Canton calls “blended reality,” which is a convergence of augmented reality, virtual reality, and telepresence. This type of technology would make it possible to view digital information in the real world without having to wear glasses or rely on your smartphone, Canton says. “This will be instantaneous,” he said. “Those cumbersome things will disappear, and you’ll be able to moderate how much [digital information] you want.”