IBM researchers revealed their five big predictions for innovations that will change our lives in the next five years. Dubbed IBM 5 in 5, the predictions were culled from more than 3,000 researchers across 12 labs on six continents.

These predictions focus on the future of artificial intelligence and mental health, AI-based superhero vision, macroscopes that capture the Earth’s complexity, medical labs on a chip, and smart sensors that will detect environmental pollution. Innovations in these areas could enable us to dramatically improve farming, enhance energy efficiency, spot harmful pollution before it’s too late, and prevent premature physical and mental health decline.

“The scientific community has a wonderful tradition of creating instruments to help us see the world in entirely new ways. For example, the microscope helped us see objects too small for the naked eye and the thermometer helped us understand temperature of the earth and human body,” said Dario Gil, vice president of science and solutions at IBM Research, in a statement. “With advances in artificial intelligence and nanotechnology, we aim to invent a new generation of scientific instruments that will make the complex invisible systems in our world today visible over the next five years.”



For fun, take a look at IBM’s predictions in 2013. Here are this year’s predictions, in IBM’s words:

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

Close up of an analysis of Hamlet's "to be or not to be" soliloquy using IBM Research's app on a mobile device.

Above: Closeup of an analysis of Hamlet’s “to be or not to be” soliloquy using IBM Research’s app on a mobile device.

Image Credit: IBM

Today, one in five adults in the U.S. experiences a mental health condition, be it neurological (Huntington’s, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s etc.) or mental (depression or psychosis), every year and roughly half of individuals with severe psychiatric disorders receive no treatment. Globally, the cost of treating mental disorders is greater than the costs of diabetes, respiratory disorders and cancer combined. The economic burden of mental disorders reaches a trillion dollars per year in the U.S. alone.

If the brain is a black box that we don’t fully understand, then speech is a key to unlock it. 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 mental and neurological diseases that can help doctors and patients better predict, monitor and track these diseases.


In the future, similar techniques could be used to help patients with Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s disease, PTSD and even behavioral conditions such as autism and ADHD. Cognitive computers can analyze a patient’s speech or written words to look for tell-tale indicators found in language, including meaning, syntax and intonation. Combining the results of these measurements with those from wearables devices and imaging systems (MRIs and EEGs) can paint a more complete picture of the individual for health professionals to better identify, understand and treat the underlying disease.


Hyperimaging and AI will give us superhero vision

Millimeter-wave radar imaging experimental set-up.

Above: Millimeter-wave radar imaging experimental setup.

Image Credit: IBM






Macroscopes will help us understand Earth’s complexity in infinite detail

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.


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 for meaning.




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.

In the next five 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.

The 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 streaming into the cloud from the convenience of their home. There it could be combined with data from other IoT-enabled devices, like sleep monitors and smart watches, 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.


Smart sensors will detect environmental pollution at the speed of light


Above: In the next five years, networks of sensors like this miniature silicon chip trace-gas spectrometer will help us “see” and manage environmental pollutants. This sensor design uses IBM’s expertise in silicon photonics to detect methane with infrared light brought in via optical fibers.

Image Credit: IBM


Measured as CO2-equivalent over 100 years, that’s more greenhouse gases than were emitted by all U.S. iron and steel, cement and aluminum manufacturing facilities combined. 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. 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. Scientists at IBM are tackling this vision, working with natural gas producers such as Southwestern Energy to explore the development of an intelligent methane monitoring system and as part of the ARPA-E Methane Observation Networks with Innovative Technology to Obtain Reductions (MONITOR) program.
