Renowned Researchers Predict How Emerging Technology Will Look in a Decade

December 7, 2016

It is Computer Science Education Week and Microsoft is celebrating with technology predictions for both next year and in a decade’s time.

Here are some of the forecasts Microsoft researchers are making.

Virtual Reality

“By 2027 we will have ubiquitous virtual reality systems that will provide such rich multisensorial experiences that will be capable of producing hallucinations which blend or alter perceived reality,” says Mar Gonzalez Franco, researcher, Redmond, MSR NExT. “Using this technology, humans will retrain, recalibrate and improve their perceptual systems. In contrast to current virtual reality systems that only stimulate visual and auditory senses, in the future the experience will expand to other sensory modalities including tactile with haptic devices.”

Artificial Intelligence

“AI is progressing very rapidly,” says Katja Hofmann, researcher, Cambridge, U.K., research lab. “I am especially excited about the potential for collaborative AI. We are now at the point where we can start to understand how AI can learn from us and collaborate with us to help us achieve our goals. It has great potential to empower people and help us tackle key global challenges. To me, the most important topic of discussion is how to ensure that by 2027 these advances and great potential translate into AI technology that results in the greatest possible benefit to society.”

Mobile

“The key advance in mobile computing by 2027 will be a significantly expanded relationship with the digital world, encompassing almost any “thing” that exists in our surroundings,” says Oriana Riva, researcher, Redmond, MSR NExT. “We’ll engage with intelligent and personal systems that truly understand us, that we can trust and that know us well enough to anticipate and serve our needs.”

Algorithms

“Our lives are being enhanced tremendously by artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms,” says Jennifer Chayes, managing director, New England and New York City research labs. “However, current algorithms often reproduce the discrimination and unfairness in our data and, moreover, are subject to manipulation by the input of misleading data. One of the great algorithmic advances of the next decade will be the development of algorithms which are fair, accountable and much more robust to manipulation.”