HITS

As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to proliferate, the amount of “biased” AI systems and algorithms will significantly rise, but only “unbiased” AI will survive, according to Arvind Krishna, head of IBM Research.

That was one of five new predictions that IBM Research made in the latest entry in its annual “5 in 5” technology predictions for the next five years, he said March 19 in a post at IBM’s web site as the company’s annual Think conference kicked off in Las Vegas.

“Within five years, we will have new solutions to counter a substantial increase in the number of biased AI systems and algorithms,” Krishna said, adding: “As we work to develop AI systems we can trust, it’s critical to develop and train these systems with data that is fair, interpretable and free of racial, gender, or ideological biases. With this goal in mind, IBM researchers developed a method to reduce the bias that may be present in a training dataset, such that any AI algorithm that later learns from that dataset will perpetuate as little inequity as possible. IBM scientists also devised a way to test AI systems even when the training data is not available.”

AI-powered robot microscopes, meanwhile, may save our increasingly dirty oceans, according to IBM Research. “In five years, small, autonomous AI microscopes, networked in the cloud and deployed around the world, will continually monitor in real time the health of one of Earth’s most important and threatened resources: water,” Krishna predicted, adding: “IBM scientists are working on an approach that uses plankton, which are natural, biological sensors of aquatic health. AI microscopes can be placed in bodies of water to track plankton movement in 3D, in their natural environment, and use this information to predict their behavior and health. This could help in situations like oil spills and runoff from land-based pollution sources, and to predict threats such as red tides.”

IBM Research also predicted that blockchain and “crypto-anchors,” such as ink dots or tiny computers smaller than a grain of salt, will unite against counterfeiters over the next five years. Cryptographic anchors will be embedded in everyday objects and devices, and they’ll be used “in tandem with blockchain’s distributed ledger technology to ensure an object’s authenticity from its point of origin to when it reaches the hands of the customer,” Krishna predicted. These technologies “pave the way for new solutions that tackle food safety, authenticity of manufactured components, genetically modified products, identification of counterfeit objects and provenance of luxury goods,” he said.

IBM is developing encryption methods to keep up with emerging technologies including quantum computers, which he predicted “will someday be able to break all current encryption protocols.” IBM researchers already developed a post-quantum encryption method, called lattice cryptography, that it’s submitted to the U.S. government, he said, adding: “No computer can crack it, not even future quantum computers.  With lattice cryptography we can work on a file, or encrypt it, without ever exposing sensitive data to hackers.”

Last, although quantum computing is just a “researcher’s playground” today, he predicted that, in five years, it will become mainstream. Quantum computing will “be used extensively by new categories of professionals and developers to solve problems once considered unsolvable,” he predicted, adding: “Quantum will be ubiquitous in university classrooms, and will even be available, to some degree, at the high school level. IBM Researchers are already achieving major quantum chemistry milestones. They successfully simulated atomic bonding in beryllium hydride (BeH2), the most complex molecule ever simulated by a quantum computer. In the future, quantum computers will continue to address problems with ever increasing complexity, eventually catching up to and surpassing what we can do with classical machines alone.”

The ability of our society to “overcome intractable challenges and unprecedented threats depends on steady advancements in technologies like AI, blockchain, lattice cryptography and quantum computing – all of which IBM Research has invested in heavily,” Krishna said.