This is the time year when we start looking ahead. In that traditions, IBM has released five predictions about what changes will come about over the next five years. See whether you find them plausible:
1: The classroom wlll learn you. In other words, the type of individualized learning that has been on the horizon for so long will finally appear. About 30 years ago it was called "programmed learning," but it didn't get every far. Also, learning disorders will be identified more quickly and students given the treatment and type of education that help them learn more effectively.
2: Cancer will be treated taking into account each patient's DNA.
3: Buying local will come back into fashion. Customers will inspect the physical goods at a bricks and mortar outlet, place an order and get it delivered to their home the same day. (They didn't mention whether or not this would involve drones.)
4: The city will help you live in it. "Cities will become less bureaucratic and more open to sharing of data and social feedback making each citizen part of the decision-making process." They will gather masses of data ("freely provided" by residents) in real time to help improve transportation, education and other services.
5: A digital guardian will protect you online. Instead of passwords, your computer will depend on "a contextual security system that has a 360-degree view of your activity and connects the dots to know that you're you."
I find the digital guardian quite plausible, because that's also exactly the kind of information governments want to collect (and already are), so selling it as being in our best interests will undoubtedly be the approach they continue to take.
The predicted advances in medicine also are plausible, led by private hospitals that serve the people who can most afford them.
What about education? Well, my time in that world convinced me that it's very slow to change. Years ago I was part of a project in the US to determine how well schools were using audio-visual equipment they'd bought with federal grants. In school after school we found the equipment gathering dust in locked storerooms. The attitude toward tech has changed but I still doubt that a time traveller jumping five years ahead would be astonished by the changes in the average school.
The buying local scenario seems rather far-fetched. And as for government being less bureaucratic, well, let's all have a good chuckle about that one!
