Machine Learning (Dorsey, 2017)
The concept of machines doing work for people (often tedious and repetitive tasks) is nothing new, ever since the invention of the computer people and business have integrated various devices as a central part of their day to day activities. Recently though, there has been a shift in mindset about the way we use computers. Instead of teaching a machine to do something there are currently people working on how to create artificial intelligence that can teach itself using something known through deep learning, one of many subsets of machine learning. The concept of self-taught machines has existed since the 1960’s but recently major breakthroughs in the field have already allowed for machines to be developed that are solving problems where the results were considered to be decades away, if even solvable at all, if not for the machines. This discovery shows the potential to move away from writing line-by-line instructions for a computer, and towards having a self-sustaining computer that uses past results and it’s own experience as it is used to solve problems. This in turn greatly increases the potential of artificial intelligence to carry out more complicated tasks required for complex jobs in the workforce.
Quantum Computing (Marr, 2017)
Quantum computing is widely considered to be “the future” of computers and many of the big companies (like Google) and governments around the world are investing heavily into the research around it. Current computers make sense of and make decisions about data by using a sequence of bits that consist of 0’s and 1’s, likened in this article to a light switch. Quantum computers process data on the atomic and sub-atomic levels by making use of something called quantum bits, this allows for the quantum computer to store much more data on each of these bits. Using the light switch example it would be like using a knob which controls the level of brightness from all the way from each end of the traditional on-off switch, so instead of having two points to store data, it can now be stored anywhere in-between. There is also the belief that through the use of quantum computers companies can create process up to 1,000,000 (one million) times faster than any processor currently in existence. This being said, due to the complex nature of quantum computers (essentially transcending the laws of physics) there is no way to be completely certain just how big of a difference it would make. It is also due to this uncertain nature of if we will ever be able to really utilise quantum computing that makes it difficult to predict what a world with it would look like, but it is widely believed that the difference it would bring to business and homes would be as large as when computers where first introduced into our lives.