10 technologies that will change the world, according to Bill Gates

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Robots will get smarter, nuclear power will be safer, and cancer patients may receive a life-saving vaccine.

Each year, the MIT Technology Review publishes 10 breakthrough technologies. In 2019, this task was entrusted to an external expert - Microsoft founder Bill Gates. Here are the innovations that he believes will change our future.

1. Robotics

Robots in 2019 can successfully assemble components on a conveyor belt, but if the scenario is slightly changed, the machine will be helpless. It cannot be taught to understand how to work with any object, but it can be programmed to learn on its own by trial and error.

San Francisco-based company OpenAI has created the Dactyl robotic arm, which can smoothly move the letter cube with its fingers and find the given matches. The main task of OpenAI was to teach the robot to act regardless of the circumstances - the developers experimented with the position of the Dactyl, colors, weight and materials of the cube.

Truly smart machines are still a long way off, but such programs will help robots learn how to assemble gadgets, load dishwashers, and help older people get out of bed.

2. Nuclear power

According to Bill Gates, traditional technologies must evolve: production of less hazardous small modular reactors and replacement of enriched uranium-235 with depleted uranium-238 are required. This will solve the problem of the shortage of the previously used isotope: there is much more depleted uranium in nature.

Developments in this direction are carried out by Terrestrial Energy and TerraPower. In the life of the latter, Gates is directly involved in the role of the main investor and chairman of the board of directors. The experimental reactor could not be built in America or China due to safety restrictions and a ban on the export of critical technologies. But that doesn't stop Gates from talking about a new era of electrification with technological reactors fueled by depleted uranium in the 2020s.

3. Predicting premature birth

Our genetic material lives inside our cells, but small amounts of DNA and RNA also circulate in the blood plasma. Scientists from Stanford, led by bioengineer Stephen Quake, have learned to determine the risk of preterm birth using this extracellular material. All the expectant mother needs to do is donate blood for analysis. The startup, which aims to bring the technology to the commercial market, is called Mirvie (formerly Akna Dx).

4. Endoscopy with a pill

Classical endoscopy is unpleasant for adults and difficult for babies. Guillermo Tierney, a pathologist and engineer at Massachusetts Hospital, is developing special probe capsules that are more comfortable to swallow than an endoscopy hose. Each device is equipped with a miniature microscope and a thin cable that carries power and data.

Bill Gates says the pill endoscope will help children in underdeveloped regions of the world diagnose tropical enteropathy, but in fact the technology can make it easier to investigate any gastrointestinal problem.

5. Individual vaccination against cancer

Scientists at the startup BioNTech believe that each patient's cancer cells mutate in a unique way. Therefore, the company is developing vaccines that contain data on these mutations. They stimulate the patient's immune system and help fight cancer. Healthy cells that are inevitably killed by chemotherapy are not affected.

For now, the startup continues to conduct research to market what might be the first working cancer vaccine.

6. Production of artificial meat

According to forecasts of 9.7 billion on Earth by 2050, but growth rate slowing, says the new UN population report, in 2050 the population of the Earth will be 9.7 billion. And this means that humanity will begin to consume even more meat. However, its production requires How does eating meat harm the environment? large resources. For example, to produce 1 lb (0.43 kg) beef, you need 16 lbs (7.2 kg) vegetable feed and about 10,000 liters of water. By comparison, growing 1 pound of wheat will require just under 100 liters of water.

People are trying to find alternatives, and now there are at least two of them. First, there is meat from a test tube. The technology is promising, but far from entering the commercial market. The second alternative is farmed meat that matches the animal's taste, smell and characteristic sizzle in the pan. This is already being produced by Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods - Bill Gates became an investor in both.

7. Absorption of carbon dioxide

Harvard physics professor David Keith proposes capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Such a solution would require less than $ 100 per ton. In the long term, this will help to cope with the consequences of the greenhouse effect.

Keith proposes not only to "catch" carbon dioxide, but also to use it to obtain synthetic fuel. In addition, the Swiss company Climeworks, with a subsidiary in Italy, is already producing methane from carbon dioxide, which it uses to bubble drinks.

Not only Gates, who became an investor in the startup, but also the US Department of Energy, which partially finances the company's activities, believes in Keith's Carbon Engineering project.

8. Simple ECG measurement

To get an electrocardiogram, you usually have to go to the hospital. Startup AliveCor has offered an alternative in the form of a special strap for Apple Watch smartwatches. A little later, the Apple Watch of the fourth and fifth generations themselves began to work using a similar technology, taking an ECG using a sensor on a digital crown. Also, the company Withings says about similar developments.

The main problem with these technologies is that they use one sensor, not 12, as in a medical examination, and are not able to detect a heart attack. However, in the fall of 2018, AliveCor introduced a new development - a smartphone gadget with two sensors, capable of identifying a certain type of heart attack.

9. Sewerage-free waste system

Waste-free toilets are needed primarily in undeveloped countries, where sewage is discharged into water bodies and contributes to the spread of epidemics and infectious diseases. In 2011, Bill Gates launched a competition for young companies to invent toilets that recycle themselves and do not require sewage. Next came Biomass Controls, which presented a waste heating system for the formation of fertilizers.

10. Truly smart voice assistants

Modern voice assistants work only within the programs assigned to them, but they are trying to overcome these limitations. For example, OpenAI is designing a self-learning voice assistant system that does not require manual input of all instructions. Such technologies will one day allow us not only to interact with the assistant in a “request-response” format, but to conduct a full-fledged dialogue.

Google also shows its developments. Its BERT system, which studied millions of sentences, can predict missing words in the text as well as a person. Even more futuristic is Google Duplex - a pumped-up "Google Assistant" that can answer spam calls and call a restaurant to reserve a table for the user.