10 inventions to change the world

THE TECHNOLOGICAL BREAKTHROUGHS THAT MIGHT LEAD TO A BETT ER TOMORROW

We explore some of the innovations that will make our planet a better place

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

If there’s one thing that elicits thoughts of the future, it’s artificial intelligence (AI). But AI is already changing our lives in more ways than you might think, such as stopping violence and flying our planes.

Driverless cars might hog the headlines, but in June 2017 Boeing tested an autonomous plane that could take off, cruise and land with little human input. Whether a self-flying cockpit would be trusted by the public is another matter, but most are already comfortable with autopilot technology, so who knows where this may go.

A company out in the US called ShotSpotter, meanwhile, has been looking at using acoustic sensors to pinpoint the location of gunfire during a shooting or crime. Machine learning confirms that a gun produced the sound and then counts how many there are, telling police what to expect.

These are just some of the many ways AI might change our lives in the coming years.