Future careers will be completely new and different. What new and mind-blowing jobs will there be in 2018?

The arrival of the New Year is always exciting, especially when we feel the new trends in technology and the Internet that have emerged in 2017, which arouses our expectations for the future.

Quantum computing, spacecraft recovery, mind typing, facial recognition payment, unmanned supermarkets, driverless cars... Whether you have a deep understanding of these or not, they are quietly changing us and reshaping the world. As technology further enters our field of vision, we might as well make bold assumptions and carefully verify them: What new species of engineers will emerge in 2018?

The following professions, which once seemed like something out of science fiction, have already appeared around us and will influence us and create a completely new and different future.

Smart road engineer

Everyone hates traffic jams, but when you are stuck in traffic, have you ever imagined that there is a remote control in the car that can turn on the green light all the way with just one click?

Don't laugh! With the driverless cars of the future, smart roads can really make this dream come true. Various signals and monitoring systems on the road will form a network with all vehicles, and intersections will no longer need traffic lights and traffic police.

Various signs and markings can also be changed instantly, and if the main road is too congested, you can turn to the secondary road in time.

It will be the smart road engineers of the future who will make all of this happen. In addition to using traditional total stations for field surveys, they will also use big data and traffic simulation systems to design the behavior patterns of roads and vehicles, allowing the road system to intelligently handle various traffic conditions.

Companies he has worked for: Siemens, Tesla, Nissan

Quantum computer software engineer

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Microsoft is designing and building the world's first scalable quantum computer

Quantum computers are amazing and powerful, but like other computers, they require software to work.

To write software for quantum computers, we need a new group of engineers who understand the differences of quantum computers, can create programming languages ​​and function libraries suitable for quantum computers, and on this basis write software that can utilize the powerful capabilities of quantum computers. These guys will be the nerve endings of the brains of future politicians.

Companies he works for: Microsoft, Google

Gene editing engineer

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Gene editing is a powerful means of treating diseases. Just like using scissors to cut off bad branches and leaves, gene editing can reshape the state of life. Through the cultivation of new varieties of animals and plants and the treatment of diseases, gene editing has made diseases, aging, species extinction and other once-problematic problems more and more engineered.

Because what we could do in the past only through generations of hybridization experiments and repeated experiments on animals and patients may be achieved in the future through direct gene editing.

Gene editing engineers will understand how each gene works and how their expressions affect each other, and on this basis, they will propose solutions to improve crops and treat difficult and complicated diseases. Genes will change from a sacred book handed down from ancient times to a blueprint that we can understand and design.

Companies currently working for: Editas, Caribou Biosciences

Underground construction engineer

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The Ladybird TBM digging underground in Washington, D.C.

The process of urbanization will continue, and more people will live in cities in the future. Where will all these people stay? The future of sustainable development is not about skyscrapers that are getting taller and taller, but about three-dimensional, multifunctional underground spaces. Underground construction engineers will use existing tunnels, civil air defense projects or natural underground spaces, or design and build new underground cities from scratch. Biometric technology and indoor navigation technology can allow people to move freely underground, while new lighting and ventilation technologies can make underground spaces more comfortable than the ground and high-rise buildings.

Company: Boring

Eyeprint Recognition Engineer

On November 17, 2017, on CCTV1's "Super Smart" program, Ant Financial's eye pattern recognition technology successfully identified a pair of identical quadruplets.

Eye patterns are the arrangement of blood vessels in the white part of the eye. Currently, the cost-effectiveness and applicability of eye pattern recognition have surpassed iris recognition. In November 2017, ZOLOZ, a technology brand under Ant Financial, announced the development of the world's first eye pattern recognition technology, which can accurately identify identical twins with extremely similar appearances in laboratory scenarios.

In addition to improving recognition accuracy in the commercial field, this technology can also be used to help find lost children. Children's faces change a lot, but their eye wrinkles will not change.

Employment company: Ant Financial

Autonomous driving engineer

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The rapid development of autonomous driving technology is inseparable from the efforts of this group of engineers behind the scenes.

With the arrival of increasingly powerful hardware and more advanced algorithms, self-driving vehicles will one day free people from the troubles of driving and become a species that further connects the world. However, how to judge road conditions in real time and make appropriate responses? These require engineers to constantly find better methods.

Before self-driving cars become better “drivers,” having a combination of reinforcement learning techniques and computer vision that allow them to operate will require engineers to evaluate operations, who can see what future traffic will look like further than we do.

Companies he has worked for: Tesla, Daimler-Benz, Ford

Computer Vision Engineer

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Ant Financial's computer vision engineers are using skeletal analysis technology to accurately annotate user actions.

In the future, computers will be able to see more and faster than humans, and will be able to use the information they see to directly command robots, remind and assist people to work more efficiently.

In the retail industry, future computer vision engineers will use computer algorithms and image tracking technology to enable computers to see where customers are in the store, what products they take away, and what products they put down. New computer vision technology will be able to identify more customers shopping at the same time for real-time payment, and combine machine-assisted reminders to replenish, remove, and clean up goods in a timely manner.

Companies he works for: Amazon, Ant Financial, Alibaba

Human-machine integration engineer

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In the past, we talked about "human-computer interface" and "human-computer interaction", but the future trend will be "human-computer integration".

If it snows heavily in the middle of the night, your self-driving car will slow down when you go out, and your alarm clock will know to ring a quarter of an hour earlier to prevent you from being late for an appointment.

Your bracelet knows that your blood sugar is high today, and the refrigerator at home will remind HEMA Fresh to send you a cereal and ice cream with lower sugar content this week.

Human-computer integration engineers evolved from human-computer interface engineers. They will study how network, data and biometric technologies can promote the integration of people and computers, so that multiple computer systems can work together to achieve the goals set by people. Computers and networks will become more like our assistants and partners.

Companies currently working for: Facebook, Nest

Health Information Management Engineer

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In some hospitals, you can already register, get a number, pay for medicines, and get prescribed medicines with your mobile phone. In the future, you won’t even need to bring your mobile phone or medical records.

When you walk into the hospital, the doctor will know who is here, what the medical history is and what the contraindications are. After a simple and careful diagnosis, the doctor can prescribe the most suitable prescription for the patient. The process of this visit will also be recorded in the patient's electronic medical file, which will follow him wherever he goes. When the patient walks out of the hospital gate, his medicine will be delivered to his hand, and the cost will be automatically deducted from his medical insurance account.

Even in large-scale emergencies where injured and sick people are rushed to hospitals in large numbers, or where patients are unconscious and unaccompanied, their health information can guide hospital staff to quickly triage and provide appropriate treatment.

Future health information management engineers will develop new sensors and information storage systems to continuously and comprehensively record everyone’s health information. Together with doctors, they will study how to analyze and use this information to provide efficient and customized medical services.

Companies he works for: Amazon, SAP

Undoubtedly, under the new wave of technology, many people are thinking about the danger of their jobs being replaced by machines, but when technology reshapes the world, we should not panic. Under the wave of technological diversification, it brings not only challenges, but also more possibilities for our lives: diseases can be cured, the environment may be improved, and all past questions have new answers. Trying to find opportunities in challenges, isn't this what humans are constantly doing in evolution? As Kevin Kelly said in "What Technology Wants":