I’m not an expert in much beyond software but I find it delightful to be validated in my understanding of the world when my forecasts prove accurate. To that end I’m freezing and timestamping a few of my salient predictions for 2023. In the event I’m right about them I can show the world so.
both Siri and G Assistant are getting big upgrades to feel like talking to GPT. this will include a host of new integrations.
ChatOS – somebody wraps Linux in a chatbot for an Ironman-Jarvis-style computer interface
Real-time talking game superiority by AI – past Diplomacy (Meta’s recent accomplishment), a bot speaks audio through a computer to best humans at a speaking-based game
Meta bounceback – big VR partnership is announced, big marketing push, everyone sees the light for VR for a second at least
LLM-crafted GUIs – ChatGPT encroaches on Retool’s turf with an interactive GUI builder that spews code behind the scenes to make at least web interfaces, maybe also desktop
news of Putin’s cancer is overblown, I bet he makes it through the year. but the most popular thing his successor could do is end the war. the US has a vested interest in garnering favor with (and having a hand in selecting) his replacement. it’s US cancer drugs keeping Putin alive. if we really wanted we could commandeer the drugs. but we won’t for fear of blowback. Germany won’t be the first to enter the war, but Europe is suffering from lack of oil. Germany proxies a neighboring state to back the effort with real forces. but if the aim is restoration of trade relations, they can’t be seen to be at odds with Russia in the conflict. candidly Putin picked the wrong country to attack, like he could buy Belarus outright. probably after a protracted turf war, no Ukrainian ground is given, he comes up with a plausible story for shifting efforts, Belarusian president even seems like a Soviet sympathizer (and a dictator). maybe after making war on multiple fronts he convenes a council of post-Soviet states, where someone else’s ground is conceded and the aggression concludes.
no uprising is forthcoming
some debts may come due
some economies will quietly fall to the control of their debtor
maybe they foreclose on Argentina or Congo
China may prove to be the only empire that grows through purely economic conquest
but it’s not like war is imminent, they’re not going to crest US GDP within the year, and they have a vested interest in continuing to fly under the radar (not start conflict)
news gets worse
more, less credible, less relevant news stories crowd the news feed as new publications spring up to harness the new tech, and existing publications think they can get away with a few LLM-written articles to beef up their story count
maybe someone realizes they can use an LLM to curate, but we still struggle to learn truth and relevance as features, so AI curation can’t solve the core problem
news stories about this problem, written by LLMs no less, proliferate
maybe print finally loses relevance
the solution here is proof-of-human-authorship, and brands/publications that take a pledge of humanity. if this idea hits this year it’ll sweep through a bunch of secondary news outlets who all take the pledge
in addition to shittier news, we’ll get actively malicious news from a few state actors. the US govt will realize this is a problem and create a new bureau of AI defense, while surreptitiously figuring out how to leverage their defense into AI offense. this AI offense is handed off to Ukraine, who start propagandizing Russians and overrunning internet channels with “the truth” which is just Ukrainian propaganda.
First bio reconstructions – we render bacteria digitally from genes, rules, and AI
announcement of the first designer baby with a purely cosmetic modification, not in the US.
one designer protein hits the market
first major US climate migration – due to flooding, large parts of a US city are no longer inhabitable, so all the residents have to move
many more such events abroad, a couple crises, one of which upsets global markets because it cuts off access to natural resources