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Ask HN: A New Decade. Any Predictions?

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Re: Ask HN: A New Decade. Any Predictions?

#681
1) A new energy source solves the energy problem and Oil becomes worthless overnight.

2) ICE cars deprecate 50% every year and EV's sales eclipse ICE.

3) Self driving is solved mid way through the decade and human driving is banned as accident's drop to almost zero.

4) Google announces that their AI system has gained consciousness.

5) Facebook is bought by a Chinese company for a few billion after its active user base collapses.

6) Twitter posts are doubled to 560 and tweets can be edited and versioned.

7) Hackernews allows inline images to be posted.

8) All major tech companies adopt ES-10 (Javascript) as their programming language for all development after major improvements in performance add safety.

9) Netflix and Disney merge to become the biggest media giant ever.

10) Tesla/SpaceX merge to become the first $10 trillion dollar company.

Re: Ask HN: A New Decade. Any Predictions?

#682
post #132

Here are mine: 1. Still no level 4/5 autonomous cars anywhere in sight. The promise of being "just around the corner" fizzles down and people just forget the hype. 2. Same with AI. The panacea hype dies down. No AGI at all. No major job losses due to AI automation. 3. Facebook (the SN) still exists but ages along with it's current user base. i.e it's the "old people's" SN. Facebook (the company) is still going strong…

> 8. Web development matures and a "standard" stack is accepted, all in JS. I'd walk into traffic.

Right, but because the traffic will all be autonomous vehicles, that will be totally safe.

Re: Ask HN: A New Decade. Any Predictions?

#683
post #666

1. Deep learning will enter its next wave with increased biomimicry end efficiency. Ai will continue to evolve linearly. AGI will still be decades off. 2. Psychidelics will again enter the public sphere and we will see phychidelic therapy in the UK/US. They will also lead the development of a new theory of the mind and consiousness that enter the mainstream. 3. Plant/fungus based food will continue to expand while me…

> Cannabis will be legalised federally in the [...] UK

Are you implying that the UK will rejoin the EU, which by then has become a superstate, or that it will have become a territory of the US?

Re: Ask HN: A New Decade. Any Predictions?

#684
1. Utility-scale battery storage switches to a technology that is unsuited to consumer battery storage. For example, the batteries might only operate at high temperatures. They could be based on sodium.

2. The USA will dominate soccer.

3. Immigrants will cause a civil war or revolution in a European country. There will be genocide.

4. Car communication will be hacked, again, but this time it won't be for cautious fun. One day during rush hour, all cars of a particular manufacturer will suddenly accelerate. They may even aim for other cars. Roads everywhere will be blocked with so many burning wreaks that emergency services simply can't go anywhere.

5. We will find the cause for the loss of masculinity that has occurred over the past century. (reduced Sertoli cell number, reduced sperm count, reduced testosterone level, reduced anogenital distance, etc.) Fixing this will require the elimination of a large class of chemicals that is in all sorts of products, so there will be heavy lobbying effort to avoid banning anything and to avoid liability.

6. Pain medication based on psychoactive compounds found in M. speciosa will be in FDA trials.

7. GMO animals, modified to avoid organ mismatch, will be used to grow organs for humans. They will be universal donors. Immunosuppression will not be required.

8. Some organs will be grown from induced stem cells in a 3D-printed shape.

Re: Ask HN: A New Decade. Any Predictions?

#686

This is fun. Here are some of my predictions: By 2030: 1. Google shuts down at least one of Pixel Phones, Gmail, Google Cloud. Even after a decade, Google is not able to make a successful social-network or messaging application. 2. Stock market: Microsoft and Amazon at-least doubles in MarketCap. AMD will be at-least 4 times what it is now. Tesla will be 5 times by the end of the decade. FB stays about the same! 3. F…

I'd put money on Tesla being bought by another manufacturer, possibly Ford or FIAT.

Re: Ask HN: A New Decade. Any Predictions?

#687
1. Technology sector will become regulated globally mandating minimal security standards, privacy protections and ethical machine learning standards. Enforcement will be economic and increasingly technical.

2. Governments will start to adopt blockchains for currencies and registers of record.

3. Real estate prices in city centers will continue to increase every year

4. Climate change enforcement will trigger a global trade war

5. By the end of the decade, every country on earth will have implemented a carbon emission trading scheme

6. All new cars on the road will be electric cars

7. Global poverty will no longer exist by the end of this decade

8. Assisted legal suicide will be legal in many countries by the end of this decade

9. Ultra-fast wireless internet will cause a major decline in wired internet-subscriptions

10. The middle-east will still not have any real democracy

11. China will see major popular uprisings leading to an increase in democracy but still not be a full democracy by the end of this decade

12. Latin America, Russia, east africa and SEA will transition to real democracies

13. Nuclear energy will make a comeback and new plants will be build

14. A cure or vaccine for HIV will be in phase 3 clinical trials or beyond

15. General AI will not exist yet and neither will fully autonomous cars

16. Politicians will fail to enact any regulation in regards to fake news leading to much deeper polarization of society and widespread acceptance of biggotry

Re: Ask HN: A New Decade. Any Predictions?

#688

The first 'western' autocrat steps forward triggering a chain reaction. Global warming reaches levels that causes countries most affected to consider war, could lead to them forming an alliance (i.e. threatening war to incentivice others to take this more seriously) Type theory will grow and will be applied to more domains. Consumer computer hardware will mostly stay stagnant but alternative or open architectures as…

> Type theory will grow and will be applied to more domains.

I'll piggyback one here: category theory will still have no practical use.

Re: Ask HN: A New Decade. Any Predictions?

#689
(1) Britain will exit from the EU, and there will be more such exits.

(2) The major countries will make big and somewhat successful efforts to increase the birth rates.

(3) Internet content, especially video, will grow quickly in volume and variety with a lot of quite high quality.

(4) The one size fits all mainstream media will change or shrink, likely shrink, as new media with great variety will explode.

(5) Small team, inexpensive, but innovative, entertaining, and often quite popular video story telling will grow quickly. The better funded effort will make a lot of use of computer generated images, e.g., extrapolation of and big steps up from the movie Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.

(6) Trump will win in 2020, dominate the Republican party, and do at least some good recruiting promising players for the future. Also in 2020 the Trump Republicans will win the House. Due to the Republican victories, the Democrat party will be lost wandering in a desert at least for Trump's second term. But then some Democrats will get serious and rebuild the party. By 2030 we will have two strong political parties both going for the center of the road voters. Some of the news media, on the Internet, will report the news objectively and with considerable depth and, thus, greatly help US government.

(7) We will have some big surprises in astrophysics.

(8) We will have some big surprises in exploration of our solar system, especially asteroids.

(9) We will have some big surprises in progress in curing diseases, maybe even mostly cure cancer.

(10) The economists, the Fed, etc. are getting enough understanding of how to get full employment, rapid growth, low interest rates, and low taxes. The growth in the economy will will reach a level which pays off the national debt quickly.

(11) Home schooling via high quality materials on the Internet, as Web pages, PDF files, and video clips will grow quickly as will corresponding testing and certification. Tens of thousands of families will have their 12 year old children through current college STEM field materials. Generally the Internet will do much better in instruction for skills, crafts, professional development, etc.

(12) The US will start deploying nukes for electric power again, sometimes for the grid and other times, with small nukes, for just local housing or plants.

(13) A major fraction of Internet traffic will go via satellite, especially in poor or sparsely populated areas.

(14) There will be at least one moon base with humans there for months at a time.

(15) The James Web telescope will yield astounding results.

(16) The Mideast oil states will grow quickly in sophistication and development.

(17) Supersonic passenger planes will return.

(18) Automobile manufacturing will be much more highly automated with some cars with prices under $10,000.

(19) The Internet will enable significant flows from the most crowded areas to less crowded.

(20) There will be a lot of one day and same day deliveries for consumer shopping, including for refrigerated and frozen items.

(21) There will be a lot of retail selling direct from the factory, in the US or other countries. So, some item that costs $10 now may sell for $2 -- generally prices will fall. I.e., quite broadly the middleman will get disintermediated.

(22) New house will get a lot cheaper: (A) The move to rural land will lower the costs of lots. Such lots will use water wells and septic systems and, thus, lower costs of utilities. Internet access can be via satellite and, thus, from anywhere, e.g., some house in the woods, a boat on a lake, a cabin on a mountain top. Houses can be manufactured and just delivered to a site and be ready to move in in two days or so. Otherwise, there will be larger manufactured components for just Lego style plug together houses.

(23) Medical research will make good or better progress in control of obesity.

(24) Warehousing will become nearly fully automated.

(25) Automation in manufacturing will expand rapidly.

(26) New materials, e.g., carbon fiber, Kevlar, plastics, adhesives, etc. will grow quickly for cars, buildings, etc.

(27) There will be much more fossil fuel extraction from the continental shelves of the continents, especially in Asia.

(28) Solar power with batteries and fossil fueled backup generators will become much more popular due to more rural housing that, finally, needs no connections for electric power, telephone, Internet, water, sewer, or anything else, thus greatly lowering the costs of rural housing. Such rural housing will also drive more home schooling based on the Internet. Small communities, of say, a dozen homes on some 100 acres of land will grow up and maybe have their own small nuke for electric power, including for home HVAC.

(29) Generally cost of living will go down significantly due to some of the above -- buying direct from factories, much cheaper housing, cheaper cars, more automated manufacturing, due to home schooling, no more school taxes and, thus, much cheaper local taxes, due to rural living, much less in government services, e.g., snow plowing, traffic lights, road and sewer construction, and, thus, much lower taxes.

(30) Due to (29), etc., a much higher birth rate.

(31) Due to the information via the Internet, much better informed voters and much better politics and government.

(32) Also heavily due to the Internet, much cheaper alternatives to traditional college.

(33) The US will solidly stop the flows of illegal drugs into the US, and Mexico will make a lot of progress recovering from a narco state.

(34) The US will make good progress toward astoundingly capable unmanned jet fighter planes.

(35) CRISPR techniques will make astounding progress in plant and animal breeding.

(36) Generally a lot of prices will get pushed down due to lower prices for oil and natural gas from fracking, continental shelf drilling, and ANWR drilling, higher agricultural productivity from better seeds, feeds, equipment, and computer based information, more automation in manufacturing, direct selling from factories to end users, more efficient order processing, warehousing, and shipping, generally more computing and automation. But the low interest rates are causing lots of capital investment, low unemployment, and higher wages. Higher interest rates would risk depression from prices falling from the improved efficiencies and higher unemployment; so interest rates need to stay low to avoid recession due to falling prices.

Re: Ask HN: A New Decade. Any Predictions?

#690
Here are mine. Note: I've deliberately tried to be novel for a few of these which will mean they're less likely to be accurate.

1. A book written by a machine makes a best seller list

2. AR goes mainstream towards the end of the decade. Google dominates the visual identification of things market.

3. WebAssembly becomes pervasive on the client and the server. Side effect on the client is that it results in pervasive DRM on the web with ads that are harder to block.

4. Earth's temperature rises by 1.5C by 2030.

5. Widespread and inconsistent / incompatible regulation in multiple jurisdictions breaks the open web with many web based organisations choosing to restrict themselves to local markets rather than implement all of them.

6. PWAs become more popular than apps due to lower cost to build and higher revenues.

7. Virtual partners become popular as generated humans break through the uncanny valley.

8. Recession in 2020 / 2021, just in time for a new US government.

9. House prices will stagnate for the whole of the decade as boomers retire.

10. China will be the dominant world economy by the end of the decade (measured in GDP).

11. AI will significantly improve medical outcomes especially in early detection.

12. Renewable energy (including nuclear) will power most homes globally (50%+) due to regulations and cost efficiencies by the end of the decade (hopeful but it'll certainly trend in that direction).

13. Increasingly the wealthy will have a curated internet / app ecosystem that actively protects them from manipulation. The poor will have the opposite. This will increase populism and continue to contribute to the wealthy being confounded by it.

14. Developing software in a remote VM / container will become very popular (see Visual Studio Code Remote Extensions)

15. "serverless" i.e. building applications where the host machine is opaque will dominate software development, although this includes building serverless applications using containers.

16. Docker is no longer the most popular container runtime.

17. Regulation kills bitcoin.

18. Identity verification becomes a massive industry.

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