Ask HN: A New Decade. Any Predictions?

Looking at the predictions from a decade ago, it's spectacular how many of them are wrong. Like, probably more than 95% of them are in the "very wrong" category. That should be a severe cautionary note for this kind of prognostication among this kind of group.

Nevertheless, here goes:

What won't change (much):

- We still won't have L5 autonomous cars.

- We will have L4 in various places, mainly as public transport systems, and this will essentially evolve out of existing segregated autonomous on-demand systms, such as the WVU PRT and the Heathrow Pod. Increasing sophistication of the navigation AIs will make the degree of segregation less and less over the years, but full automation will still require a significant element of environmental / infrastructure design, which is what makes it L4. There will be a lot more such systems, but it will be an evolutionary rather than a revolutionary change.

- No AGI, sorry. Not that we'd necessarily recognise it if we had it. There will still be no effective working definition of "consciousness".

- Laptops will still suck. Different constituencies will still regard old Macbooks or Thinkpads as the zenith of laptop desgin, with a nostalgia that resembles that of Amiga or BeOS fanatics. (And this won't make them wrong.)

- Linux will still be niche on the desktop. Although enthusiasts will claim that it doesn't, it'll still suffer from the same useability problems that have it did in 2020, and 2010, and 2000. "Oh there's some stupid mouse behaviour which is making your GUI almost unusable? You can change it with this simple hack of X-windows in the shell."

- Social media will still suck, and will still be a vector for significant psyops, both political and commercial, with politically and economically destabilising effects. Dictatorships will be better at weilding this than democracies, which will still be on the backfoot.

- The climate crisis will still be going from bad to worse, unfolding as a series of localised extreme weather events and population displacements. Although the sociopolitical response to it will finally be turning the other direction.

What will change:

- The majority of vehicles sold will be full-electric.

- The way people live will be changing. A lot more co-ops, co-living, and even straight-up communes. This will represent a very small percentage of the population, but the social effects will be significant.

- Universal Basic Incomes will have been implemented in several places.

- There will be dozens of people living on Mars, hundreds on the moon, and thousands in Low Earth Orbit.

1. Populism reaches a crescendo globally. Nascent populist governments become more entrenched, especially in North and South America.

2. China supersedes the United States as the preeminent global superpower.

3. A conflict between Russia and China comes seemingly out of nowhere, but is resolved quickly.

4. Electric vehicles become more mainstream, but still do not overtake ICE vehicles in sales or ownership.

5. Cannabis is de-scheduled in the United States. A minor economic boom results.

6. Tech hubs in the Midwest begin to overtake the old tech hubs in activity and population.

7. Housing shortages worsen globally.

8. Australia suffers a series of natural disasters that results in heavy depopulation.

9. Battery technology will see a significant breakthrough that results in much greater life and much lower weight, but it will not be affordable. Yet.

10. An economic "adjustment" occurs as trade between the United States and China is heavily curtailed.

1. By 2025 there will be a quantum computer that can break RSA-2048 and shortly after that any conventional encryption. Alternatives based on post-quantum cryptography will have been developed but are not in widespread use. Adoption will take years.

2. Waymo will sell self-driving cars to the general public and there will be a push to make streets safer by reducing individual transport.

3. The next economic downturn, if there is one, will be caused by quantitative easing.

4. Index funds will start affecting price discovery which will lead to a surge in strategies that exploit this.

5. Society will either learn to cope with scissor questions or polarization will eventually lead to civil war.

6. Deep learning will be used in every field in applied computer science and replace the traditional methods of this field.

7. Cryptocurrencies will be used to create censorship-resistant social media and messaging services that have strong secrecy/privacy/data-ownership guarantees.

8. Facebook, Amazon and Google will face anti trust action that might even lead to them being broken up.

9. Palantir will be the best performing stock of the decade.

> 6. But a small yet growing culture of "offliners" becomes mainstream. Being offline is the new "Yoga" and allows bragging rights.

Huh, I never thought of this before but you are right, seems like rejecting technology is becoming more acceptable in the mainstream with the 5G conspiracy.