Ask HN: What are your predictions for 2024?

> (...) that prediction isn't as absurd as you intended.

These predictions may seem absurd at first glance, but I assure you, they're not, to me at least.

Okay, here goes:

- At least one major court case plays out over AI, and that completely changes the future of the technology. I personally suspect it'll be found that using copyrighted materials for LLMs is copyright infringement (in the OpenAI sense), but whatever happens, all hell is breaking out online

- Social media declines in popularity. I suspect this is already happening post pandemic, since places like Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, etc are seeing a huge decline in activity and many people I used to know on these services have dropped them altogether.

- Reddit follows Twitter's lead, changes name and collapses in popularity. Spez seems to be following Musk's playbook.

- No replacement appears for Twitter. Instead, a small percentage of the existing Twitter base is divided across Mastodon, BlueSky and Threads, and much of the rest just stop using any of them.

- The economy gets split between companies that go full remote work forever and those that go back to the office. Many of the former complain how hard it is to find employees now.

- Layoffs continue in tech related industries, as the growth expected during the pandemic doesn't pan out.

- Streaming services collapse in popularity due to their move towards cable TV style setups (ads, content split across many platforms, etc). Piracy becomes a big thing again.

- Labour wins the UK general election. Considers possibility of reversing Brexit.

- The Nintendo Switch's successor is unveiled, but does worse than its predecessor at launch due to lack of an incentive to move to the new console (and people already having spent a ton on 2023/2024 Switch games)

- Antitrust cases start up against the iOS App Store and Google Play Store in more regions, as the companies are forced to open up those platforms.

- At least one more natural disaster becomes a huge international incident, and the severity gets tied to climate change.

- Renewable energy makes great strides (and becomes a larger contributor to the electrical grid worldwide), but it doesn't help enough to slow down climate change that much.

- The Russia/Ukraine conflict ends in a stalemate and peace agreement, as the Russian economy teeters on the brink of collapse.

- Civil war or conflict breaks out in at least one previously seemingly stable authoritarian country. Maybe Russia post Ukraine conflict?

He's slower and will have to schedule debates around being in court and doing his rallies. I think he'll skip it.

Curious, how would you profit from Argentina's economy recovering? Seeing as you can't trade their currency anymore (if they get rid of the Peso). I don't know what happens with their bonds.

Here are my guesses for 2024

FED cuts rates for politics but ends up making things worse in the medium term. Timing is off and a mini realestate crash happens.

One major bank goes bust and needs a taxpayer bailout in the US.

A large number of car dealers in the US go bust. Used car prices come down.

Hillary jumps in the presidential race and Biden is forced out.

At least one red state takes the democratic nominee off the ballot.

Supply chain disruptions affect over the counter medication availability.

Social turmoil over immigration increases in Europe and the United States.

Startups based on just prompt engineering go out of favor and funding dries up.

At least one major tech company has to face anti-trust action.

Some other tech company buys Reddit.

Shortages of Raspberry Pi version 5 persist.