WEBVTT - The 2024 Tech Predictions Report Card 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:12.280 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, 0:00:12.320 --> 0:00:15.880 and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:15.880 --> 0:00:19.239 I'm an executive producer with iHeart Podcasts and how the 0:00:19.320 --> 0:00:22.919 tech are you. It is time for me to pay 0:00:23.040 --> 0:00:26.720 the piper. By that, I mean it's time. That's special 0:00:26.800 --> 0:00:29.520 time where I look back in an episode I recorded 0:00:29.560 --> 0:00:32.360 at the end of last year in twenty twenty three, 0:00:32.680 --> 0:00:34.800 in which I made predictions for what would happen in 0:00:34.800 --> 0:00:38.360 the world of tech this year in twenty twenty four. 0:00:38.880 --> 0:00:42.640 Traditionally pretty shaky on these predictions, and it turns out 0:00:42.640 --> 0:00:45.440 making a really good prediction as hard. I never wanted 0:00:45.440 --> 0:00:48.960 to do a layup or anything like that, so sometimes 0:00:48.960 --> 0:00:52.280 I try and stick my neck out. But on top 0:00:52.320 --> 0:00:54.600 of that, weird stuff just keeps happening in the world, 0:00:54.640 --> 0:00:57.320 you know, stuff I didn't see coming, and inevitably that 0:00:57.360 --> 0:01:01.200 has a really big impact on everything else. Like that 0:01:01.400 --> 0:01:04.000 pandemic thing a few years back, I didn't see that coming, 0:01:04.280 --> 0:01:06.400 and that shure as heck had a big impact on 0:01:06.840 --> 0:01:11.440 well everything but including the tech sector. Also, sometimes I 0:01:11.480 --> 0:01:14.640 make predictions not based on what I think is going 0:01:14.680 --> 0:01:18.720 to happen, but perhaps on what I hope will happen. 0:01:19.160 --> 0:01:22.319 So first up, the first prediction I made last year 0:01:22.880 --> 0:01:27.400 is that X formerly known as Twitter, would finally get 0:01:27.440 --> 0:01:30.960 it sack together and Elon Musk would step back from 0:01:31.000 --> 0:01:34.119 the service a little bit more, and Linda Yakarino, who's 0:01:34.160 --> 0:01:37.480 the actual CEO of X, would have a chance to 0:01:37.480 --> 0:01:40.480 define a new era at the company, because the perception 0:01:40.520 --> 0:01:43.640 at least is that anything she does as leader is 0:01:43.760 --> 0:01:47.760 immediately undermined and reversed by Elon Musk. But I would 0:01:47.800 --> 0:01:49.800 say that this prediction of mine was a big old 0:01:50.000 --> 0:01:54.040 swing and a miss. Now, in my own prediction, I 0:01:54.080 --> 0:01:58.639 admitted that I did not believe X would actually get better. 0:01:58.960 --> 0:02:02.400 I said that it's quote just going to be a 0:02:02.480 --> 0:02:06.720 bigger mess end quote. Now that is something we can check. 0:02:07.280 --> 0:02:10.160 Is X worse off at the end of twenty twenty 0:02:10.200 --> 0:02:13.760 four than it was at the end of twenty twenty three. Now, 0:02:13.840 --> 0:02:17.080 keep in mind, Elon Musk himself is on top of 0:02:17.080 --> 0:02:20.560 the world. He's the richest person on Earth. He's going 0:02:20.639 --> 0:02:24.840 to be part of Trump's administration. Once Trump takes office 0:02:24.880 --> 0:02:27.919 on January twentieth, twenty twenty five, he will be co 0:02:28.040 --> 0:02:32.040 leading a new governmental department on spending I would be 0:02:32.160 --> 0:02:34.799 shocked if he doesn't try to leverage his wealth and 0:02:34.840 --> 0:02:37.800 position to get things to turn around for him. For example, 0:02:37.800 --> 0:02:39.960 I could see him making a real go of punishing 0:02:40.000 --> 0:02:43.360 all those companies that decided to stop advertising on X, 0:02:43.520 --> 0:02:46.920 as if somehow there were some sort of mandate in 0:02:47.040 --> 0:02:50.960 place that requires companies to advertise at specific places. I 0:02:50.960 --> 0:02:54.240 honestly don't know how you can make that argument that 0:02:54.480 --> 0:02:59.040 somehow deciding not to advertise on X is illegal. I 0:02:59.080 --> 0:03:02.400 would imagine it's a First Amendment issue. You know, companies 0:03:02.440 --> 0:03:06.200 have the right to advertise with whomever they want or 0:03:06.280 --> 0:03:09.040 not advertise. But what do I know. I'm not a 0:03:09.080 --> 0:03:13.160 constitutional expert. We also don't know if he will attempt 0:03:13.200 --> 0:03:17.720 to push through his controversial compensation package over at Tesla. 0:03:17.800 --> 0:03:21.080 That's something that's been denied him by a court in 0:03:21.120 --> 0:03:24.320 the past, but I can imagine him using his connections 0:03:24.360 --> 0:03:28.000 to kind of yeah, that reversed. We'll see. But how 0:03:28.080 --> 0:03:31.840 is X doing right now? Well, since X is a 0:03:31.880 --> 0:03:35.880 private company again once Elon purchased it, we don't have 0:03:36.280 --> 0:03:39.480 SEC filings that we can look at, right They're not 0:03:40.120 --> 0:03:44.840 obligated to file with the SEC, so analysts have had 0:03:44.880 --> 0:03:47.320 to make some guesses about this stuff, but they've been 0:03:47.360 --> 0:03:51.480 saying this year that X is heading toward another yearly loss. 0:03:51.760 --> 0:03:54.920 Fidelity estimates that the current value of X is somewhere 0:03:54.960 --> 0:03:58.160 around nine point four billion dollars. Now that's a lot 0:03:58.160 --> 0:04:00.680 of money, but do keep in mind that US paid 0:04:00.800 --> 0:04:07.720 forty four billion dollars for Twitter, so yikes. Performance Marketing 0:04:07.720 --> 0:04:11.160 World predicts that X will bring in around two billion 0:04:11.240 --> 0:04:14.160 dollars in revenue this year, and that's actually down from 0:04:14.240 --> 0:04:18.280 two point two billion dollars last year and four point 0:04:18.480 --> 0:04:22.880 five billion dollars in twenty twenty two. So you could 0:04:23.000 --> 0:04:26.360 argue X is a bigger mess than it was last year, 0:04:26.400 --> 0:04:32.120 but maybe not that much bigger. It's just still in decline. 0:04:32.720 --> 0:04:35.200 There were also stories of hundreds of thousands, or even 0:04:35.240 --> 0:04:38.960 millions of users ditching X for other platforms like blue 0:04:39.000 --> 0:04:43.680 Sky and Threads Plus. X changed how blocking users works 0:04:43.800 --> 0:04:46.520 late this past year. So it used to be that 0:04:46.640 --> 0:04:50.520 if you were on Twitter and you blocked somebody, that 0:04:50.560 --> 0:04:53.240 person would no longer be able to see your posts. 0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:55.480 It would be as if you had disappeared from Twitter 0:04:55.560 --> 0:04:59.640 to that person. Today, because of the changes that musks 0:04:59.800 --> 0:05:03.440 Ex has made, the blocked person can continue to see 0:05:03.560 --> 0:05:06.240 what you post. They just can't interact with it, at 0:05:06.279 --> 0:05:09.000 least not with the tools that are built into X. 0:05:09.160 --> 0:05:12.239 You can still directly do something like copy and paste 0:05:12.360 --> 0:05:16.440 someone's post and then post your own version of it 0:05:16.480 --> 0:05:19.359 and respond to it that way if you wanted to. Anyway, 0:05:19.400 --> 0:05:22.320 I'm sad to report X did not transform into a 0:05:22.440 --> 0:05:26.040 decent platform this past year. I'm still not really sure 0:05:26.040 --> 0:05:29.039 what Yakarino is actually doing at this point. You don't 0:05:29.080 --> 0:05:32.520 see her mentioned in the news that much like there 0:05:32.520 --> 0:05:38.440 are articles about her work at X, but Elon Musk 0:05:38.520 --> 0:05:41.760 just dominates the news when it comes to stories about 0:05:42.000 --> 0:05:46.120 X and his other companies, which tells you a lot 0:05:46.240 --> 0:05:50.960 like it may not be that Elon Musk is essentially 0:05:51.000 --> 0:05:54.440 still controlling the company from behind Yakarino. It may not 0:05:54.480 --> 0:05:57.240 be the case, but it appears to be that case 0:05:57.640 --> 0:06:00.920 because of the way it's reported, and certainly the way 0:06:00.960 --> 0:06:05.240 that X has performed and the way Elon behaves it 0:06:05.279 --> 0:06:08.719 all seems to be aligned. But again, I don't know 0:06:08.800 --> 0:06:12.360 the truth of it now. My next prediction was definitely 0:06:12.400 --> 0:06:15.560 a GIMMI. I said that quote, We're going to see 0:06:15.560 --> 0:06:19.040 a lot more AI integration end quote, and we sure 0:06:19.080 --> 0:06:23.159 did see an awful lot of AI integration. I mentioned 0:06:23.200 --> 0:06:25.160 that there would be a lot of pressure on businesses 0:06:25.160 --> 0:06:27.760 to integrate AI into their operations, even if they don't 0:06:27.839 --> 0:06:31.000 have a fully thought out strategy as to how they 0:06:31.000 --> 0:06:33.560 should do that, that the whole fear of missing out 0:06:33.800 --> 0:06:38.440 would drive a lot of corporate implementations of AI, similar 0:06:38.520 --> 0:06:40.920 to what we saw when the metaverse was first being 0:06:40.920 --> 0:06:45.080 talked about, or NFTs emerged out of obscurity. Keeping in 0:06:45.080 --> 0:06:47.680 mind NFTs had been around for a bit before the 0:06:47.720 --> 0:06:51.719 world went bonkers about them for a little less than 0:06:51.760 --> 0:06:55.040 a year. I said that I think there was an 0:06:55.120 --> 0:06:58.599 AI bubble and that it would likely collapse, possibly before 0:06:58.600 --> 0:07:01.480 the end of twenty twenty four. That has not happened. 0:07:01.520 --> 0:07:03.920 We have not had a total bubble collapse, or if 0:07:03.920 --> 0:07:06.680 it is happening, it's a slow enough collapse that's not 0:07:06.800 --> 0:07:11.440 been noteworthy yet. There have been several think pieces about 0:07:11.480 --> 0:07:15.920 the possibility of AI advancements kind of slowing down a 0:07:15.960 --> 0:07:19.800 bit like plateauing, particularly in the field of generative AI, 0:07:19.960 --> 0:07:22.360 that we might be hitting the limits of what large 0:07:22.400 --> 0:07:26.800 language models can do, and more folks are seeing AI 0:07:26.880 --> 0:07:31.400 as something that's interesting and potentially useful, but not quite 0:07:31.680 --> 0:07:35.160 there yet, that a lot of the hoopla around AI 0:07:35.520 --> 0:07:40.040 is perhaps ahead of its time, and that we're seeing 0:07:40.160 --> 0:07:42.960 progress in the field slow down a bit. I'm not 0:07:43.080 --> 0:07:47.320 sure if that's entirely accurate. That just might be the 0:07:47.480 --> 0:07:52.760 perception of the industry. Certainly, we're seeing plenty of investors 0:07:52.800 --> 0:07:56.680 continue to pour truckloads of money into AI research and development. 0:07:56.920 --> 0:08:00.880 Open AI received more than six billion dollars and investments 0:08:01.440 --> 0:08:04.480 late this year. That helps stave off the situation in 0:08:04.520 --> 0:08:07.360 which the company would spend itself out of business because 0:08:07.400 --> 0:08:11.760 AI is also wicked expensive. I did warn in the 0:08:11.760 --> 0:08:15.080 Predictions episode that if the bubble burst, that would hurt 0:08:15.120 --> 0:08:18.320 AI across the board, and by that I meant if 0:08:18.320 --> 0:08:21.119 there's a collapse or a market adjustment, if you prefer 0:08:21.160 --> 0:08:24.000 those words, the investors might become a little more conservative 0:08:24.040 --> 0:08:27.520 with their investments, and the AI field in general would 0:08:27.560 --> 0:08:29.960 find it harder to get money to do research needed 0:08:30.000 --> 0:08:32.880 to advance the field. Because, keep in mind, I've said 0:08:32.880 --> 0:08:35.640 it over and over again, generative AI is not the 0:08:35.640 --> 0:08:39.160 only kind of AI out there. It is a kind 0:08:39.240 --> 0:08:43.000 of AI. But the fear is that if generative AI 0:08:43.120 --> 0:08:47.880 reaches a point where businesses say this is interesting, but 0:08:48.000 --> 0:08:50.000 it's just not where we need it to be. Like 0:08:50.160 --> 0:08:53.400 our expectations were at one level and reality is at 0:08:53.400 --> 0:08:56.000 a different level, and the rug gets pulled out from 0:08:56.080 --> 0:09:00.679 under generative AI. Figuratively speaking, the fear is that investors 0:09:00.679 --> 0:09:06.240 would shy away from any AI oriented endeavor, not just 0:09:06.280 --> 0:09:09.360 the generative AI. And we've seen this kind of stuff 0:09:09.440 --> 0:09:12.240 happen before. I always think back to the first VR 0:09:12.320 --> 0:09:15.959 bubble in the nineteen nineties, but so far that has 0:09:16.000 --> 0:09:20.200 not happened, and it may not happen. According to Ifosa 0:09:20.440 --> 0:09:24.560 Udenwin of tech Radar, while the hype might be dying 0:09:24.640 --> 0:09:28.760 down a bit around artificial intelligence, investments have not slacked 0:09:28.800 --> 0:09:31.600 off so far, so that's good news for all the 0:09:31.640 --> 0:09:35.199 AI companies out there. I also mentioned that we would 0:09:35.200 --> 0:09:38.559 see a lot more legislators and regulators attempt to wrap 0:09:38.600 --> 0:09:41.440 their heads around AI, but we would not get very 0:09:41.440 --> 0:09:44.280 many meaningful laws or regulations out of it by the 0:09:44.360 --> 0:09:47.000 end of the year. And hey, here in the United States, 0:09:47.040 --> 0:09:50.839 I was one hundred percent right. There is no comprehensive 0:09:50.920 --> 0:09:54.720 federal legislation regarding artificial intelligence here in the United States. 0:09:54.840 --> 0:09:59.120 There are some individual state laws across our union that 0:09:59.240 --> 0:10:03.920 do handle AI. But that just means there's no uniform 0:10:03.960 --> 0:10:07.000 set of rules in the country that companies have to 0:10:07.040 --> 0:10:10.760 abide by, which actually makes it really darn challenging if 0:10:10.800 --> 0:10:13.240 you are running an AI company. I mean, you might 0:10:13.360 --> 0:10:15.640 end up being perfectly in line with the laws of 0:10:15.679 --> 0:10:18.240 say Massachusetts, but it turns out those laws are not 0:10:18.280 --> 0:10:22.200 compatible with the laws in I don't know, Arizona, and 0:10:22.280 --> 0:10:25.040 so it literally becomes impossible to do business in a 0:10:25.120 --> 0:10:28.120 meaningful way across the country if that's the case, because 0:10:28.440 --> 0:10:31.360 you're never going to find a way to thread all 0:10:31.400 --> 0:10:33.840 of those needles. They're just not going to line up properly. 0:10:34.320 --> 0:10:38.000 So there is a real need for federal rules and 0:10:38.120 --> 0:10:42.000 laws around AI. It will be interesting to see where 0:10:42.080 --> 0:10:45.800 laws and regulations around AI develop in the near future. 0:10:45.840 --> 0:10:49.959 With President Elect Trump back in office starting January twentieth, 0:10:50.080 --> 0:10:54.120 twenty twenty five. Oddly enough, I actually briefly worked with 0:10:54.240 --> 0:10:58.920 his pick for AI policy advisor, shreerram Now. I say 0:10:58.960 --> 0:11:02.800 briefly because our working relationship only lasted a few months, 0:11:02.840 --> 0:11:06.240 but our contact with each other was pretty limited in 0:11:06.280 --> 0:11:09.600 that time as well. However, it's wild to me that 0:11:09.679 --> 0:11:12.720 my path crossed with someone who ends up being the 0:11:12.760 --> 0:11:16.400 Advisor to the President on an issue. It's also a 0:11:16.440 --> 0:11:19.199 little strange because last I heard, he had relocated to London, 0:11:19.960 --> 0:11:21.920 and from what I understand, that's where he still is. 0:11:22.000 --> 0:11:26.960 So for the US advisor to AI policy to be 0:11:27.040 --> 0:11:29.640 living in London now, grant he is an American citizen, 0:11:30.360 --> 0:11:33.280 but he's living in London, it's just kind of weird. Anyway, 0:11:33.640 --> 0:11:37.920 I know Shreroan is very pro AI. He's also very 0:11:37.920 --> 0:11:40.400 pro Elon Musk, So I suspect for the next few 0:11:40.480 --> 0:11:43.640 years we're not going to see any really restrictive laws 0:11:43.679 --> 0:11:48.280 around AI's development or deployment, assuming that his vision for 0:11:48.559 --> 0:11:51.880 how AI should develop moves forward. So I think it's 0:11:51.920 --> 0:11:55.199 safe to say that my AI predictions for twenty twenty 0:11:55.240 --> 0:11:58.640 four turned out to be just how I anticipated. Whether 0:11:58.720 --> 0:12:01.079 that changes next year will have to see. I think 0:12:01.120 --> 0:12:03.320 there's a good chance we will not get a bubble 0:12:03.320 --> 0:12:07.040 bursting situation considering how favorable the US government will likely 0:12:07.120 --> 0:12:09.760 be to the sector. So, in other words, maybe there 0:12:09.800 --> 0:12:12.600 would be a bubble burst if it weren't for the 0:12:12.640 --> 0:12:16.719 fact that you're going to have a very pro AI 0:12:17.760 --> 0:12:20.480 push from the government, is my guest. I mean, with 0:12:20.559 --> 0:12:24.960 Elon Musk and with folks like Shum in charge of 0:12:25.000 --> 0:12:30.040 advising the president. It would shock me if the government 0:12:30.760 --> 0:12:35.680 became a little more critical or cautious around AI. But 0:12:35.720 --> 0:12:39.880 who knows, certainly not me. I also said that there 0:12:39.880 --> 0:12:44.400 would be a lot of misinformation campaigns last year or 0:12:44.440 --> 0:12:46.760 this past year because the United States was in an 0:12:46.800 --> 0:12:50.520 election cycle, and that a lot of those misinformation campaigns 0:12:50.559 --> 0:12:55.040 would be augmented or entirely powered by AI. And again 0:12:55.120 --> 0:12:57.680 that was a gimme. We've been seeing an increase in 0:12:57.720 --> 0:13:02.120 misinformation and disinformation campaign out of places like China and Russia, 0:13:02.600 --> 0:13:06.600 primarily Russia, if we're being honest, but also other regions 0:13:06.600 --> 0:13:08.880 of the world, and they aim to disrupt the normal 0:13:08.920 --> 0:13:12.840 democratic process and sow seeds of doubt and confusion, and 0:13:12.920 --> 0:13:17.400 generally either try to discourage people from participating in the 0:13:17.440 --> 0:13:21.240 democratic process at all, which a lot of that happened 0:13:21.280 --> 0:13:26.479 this past cycle, or trying to sway people to support 0:13:26.840 --> 0:13:33.200 particular candidates or policies that ultimately align with say Russia's 0:13:33.360 --> 0:13:38.280 own policies and philosophies, or the very least do not 0:13:38.440 --> 0:13:43.400 stand to be an impediment to the disruptor. Now, I 0:13:43.480 --> 0:13:47.440 mentioned that we'd likely see calls to put pressure on 0:13:47.679 --> 0:13:51.600 various online platforms out there to identify and remove cases 0:13:51.640 --> 0:13:54.880 of misinformation, which did happen a lot, but that the 0:13:54.920 --> 0:13:58.600 real issue that stopping the campaigns in the first place, 0:13:58.920 --> 0:14:01.760 would largely be ignored because it turns out it's very 0:14:01.760 --> 0:14:05.199 hard to enforce those kinds of rules because the people 0:14:05.240 --> 0:14:08.440 who are breaking them live in other countries. So this 0:14:08.520 --> 0:14:11.360 comes down to a shoot the messenger kind of thing. 0:14:11.480 --> 0:14:14.040 But then a lot of these platforms have been fairly 0:14:14.160 --> 0:14:17.240 laxed when it comes to acting quickly with regard to 0:14:17.440 --> 0:14:22.080 misinformation campaigns. One perspective on disinformation campaigns that you can 0:14:22.120 --> 0:14:26.440 read up on is Darryl M. West's piece on Brookings. 0:14:26.880 --> 0:14:30.040 It's titled how Disinformation to Find the twenty twenty four 0:14:30.120 --> 0:14:34.000 election Narrative. Check that out if you have a few minutes. 0:14:34.040 --> 0:14:36.680 It's a great piece. Okay, we're going to take a 0:14:36.760 --> 0:14:39.040 quick break to thank our sponsors. When we come back 0:14:39.400 --> 0:14:51.320 more predictions and how I did. We're back, and my 0:14:51.520 --> 0:14:54.800 next prediction is that we would see even more opposition 0:14:54.960 --> 0:14:57.960 to TikTok here in the United States, and golly, we 0:14:58.040 --> 0:15:02.720 sure did. Congress passed a bill this year that says 0:15:02.800 --> 0:15:06.840 TikTok's parent company, Byte Dance, which is located in China, 0:15:07.600 --> 0:15:11.880 must divest itself of TikTok, or else the app would 0:15:11.920 --> 0:15:15.520 be banned in the United States. And that bill passed 0:15:15.520 --> 0:15:19.040 into law. President Biden signed it into law, and now 0:15:19.120 --> 0:15:23.240 Byte Dance has a deadline of January nineteenth, twenty twenty 0:15:23.320 --> 0:15:26.960 five to divest itself of the company or face this 0:15:27.200 --> 0:15:30.680 ban in the US. Currently, Byte Dance and TikTok are 0:15:30.760 --> 0:15:32.840 challenging the new law, or at least trying to get 0:15:32.880 --> 0:15:37.040 the deadline extended so that President elect Trump can weigh in, 0:15:37.640 --> 0:15:41.000 because again, Trump doesn't come into office until January twentieth, 0:15:41.080 --> 0:15:43.880 one day after the ban is supposed to take place. 0:15:44.160 --> 0:15:47.080 So far, there's been very little movement from the Supreme 0:15:47.120 --> 0:15:49.920 Court that would indicate that they will push back the deadline. 0:15:50.080 --> 0:15:52.400 But we'll see. Maybe by the time you hear this 0:15:52.600 --> 0:15:55.760 that will have changed. I don't think anything is off 0:15:55.760 --> 0:15:59.000 the table at this point anyway. In my prediction, I 0:15:59.040 --> 0:16:00.920 said what I always say that I'm not a fan 0:16:00.960 --> 0:16:05.120 of TikTok, but I think going after TikTok is a 0:16:05.160 --> 0:16:09.280 myopic move that doesn't really address the underlying problem. If 0:16:09.320 --> 0:16:14.080 you're concerned about China, siphoning data from the US. There 0:16:14.120 --> 0:16:17.440 are plenty of ways the country is doing that without 0:16:17.520 --> 0:16:20.640 using an app like TikTok. I mean, China's got infiltrated 0:16:20.800 --> 0:16:23.160 systems like in the United States, a lot of our 0:16:23.760 --> 0:16:29.120 our infrastructure has been infiltrated by Chinese espionage agents over 0:16:29.160 --> 0:16:32.480 the course of years. They didn't use TikTok to do it, 0:16:33.480 --> 0:16:37.880 So that problem's there. There are data brokers out there 0:16:38.160 --> 0:16:41.360 that you can buy information from that have nothing to 0:16:41.400 --> 0:16:44.560 do with TikTok. And as far as propaganda goes, there 0:16:44.600 --> 0:16:48.160 are lots of other platforms out there that have served 0:16:48.360 --> 0:16:52.040 very well as being a way to get propaganda in 0:16:52.120 --> 0:16:55.640 front of US viewers, like you know, things like Facebook 0:16:55.680 --> 0:16:58.560 and Instagram have done that, or x for that matter. 0:16:59.120 --> 0:17:02.760 So what I'm saying is that getting rid of TikTok 0:17:03.320 --> 0:17:07.800 doesn't actually address the underlying problem. It's like a symptom 0:17:08.040 --> 0:17:11.360 of a disease. It's not dealing with the actual disease. 0:17:12.000 --> 0:17:15.000 So I think lawmakers are going to have a lot 0:17:15.000 --> 0:17:20.760 to answer for if they ban TikTok and suddenly China 0:17:20.840 --> 0:17:23.359 is not magically cut out from all that information and 0:17:23.400 --> 0:17:26.640 propaganda stuff. But what do I know, Maybe they won't 0:17:26.640 --> 0:17:29.480 face any consequences at all, apart from all the young 0:17:29.560 --> 0:17:34.880 people being really ticked off that the government has banned TikTok. 0:17:35.560 --> 0:17:37.719 As for Trump, he's the one who got this started. 0:17:37.760 --> 0:17:41.280 He's the one who argued that we should ban TikTok 0:17:42.080 --> 0:17:45.480 years ago, back in like twenty twenty. He even signed 0:17:45.520 --> 0:17:48.720 an executive order to that effect. But in subsequent years 0:17:48.800 --> 0:17:51.719 he has reversed his position for reasons I'm not going 0:17:51.800 --> 0:17:54.560 to go into here, or at least his reasons that 0:17:54.600 --> 0:17:56.560 he stated is that young people seem to really like 0:17:56.600 --> 0:17:59.280 the platform, which doesn't seem like it's an actual reason 0:18:00.359 --> 0:18:02.399 young people like it, so why should we get rid 0:18:02.440 --> 0:18:05.239 of it? That doesn't make any sense at all. What 0:18:05.400 --> 0:18:08.280 might make more sense is that someone who has invested 0:18:08.400 --> 0:18:15.000 literally billions of dollars in companies, including stuff like ByteDance, 0:18:15.280 --> 0:18:18.919 also happened to be a big campaign contributor to Trump. 0:18:19.280 --> 0:18:23.160 But hey, maybe I'm just way off base. My next 0:18:23.160 --> 0:18:26.320 prediction was that the Apple Vision Pro, the mixed reality 0:18:26.359 --> 0:18:29.879 headset from Apple, would be a commercial failure in twenty 0:18:29.920 --> 0:18:33.280 twenty four. It had not yet launched in twenty twenty 0:18:33.280 --> 0:18:35.879 three when I made these predictions, and I said, I 0:18:35.920 --> 0:18:39.680 don't think it's going to be the runaway success that 0:18:40.240 --> 0:18:43.040 it needs to be, and I'm pretty much right on 0:18:43.440 --> 0:18:47.439 about that. The vision Pro headset cost thirty five hundred 0:18:47.560 --> 0:18:52.399 dollars upon launch, crazy expensive. Moreover, there were a limited 0:18:52.480 --> 0:18:56.359 number of experiences and applications for the technology, so it 0:18:56.400 --> 0:18:59.720 was a really huge request to get customers to dole 0:18:59.800 --> 0:19:02.840 out thirty five hundred dollars for something that only had 0:19:02.880 --> 0:19:08.639 limited applicability. In June, Jonathan Reichenthall of Forbes had an 0:19:08.720 --> 0:19:13.280 article that's titled Apple's Vision Pro is amazing, but nobody 0:19:13.320 --> 0:19:16.240 wants one. So In that piece, he said that Apple's 0:19:16.240 --> 0:19:18.680 target for the year was to sell around eight hundred 0:19:18.720 --> 0:19:21.840 thousand units by the end of twenty twenty four. However, 0:19:21.880 --> 0:19:25.399 by midyear, Apple had adjusted that to four hundred and 0:19:25.400 --> 0:19:29.920 fifty thousand units. That's a big wolf, you know, going 0:19:29.960 --> 0:19:32.840 down to a little more than than half of what 0:19:32.920 --> 0:19:37.160 you had originally anticipated. That's tough. As Reichenthall pointed out, 0:19:37.359 --> 0:19:40.280 it's a rough comparison to the iPad, which sold seventy 0:19:40.320 --> 0:19:45.680 three million units in its first year. What a huge contrast. 0:19:46.840 --> 0:19:49.560 There are rumors that Apple will stop offering the Vision 0:19:49.600 --> 0:19:53.959 Pro entirely and instead focus on a slimmed down model 0:19:54.160 --> 0:19:57.040 that would cost somewhere in the one thousand, five hundred 0:19:57.080 --> 0:20:00.119 dollar neighborhood in the new year. That might help the 0:20:00.160 --> 0:20:03.440 technology gained subtraction, though I imagine the people who tried 0:20:03.440 --> 0:20:06.440 out the vision Pro model may end up being disappointed 0:20:06.480 --> 0:20:10.000 that some of their favorite features are not there in 0:20:10.040 --> 0:20:14.520 the slimmed down version. Apple CEO Tim Cook has repeatedly 0:20:14.560 --> 0:20:17.320 stated that the Vision Pro is not and was never 0:20:17.440 --> 0:20:20.640 intended to be a mass market product. It was rather 0:20:21.080 --> 0:20:25.320 an early adopter product, and I believe him. I think 0:20:25.320 --> 0:20:27.760 that's true. But I think it's also true that Apple 0:20:27.920 --> 0:20:31.560 nearly had its expectations on how many units it would 0:20:31.560 --> 0:20:35.560 sell then, and that's a discouraging message. Like if you 0:20:35.720 --> 0:20:38.680 are in Apple and you're told, hey, we were hoping 0:20:38.680 --> 0:20:40.960 to sell eight hundred thousand units, but now we're marking 0:20:41.000 --> 0:20:43.639 it down to four hundred and fifty thousand, that's not 0:20:43.760 --> 0:20:46.880 great news. Like that's telling you, Okay, well, the demand 0:20:46.960 --> 0:20:49.719 for this particular technology is not as high as what 0:20:49.760 --> 0:20:52.560 we had hoped, and the price tag is probably too 0:20:52.680 --> 0:20:55.960 high for more people to jump on board. But I 0:20:56.000 --> 0:20:59.560 don't think that Apple's journey into mixed reality is over 0:21:00.320 --> 0:21:04.800 just yet. Okay, next up, we have predictions about quantum computing. 0:21:04.960 --> 0:21:07.359 I said quantum computing was going to be much bigger 0:21:07.400 --> 0:21:10.840 news in twenty twenty four, But considering all that did 0:21:10.840 --> 0:21:13.280 happen in twenty twenty four and how much stuff took 0:21:13.359 --> 0:21:17.479 up space in the news cycle, I think calling it 0:21:17.800 --> 0:21:20.320 big news in the sense of a lot of people 0:21:20.560 --> 0:21:24.320 hearing about quantum computing that was a bit off. That's 0:21:24.359 --> 0:21:27.399 not to say there weren't really important advancements and big 0:21:27.480 --> 0:21:31.320 news within the quantum computing world this past year. There 0:21:31.440 --> 0:21:34.919 certainly were. I just don't think it broke through to 0:21:35.000 --> 0:21:38.199 the headlines for a lot of other people outside the 0:21:38.240 --> 0:21:41.360 field to really learn about it. So, for example, recently 0:21:41.400 --> 0:21:44.960 Google announced a new quantum chip called Willow, and the 0:21:45.000 --> 0:21:47.679 hope is that this will allow for more real world 0:21:47.720 --> 0:21:53.040 applications of quantum computing in the near future. So quantum 0:21:53.080 --> 0:21:56.639 computing has been a revolutionary field of research, but the 0:21:56.640 --> 0:22:02.479 practical applications have been limited, partly because of the power 0:22:02.480 --> 0:22:05.840 limitations of quantum computing, because it's just hard to build 0:22:05.880 --> 0:22:10.000 a really powerful one. Quantum computers are extremely delicate, if 0:22:10.000 --> 0:22:11.720 you like to think of it, that way, like the 0:22:11.880 --> 0:22:17.479 quantum nature can collapse easily if not handled properly. On 0:22:17.560 --> 0:22:20.679 top of that, the algorithms you need to build, the 0:22:20.720 --> 0:22:23.520 programs you need to build to run on quantum computers 0:22:23.520 --> 0:22:27.840 are really complicated. So we've had a lot of progress 0:22:27.920 --> 0:22:31.800 on the hardware front, and often the progress on the 0:22:31.840 --> 0:22:37.320 software side is not mentioned nearly as frequently. But the 0:22:37.359 --> 0:22:43.560 potential for quantum computing is absolutely incredible. Quantum computing has 0:22:43.600 --> 0:22:47.439 the potential to tackle certain subsets of computational problems in 0:22:47.480 --> 0:22:50.320 a fraction of a fraction of the amount of time 0:22:50.359 --> 0:22:54.000 it takes a classical computer to do it. Like, there's 0:22:54.040 --> 0:22:58.280 some computational problems that are so difficult that a classical 0:22:58.320 --> 0:23:03.000 computer could take billions or trillions of years before it 0:23:03.000 --> 0:23:06.959 could complete it, whereas a quantum computer of sufficient power 0:23:07.280 --> 0:23:10.600 and with the right algorithm could potentially solve it in 0:23:10.680 --> 0:23:15.040 just a few minutes. I like the analogy that Tam Hallabeek, 0:23:15.200 --> 0:23:18.520 who is a strategist with the company Digi Sert, has said. 0:23:18.560 --> 0:23:22.320 He says, imagine that you have a typical maze puzzle. 0:23:23.080 --> 0:23:26.360 Now your classical computer will try to solve this puzzle 0:23:26.600 --> 0:23:30.119 by taking each path in turn, like all right, Well, 0:23:30.200 --> 0:23:32.359 let me follow this path. Okay, that led to a 0:23:32.400 --> 0:23:34.479 dead end. So let me now follow this path that 0:23:34.560 --> 0:23:36.360 led to a dead end. Let me follow this path, 0:23:36.359 --> 0:23:39.960 et cetera, et cetera. Now imagine if the computer were 0:23:40.000 --> 0:23:44.359 able to take every path at the same time and 0:23:44.400 --> 0:23:46.520 then come back with the answer as to which path 0:23:46.880 --> 0:23:51.640 was the best one. That speeds up the solution considerably. 0:23:52.200 --> 0:23:58.080 And that's how quantum computers work from a very abstract level. So, 0:23:58.240 --> 0:24:01.760 in compaired with the right algorithms and you have sufficient 0:24:01.880 --> 0:24:06.959 cubits or quantum bits in your quantum computer, the computer 0:24:07.119 --> 0:24:12.199 could potentially make previously safe encryption methods a breeze to decrypt. 0:24:12.720 --> 0:24:15.879 That's because the quantum computer, assuming it's powerful enough and 0:24:15.920 --> 0:24:19.560 the algorithm works, can solve for all potential pathways that 0:24:19.680 --> 0:24:22.560 led to the encryption at the same time and then 0:24:22.640 --> 0:24:26.720 reverse it. So assuming you've got the right program to 0:24:26.800 --> 0:24:29.760 run with the right quantum computer, decrypting stuff would be 0:24:29.800 --> 0:24:33.960 a breeze. That also means that potentially you could tackle 0:24:34.000 --> 0:24:37.600