Author: Kristoffer Lawson
A year has past since Kaiden’s first ever annual technology predictions, made for the year 2024. Let us enjoy a moment of self-reflection by testing our forecasting abilities, one prophecy at a time.
Predictions We Made for 2024
Prediction: AI musical whisperers will become musical celebrities.
While there have been examples of virtual celebrities for years already, the closest to a true musical whisperer is perhaps ImOliver (or I’m Oliver), and, in particular his Suno AI track Stone. By this I mean someone who becomes known specifically as a person guiding AI and creating popular music through that process. With over 3 million plays, Stone would already be considered a successful track, but with hundreds of songs on Spotify having hit over 100 million plays, and most of the top 20 being played over a billion times, ImOliver us still some way away from being a true celebrity, with all the benefits of being hounded by the media and their privacy invaded.
Result: For now I’m calling this prediction a miss for 2024, but this is going to happen, very very soon, or I’ll eat my infamous hat. Perhaps it will be by a DJ?
Prediction: I see Toyota permanently losing their number 1 position and there is a risk of mass layoffs over the next few years. It might not yet happen in 2024, but by the end of the decade.
At the time of the prediction, Tesla’s Model Y had just made to the number 1 position in global car sales. An incredible feat for a company that is, in automotive terms, still a startup, and for an EV. While Tesla’s fortunes and management acumen are under some stress, to put it lightly, Model Y is currently placed to be the top selling car of 2024. Two years in a row. Before the Model Y, a Toyota car had been top of the tables for 20 years. If we look at things from a group level, Toyota is still on top, for now, but their Corolla no longer controls the hill.
Result: ‘Permanently’ is a big word, but we are going to call this a hit for 2024. Two years in a row speaks of a trend.
Prediction: Bitcoin will be seeing upwards pressure.
Not only did we see record ETF action, but Trump’s rethroning drove prices up hard. Bitcoin’s price was around $44000 in January 2024. Now it sits at close to $100000. An increase of around 145%.
Result: Correct.
Prediction: A return to interest in AI assistant devices.
Not only is Apple heavily touting its AI features for the new iPhone, but Meta’s pairing with Ray-Ban in developing their new smart glasses (with AI features) has been a hit success. In some places they are even outselling regular Ray-Ban glasses.
Result: While these are still early steps, I am calling this correct, but with more to come.
Prediction: ActivityPub and services related to that will be the real social media winners in terms of growth.
2024 presented two large developments for social: Threads increasing its support for ActivityPub (thus allowing many more Threads users to be followed on Mastodon and other Fediverse services), and an explosion of growth for BlueSky. Meanwhile, X-Twitter continued to lose users, and even influential organisations The Guardian and NPR. X-Twitter’s haemorrhage has been fuelled by Trump’s win and Elon Musk’s sometimes questionable methods of influencing that outcome. Brazil’s short term ban on X-Twitter usage also helped to push up those numbers.
Result: Open to some interpretation. Mastodon has around 10 million registered users, across several thousand servers, while BlueSky currently has around 27 million. Threads has 200 million registered users, while the rest of the so-called Fediverse (various services that uses ActivityPub) has a few million more, in addition to Mastodon (with Instagram alternative Pixelfed experiencing recent surges). On paper that means around 215 million for ActivityPub versus 27 million on BlueSky, but only a portion of Threads users have enabled federation to ActivityPub. X-Twitter has several times more users than either network, but the numbers are decreasing, and trend matters. Final results will have to wait.
Prediction: Linda will be out within two years.
Linda Yaccarino is still technically at the helm of X-Twitter. I gave myself a two year window for this prediction, so it’s too soon to call just yet. But revenue is predicted to be significantly lower for 2024, with big losses for the company. There is chatter about friction within the company with some from her network apparently asking her to leave.
Result: Too early to call
Prediction: 2024 is unlikely to be the year of artificial realities. Maybe 2025 then.
Well, Apple is reported to have stopped production of the Vision Pro, due to low demand. Nobody else is doing anything of great significance in the consumer space. While you might point at Ray-Ban and meta as a counter-example, it’s important to highlight that does not provide any actual AR/VR functionality.
Result: Correct
Prediction: Despite global tensions, 2024 will see the tech industry hiring again. Unless the situations in Taiwan and the Middle East become even more explosive.
Unfortunately, the situation has become more explosive, particularly in the Middle East, and things are looking difficult in Ukraine as well. For 2024 the tech industry, as many others, was still in the doldrums. With the expansion of AI into all aspects of our life, technology has never been more critical. Those investing now will likely be winners, but perhaps facing a need to renew and rethink approached, technology people are still having to deal with a reality that they are not accustomed to: unemployment. It will be critical to now evaluate skills and possibly rethink what role technology knowledge will play in the future, but that’s for a different blog post.
Result: The tech industry is not yet a happy place and it looks like some more tough times may yet be ahead.
Conclusion
8 predictions were made, of which 4 turned out to be correct, 2 could be counted as misses, while 1 is open to interpretation and 1 is too early to call. A hit rate of at least 50%, and up to 75%. How do you think we did?