Three Big Fears For Tech In 2024

Now that 2023 is almost over, we tech researchers have started looking at how tech will impact our world in the new year. I usually have done prediction columns about tech in any coming year, but this year, I want to deviate and look at three serious fears about how tech will impact our lives in 2024.

Before I share my list of fears, I need to point out that tech, in general, has become embedded in the lives of billions of people. When I started covering tech in 1981, tech mainly focused on a business audience. Then, in 1991, we saw a shift, and PCs began infiltrating the consumer and educational market in a big way. However, two technologies introduced in the 2000s brought tech to a broader worldwide audience. The first was social media. It started with MySpace, launched in 2003, and then picked up serious steam when Facebook came to market in 2004. Now, billions of people around the world use various social networks, and this has made technology an intricate part of most people’s lives.

The smartphone was the second product that made tech more relatable to billions of people. Although early smartphones were introduced at the turn of the last century, it was Apple’s introduction of the iPhone in 2007 that accelerated the interest and hockey stick growth of smartphones. Thus, technology has penetrated our lives in various ways, and for many, tech is now integrated into much of what people do today.

The good news is that tech, in general, has had a positive impact on our world, whether it be in business, education, communications, entertainment, etc.

However, we know tech tools and sites have been used for many nefarious, provocative, and illegal purposes. As professional tech researchers, we must look at the positives and negatives of tech and track them as part of our jobs now.

As we enter a new year, technology will be even more important to people worldwide. On the positive side, AI will gain more ground and become more critical to businesses, educators, and consumers. Next year, we will also see an upswing in interest in VR, XR, and AR, led by the introduction of Apple’s Vision Pro and broader adoption of smartglasses, as I wrote about last week.

But I also have some serious fears about tech’s impact on our lives in the new year.

My first fear is the role tech, especially social media, will have in the 2024 U.S. election. We already know how it impacted our election in 2020, but new technologies have been introduced since then that could be even more disruptive to the next election—things like deepfakes, which can dupe the public to push an agenda or political smear campaigns. I have nightmares about the ways deepfakes could be used for all types of harmful purposes, especially as part of the election campaigning process.

We could also see social media weaponized in ways we can’t imagine yet. Elon Musk has given carte blanche to well-known conspiracy theorists and has fired thousands whose role was to monitor content on X. At the same time, Facebook and other social media companies are stepping up their monitoring of everything from illegal sites to ones that espouse dangerous rhetoric. But as the volume of political content and persuasion inundates social media, they will need help to stay up with the challenges of keeping commentary that violates their rules, especially the closer we get to election day in November 2024.

The second tech fear is using AI in social media next year. Although this fear extends well beyond 2024, it will be more critical during the upcoming election year. Using tools like ChatGPT, one can create a lot of political content in high volumes to push any political view, taint a candidate, etc.

Current AI technology has minimal guardrails in place to prevent the use of AI for both good and evil in an election. I suspect a lot of AI content will be created as part of the election process, and much of it could be legitimate and/or intentional misinformation.

I have one other tech fear for the new year: the role U.S. Congress will not play in 2024. As you are aware, Congress is so divided and, in some ways, paralyzed that their success in pushing through legislation last year has been minimal.

Some of those legislative resolutions were AI-related, many of which would be used to govern AI and make its use safer in the U.S. and worldwide. Very few AI-related laws were passed by Congress, and the potential of any significant AI laws passing before the next election is nearly zero. All 435 House seats and dozens of Senate seats are up for election in 2024. That means these legislators will be focusing with getting re-elected next November as well as dealing with various world conflicts in Ukraine, Israel, and Gaza.

In talks I have had with insiders I know in Washington, D.C., they believe Congress will remain paralyzed and any significant laws related to AI will be pushed out until the following year. That could mean that AI’s role and impact on the next election could be utterly void of U.S. regulations, thus giving those using AI for political purposes minimal guidance on the use of AI in next year’s election.

Other issues in tech could also be problematic, such as crypto investing, the actual relevance and impact of blockchain, and others that could make tech more challenging in 2024. But one thing I am sad to predict is that if my three concerns above become reality in 2024, tech will take some severe punches and more black eyes in the eyes of the world, than they did in 2023 with the demise of Silicon Valley Bank and the Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX crypto fiasco.

I expect to see more positive news in tech next year in terms of new technology breakthroughs and a shift to AI PCs that could energize the demand for PCs again in the coming year. But I do see rough waters ahead related to my three major concerns in tech for 2024.