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EXPONENTIAL CHANGE IN 2018 JANMUAAYRY20128018
Non-digital health care has an ineluctable appetite for cash. Aging populations, coupled with an affordability crunch at both the state and private level, will increase the need for novel solutions—which AI-powered digital health might just provide.
12. A novel cyberattack, in terms of scale or quality, will emerge. This may involve attacks that leverage some type of machine-learning technology: either using chatbots or natural-language generation, smarter password attacks, taking connected devices hostage, or adaptive systems that avoid detection.
13. The U.S. midterm elections will be a focus of systematic information warfare, with
the advantage with the perpetrators. The main political parties standing for election (and many groups who are not) use a wide spectrum of tools to target, persuade, and mislead voters, such as never before.
14. Augmented reality will continue to simmer rather than boil. True believers in AR and mixed reality will persevere, but the opportunity for large-scale change afforded by AI and blockchain—especially in fintech, health care, and energy—will attract the majority of driven entrepreneurs. Edge cases that extend reality, especially in industry, will be the most interesting. Smart firms will start to build up their capabilities in this domain today to reap rewards in the future.
15. Digital advertising has been invasive for far too long, and this year ad tech will suffer. The enhanced privacy features in iOS and Google Chrome, and the requirements of data obligations of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation will hurt ad tech and programmatic advertising. Facebook and Google will barely notice and will continue to dominate the market.
16. Crypto-mining’s hunger for energy will overshadow the growth of renewables. The price of renewables will continue to decline and new solar and wind contracts will
be substantially below the best fossil fuels can offer. On the downside, the energy consumption of mining Bitcoin and other tokens will continue to grow at more than 20 percent per month, unless there is a huge price correction. So by this time next year crypto-mining will be using about 10 times as much energy as it does today, rivaling Italy’s consumption. Unless, that is, blockchains undergo is a major conversion to proof-of-stake.
17. Ethics will increasingly drive consumer choice and investing strategy. Consumers will increasingly make purchase and investment decisions based on their resonance with
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