What will happen in 2024?
What you think will happen.
Near the end of 2023, lots of people were posting about santa claus, and whether he exists or not, and at what age you should be telling children about him. You should know that santa claus actually does exist. We invented him, and he lives in our minds. And his image is shared constantly.
And this is not some soft impact relegated to a story we tell young people so that they are “good.” Santa exists in a hard way that moves markets — that synthesis of human intelligence. We put a lot of stock into the idea that brands will promote santa’s image near the end of 2024. Almost as much stock as we put into the idea that the Sun will rise tomorrow.
But our ideas about stock are not the only powerful force here, and the Sun doesn’t rise. It hurtles forth in space, and Earth orbits, revolves and rotates around it. Our thoughts about what might or might not happen are important, especially if we put a lot of energy into making them happen. But they are just one ingredient in what ultimately becomes reality. At best, they represent an informed prediction.
We kind of already know what’s likely going to happen in 2024 based on all the predictions that are out there. It’s priced in so to speak. If you read the current/recent publications of the magnificent seven or state agencies, we are often reading predictions about 2024. Biden says he’s got a better plan for the country than trump whos says he’s better than his challengers who say they’re better still. Meanwhile nvidia says they will start selling a new type of computer chip , and spacex says they’ll launch new rockets on average every 2-3 days.
Here are my predictions for 2024.
We will grow the supply of new technologies. People inside of corporations, academia, and increasingly inside startups and as part of open source collectives will make new discoveries, enabling them and others to create new and better tech (aka, products).
New demand (eg, human needs, wants, desires) will be created in response to the new tech.
Institutions will partner with innovators to integrate new tech. More people will be talking about how institutions need to effectively digitize in a certain way and take advantage of new technologies/capabilities, and some of this will get adopted. (our electoral politics will remain pretty bad, but serviceable — ie, peace and opportunity will exist in America)
Entrepreneurs will continue to try and fix perceived problems across every aspect of human life using the latest tools and methods. And many will succeed.
The next set of predictions are focused on “edtech”, my area of deepest focus.
Asynchonous learning will have another big year (eg, duolingo & duolingo’s in other verticals, learning on minecraft/roblox etc, and edutainment/games in general). Hopefully this extends to the emergence of high-quality asynchronous (or hybrid) college or professional courses that feel more like games / movies than a traditional course …. but that might be 2025.
The locus of “education innovation” will continue to spread across (i) “alt education” (eg, private schools/homeschooling/pods/microschools) and (ii) direct-to-consumer edtech startups, and (iii) general startups, including: enterprise / prosumer software that integrate skill building into their tools, consumer companies innovating on user engagement & retention, and people/companies designing and selling “communities” and “irl experiences.”
More innovations from the edges will make their way in k12 classrooms, both in terms of products designed for schools/educators, and tools built by (and with) schools / educaotrs.
AI will get enthusiastic uptake amongst educators across pk-20, and prompt engineering will become part of the standard training and development for teachers.
Institutions will make policy statements and efforts that acknowledge the power of the new “ai technologies”, and put what some people think are unnecessary guardrails in place.
Increasing amounts of people who work in the education space will see reason to believe that by 2030 ai has the potential to transform “schools” by bringing them into the “modern” or “information era.”