As SNS members are aware, we have just released our Top 10 Predictions for 2025 at our virtual annual Predictions event; you can view a recording of that session in the coming week, as a benefit of membership.
Because we'll be sharing the complete recorded event - together with discussions and Q&A - I am refraining from transcribing or converting all of my thoughts on the economic, technological, and country landscapes upon which these predictions are based.
Rather, in this issue I've outlined a greater number of predictions in all these areas, in the hopes that this is more useful to our members.
As in 2024's Predictions recap, the idea here is to move from a detail-driven, very long conversation to getting the main points across and allowing enough intellectual breathing room for members to stop often, digest, make inner comments and arguments, compare with their own ideas of what's coming, and come to useful conclusions.
________
THEME FOR 2025:
"The CRINK Effect: A Two-Front World in an All-Fronts War"
Containing these megatrends:
The Fractured, and Fracturing, Internet
The Fight for the Middle Class
WW III: Destabilize, Reorganize, Dominate
As foretold by last year's theme, "Chaos: Levels of Play," 2024 has seen more governments replaced than at any time since WWII, as best as we can tell - just one of the outcomes of CRINK misinformation and internet greed and mischief.
Here are the Landscapes, followed by the Top 10 Predictions for the year ahead.
LANDSCAPES
This year, the status of almost all nations can, and generally must, be addressed in terms of the effects of the CRINK alliance on their plans and operations. This applies to territorial battles, propaganda and mis/disinformation warfare, economic warfare, food supply security, cyber warfare, sabotage, supply-chain attacks and manipulation, and more. For that reason, I'll be sharing landscape views with these in mind.
Let's start with countries.
Countries in 2025
CRINK: Having coined this term to describe China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, we find it unfortunately and dramatically more obvious that this is the political, economic, and military story of the decade, if not the century. We were the first to recognize this alliance, noted publicly at the Aspen Global Security Forum in London in 2015, and were the first to give it a name. Not only can one not discuss its members without referring to their roles in the alliance, but now it also seems almost impossible to describe other nations' futures, so large has their effect been in bringing chaos and damage to the old world order.
China: With its domestic economy on the ropes, China is now in the third year of a global technology export onslaught, timed with its bio-attack via COVID. Having repeatedly plugged its domestic economic dike(s) since January of 2015 (when we first noted fear on the part of the Chinese Communist Party over the domestic collapse), the Standing Committee is both: a) out of economic alternatives; and b) fully committed to its original long-term plans for general economic and sector domination, using subsidized tech exports as the prime tools.
Somehow, the global media has missed the most important aspects of this event, to date. But it must be highlighted that Chinese high-value exports, led by cars, went into superdrive just recently, at a scale never seen before, and that this is not some error in production calculation (as Janet Yellen, the Wall Street Journal, et al. try to frame it). It is certainly the largest economic attack the world has ever seen.
The greatest fear of the CCP now has to be the near-universal response of sanctions and tariffs by its free-world customer base.
CRINK Effect: China is the primary driver of this alliance. At the same time, it is both China's most dangerous international tool and its greatest vulnerability set. It is also the only way China delays economic implosion.
Russia: Vladimir Putin's Russia is now an economic dependent of China, getting most of its oil money, under US sanction, from Xi. (India is also a top buyer, and therefore a supporter of the Ukraine war.) Inflation, rated by Russia at around 9%, is commonly held to be closer to 28%.
CRINK Effect: Russia could not survive the Ukraine war, now costing the nation something like 20%-25% of GDP, were it not for CRINK: money and electronics and cars from China; missiles and drones from Iran; soldiers, bullets, antitank weapons, and more from NK.
Iran: It appears that Iran is suddenly and greatly weakened by Israel's destruction / weakening of its many proxy war groups. The attacks on Hamas and Hezbollah appear to have been behind the sudden and surprise rebel attacks on Syria, leading to a direct and public repudiation of both Iranian and Russian military strength. Iran has just undergone something like what Putin's enemies experience when they get too close to upper-story windows: having lost Syria, Gaza, and Lebanon (and territory in the Golan Heights), with the West Bank next. It's also probably not a great time to be a Houthi in Yemen. The Middle East power map has not changed this much since the Sykes-Picot Agreement.
CRINK Effect: Since Iran's past job was to shoot at US ships and at Israel, hiding behind Russia's nuclear umbrella (that seems to be over now), CRINK no longer can count on Iran to play its prior Middle East role in the alliance. Iran is suddenly open to negotiating with the West again, and the potential for a revolution at home has just gone up 1,000%. Could there be a zipperlike backlash effect, whereby CRINK gets disempowered, first with Iran, then with Russia, just leaving China where it started?
North Korea: Rumors that China is unhappy with North Korea's new friendship with Russia cannot be entirely true. If China were unhappy, NK would not be in this position. On the other hand, since NK historically has gotten about 90% of its energy from China (think coal), getting oil and new warfare tech from Russia could be a step up and away from Daddy. We may have to stop calling NK "the Indiana of China" if this keeps up.
CRINK Effect: NK is moving from being a Chinese vassal to being a CRINK vassal.
Germany: Germany continues to underperform, based on its continued reliance on auto company misreads of China-as-its-friend (rather than its top competitor), sluggish response to global and technical changes, and the easily anticipated cutoff of Russian natural gas as an energy source for its energy-intensive factories. (It does still buy LNG from Russia.) Now with deepening schisms politically, helped along by both Russia's divisive info warfare and its earlier drive of over 1 million immigrants into the country as a weapon, Germany looks slow and not so smart, in an era that demands just the opposite.
CRINK Effect: All of the above problems were delivered by China and Russia, but Germany failed to shoulder responsibility for recognizing those tactics and roles. The CRINK success in harming the German economy has to be considered one of the former's greatest successes as an alliance in 2024. After all, CRINK's primary goal of dividing both the EU and NATO has to start with Germany, using the car companies as proxies. So far, so good.
UK: With Labour back in power, who didn't foresee a replay of the craven "David Cameron Loves China" show? It didn't take too many minutes before PM Starmer was sending love letters over to Beijing, hoping it would appear for more trade handouts, if only he would make nice. Stop it, Keir; you're embarrassing everyone.
CRINK Effect: Helping to sow division in the UK government, and replacing ruling parties, is the trademark of CRINK - in this case, with China as the carrot and Russia as the divisive stick. More migrants came into the UK after Brexit than before, which did nothing for the anti-immigration Conservatives.
Japan: Another in what seems an endless list of prime-minister replacements leaves Japan as a bit of a question mark, when the free world (and the Quad) needs a strong Pacific partner. But wait, there's more:
Australia: Much like Keir Starmer, PM Anthony Albanese didn't waste too many minutes before he was begging China to be Australia's friend again, hoping for more money. You can blame him, or . . .
CRINK Effect: . . . you can blame China. I'd pick both. As any reader of Clive Hamilton's work knows, there is likely no country in the world that has been more compromised in more sectors by China's United Front organizations than Australia - including spies elected to office.
Major Areas of Technical Interest and Contest
Chips. It appears that the US CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act may be paying off on schedule in the re-creation of the US-based chip industry, despite CEO Pat Gelsinger's departure from Intel. Slow to start, fabs construction schedules are now accelerating, and it suddenly isn't hard to see a global shift in manufacturing over a relatively short time frame - perhaps as little as five years, with major steps in just two or three. At the same time, we are also seeing more chip companies, including AI captive efforts, most driven by GPT fervor. We are clearly entering a new era in chip design, volumes, technology, and geography. The days of TSMC / Taiwan are numbered, at least as far as the monolithic chipmaker's monopoly position in the global firmament is concerned. No one today wants TSMC's multiple risk levels, nor that potential for technology leaks to China and SMIC à la Huawei.
AI. Even as the valley hype machine pushes on, the rest of the world increasingly pushes back on what GPT cannot, and should not be allowed to, do. The result will include broken promises to CEOs on performance by their tech teams, broken careers and bankrupt companies that drank the GPT Kool-Aid. Companies that make restricted and modest use of GPT will prosper, while those that overpromised will suffer greatly.
Energy. Remember the last three times you heard Peak Oil stories out of Wall Street? What a joke. For the moment, the world is awash in energy, in oil, in gas, with solar coming on strong. Getting energy is not the problem, at the moment, but getting it from the right places; modular fission is on the up but still faces permit delays, while geothermal looks promising, doesn't need storage, has no diurnal variation, and can be done in many places around the planet using current fracking technology. The main problem now on the horizon: GPT practices may eat up all the surplus promised, and more.
Healthcare. Unfortunately for the field of healthcare (and its patients), the rush to implement GPT/GAI technologies has far outrun anyone's ability to prevent the inevitable dangerous, and fatal, mistakes that accompany hallucinations injected into this field. Healthcare, of all fields, should have been protected from the use of flawed software, but money appears to be more important. Now it falls to hospital system owners, practitioners, and perhaps some patients, to avoid what should have been completely avoidable harm. The Hippocratic Oath has just lost the near-term contest with Valley BS. The good news is that there will certainly be an acceleration in new discoveries. The bad news: the Valley mantra that "quantity = quality" could not be more wrong.
THE TOP 10 PREDICTIONS FOR 2025
We will see a breakout in the number and types of major chipmakers, as AI becomes the top market motivator. The result is an explosion in competition unlike any seen in the chip world to date. Intel suffers, Arm grows, Qualcomm surfs the wave, and Nvidia keeps blowing up, but faces the hazards that lurk behind pure GPT vulnerability and dependency.
Big Tech continues its consolidation plays under the Trump administration, now unhindered by Biden and Kahn in the US or by Margrethe Vestager in the EU. The big tech firms, already bigger than most countries, will achieve a level of size and multilevel, exponential growth not only previously unseen, but also unimagined, by most. The real story is their competition with one another, as all of the top four (Google, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon) try to do it all and get it all.
Global warming continues its human and financial cost, as insurers and reinsurers back out of markets and major catastrophes increase. Solar is the key, wind second, and the buildout accelerates as all nations come to the same conclusion.
There will be no AGI from GPT. The blush is off the compost pile for generative AI (GAI) and GPT; even as the hype wave continues, the redline turns redder between what users and buyers will and will not tolerate regarding the failure modes of this hyper-hyped technology. People hallucinating about OpenAI's artificial general intelligence (AGI) dreams will be relegated to a similar fate as that of Dylan Thomas's uncles in the back room during Christmas parties.
"Elonmania" will become less manic. Those who hate will get somewhat tired of hating, and those who appreciate will not be surprised at new successes. His companies will continue to grow, and whatever the grand plan is will continue to be revealed. Being the richest person will dwindle in importance into the background, compared with the scale of his growing number of major achievements, both alone and, often integrated, together.
The world moves from the sentimental to the utilitarian. It becomes a tougher, more pragmatic place, based on what it is vs. one's personal Tik Tok celebrity dreams. War replaces peace, and brutal efficiency replaces dreamy hope, in many parts of the globe. The gloves are coming off on every side.
CRINK continues its prosecution of WWIII, on all fronts. This is not a replay of the Cold War; it is a hot war, on all fronts, worldwide. Iran is de-fanged militarily; Russia's Ukraine war has made it an economic basket case, captive to Chinese and North Korean interests. China goes into desperation mode as its domestic economy continues its long crash and its Export Attack falls short of its needs. Xi may have to fall back on the military for the diversion of expansion.
Countries worldwide accelerate their efforts to protect children from the internet. Now all they have to do is the same for adults.
China cars dominate the global market everywhere but in the US,as the Chinese Export Attack uses both gas and EVs as the sharp point of this general-export spear. Massive market gains are made in South Asia and in emerging nations, accompanied by gains against entrenched competitors in the EU, the UK, and elsewhere. China's expansion of the Mexico market is breathtaking, in preparation for an ultimate attack on the US.
Agents spawned by GPT and GAI will be everywhere, falling into these categories:
Agents helping humans? Yes, and good.
Agents manipulating humans? Yes, and very bad.
Agents "as smart as a new intern" hollow out the middle-class workforce and increase financial income gaps.
I hope these predictions and observations are useful for our members, and that one use will be to improve your coming year, on whichever beneficial path you choose.
Your comments are always welcome.
Sincerely,
Mark Anderson
DISCLAIMER: NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE
Information and material presented in the SNS Global Report should not be construed as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice. Nothing contained in this publication constitutes a solicitation, recommendation, endorsement, or offer by Strategic News Service or any third-party service provider to buy or sell any securities or other financial instruments. This publication is not intended to be a solicitation, offering, or recommendation of any security, commodity, derivative, investment management service, or advisory service and is not commodity trading advice. Strategic News Service does not represent that the securities, products, or services discussed in this publication are suitable or appropriate for any or all investors.
We encourage you to forward your favorite issues of SNS to a friend(s) or colleague(s) 1 time per recipient, provided that you cc[email protected] and that sharing does not result in the publication of the SNS Global Report or its contents in any form except as provided in the SNS Terms of Service (linked below).
To arrange for a speech or consultation by Mark Anderson on subjects in technology and economics, or to schedule a strategic review of your company, email [email protected].
For inquiries about Partnership or Sponsorship Opportunities and/or SNS Events, please contact Berit Anderson, SNS COO, at [email protected].
PAST PREDICTIONS |
RESULTS OF THE TOP 10 PREDICTIONS FOR 2024
More smartphones become satphones, led by Huawei.
The Mate 60 took the world (including Apple) by surprise, with more advanced chip tech than thought possible, and with true satellite capabilities, in a first-ever general rollout of this technology. There is some debate regarding whether Huawei just pre-ordered more chips prior to sanctions taking hold, the US stupidly shipped such chips to other Chinese firms on the "honor" system (for China, with laws saying so, there is no such wall separating commerce and state), or TSMC did the same thing, wittingly or unwittingly. The result was Huawei advanced its market share at home and around the world.10 pts.
We start getting reliable data on long COVID, and none of the news is good. More people start seeing this as a bioweapon's wake.
News continues to come out in medical publications regarding the ongoing effects of this bioweapon, specifically in the arenas of cardiac (arrhythmia, myocarditis, stroke, other) and kidney issues. As of this printing, a newly published paper suggests that, to date, about three years after the initial attack, victims continue to present with new onsets of these and other COVID-related problems.10 pts.
We leave the decades in which AI promised healthcare benefits and didn't deliver them, to an era in which Third-Wave AI does.
Almost all of the "safe" healthcare benefits arising from the use of GPT and GAI are in the areas of clinical operations and other language-based advances; nevertheless, there is a very large amount of progress in these areas. AlphaFold3 has also benefited protein study immensely, as it is, at root, also a language-based problem (what comes after G and before C and . . . etc.). Notably, Pattern Computer appears to have become the most productive group (using its Pattern Discovery Engine™) in effective drug design for the top five cancers. (Disclosure: I am Pattern's CEO and co-founder.)10 pts.
Migration becomes understood as a weapon, as a target of misinformation campaigns, and as driven by economics and the internet rather than by the need for asylum; in short, as the top political issue in every wealthy country with free speech.
This revelation has contributed to a reversal of policies in migration, including (but not limited to) the Biden reversal on asylum treatment in the final months of the US presidential-election campaign; the Swedish reversal on migration; the Italian reversal and ensuing attempt to ship migrants to Albania; the UK reversal (and change in government) and attempt to send migrants to Rwanda; the German reversal (and two changes in government), with the rapid emergence of the AfD as a major political player; et cetera.10 pts.
China increasingly looks like the economic winner among the CRINK crowd, even as its domestic economy continues to implode.
While Russia, Iran, and North Korea continue to suffer economically - and even as China has domestic economic problems as well - China is benefiting directly, economically, from heavy discounts on its Russian oil prices and by shipping cars and other exports to Russia. NK, as usual, is playing the China proxy / puppet role, but it is seeing a small shadow of similar benefits from Russia, in return for armaments and infantry troops. But Iran, Russia, and North Korea are the clear losers in this Quad.10 pts.
Starlink begins morphing into a global communications company.
In addition to the existing constellation of about 6,700 satellites, Starlink has already announced plans for 12,000 in the near term, perhaps reaching 34,400. As of September 2024, Starlink has announced 4M subscribers. At the same time, the company has moved aggressively into alliances with both government and military (the US Air Force and Space Force, among other agencies), and with commercial telecoms carriers such as T-Mobile and Verizon, which one can only interpret as early steps toward becoming the planet's largest telecoms uber-carrier.10 pts.
The West finally wakes up to the CCP's plans to dominate the global car industry via subsidized EV adoption and sales and begins taking steps to prevent it.
This year, the Biden administration continued - and added to - prior Trump administration sanctions and tariffs on Chinese EVs and cars, moving from 25% to 100%; and Trump campaigned (and won) on promises to increase EV tariffs to from 100% to as high as 200%. Some have suggested a complete barring of all sales inside the US. The EU has now passed legislation for adding 35% to its existing 10% tariffs on Chinese EVs. Canada has passed a 100% tariff on Chinese EVs.10 pts.
The production of natural gas has explosive growth, fulfilling a transition- term need for more global energy, even as renewables see similar growth. Coal is the loser in energy, and oil and gasoline are the losers in transport.
In its latest report, the International Energy Agency (IEA) projected downward pressures on prices for oil and gas, due to overproduction during a time when China's domestic demands have declined due to overbuilding. Adding this to the Trump re-election promises of increased drilling for oil and gas, while driving prices down, and you have a combination as this year ends of global overproduction and prices near their low end. At the same time, China appears to be the only major source for new coal plants, via its Belt and Road Initiative. As such, it has chosen a path in which it is the top producer of greenhouse gases, and of renewable energy and its constituent parts. Outside of China's roles, the world is moving quickly toward renewables, led by solar and wind. Biden put a hold on additional transport or port handling for natural gas during the end of his term - something Trump may remove. But the bottleneck for this year was Biden's cutoff, which had a direct effect on natgas and LNG shipments overseas, even as the US returned on a path to becoming the global lead in oil and gas production.10 pts.
Solar-power installation, together with the battery industry it depends upon, emerges as the far-and-away winner in global efforts to slow climate change. This is linked to a general agreement that it is time to stop talking and start doing, on a massive scale.
Although the oil and gas industry has again succeeded in torpedoing direct action via the international COP conferences, this has had little effect on the commercialization and rollout worldwide of cheaper energy sources, led by solar. For example, solar comprised 67% of all new electricity-generating capacity added to the US grid in the first half of 2024. Global solar additions to capacity were up 29% YTY, thanks in part to new markets such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. In the first seven months of this year, India was up by 77%.10 pts.
Autonomous vehicles and robotics dominate high-constraint zones, such as ports and factories, following in the (similar) footsteps of the Roomba in houses. This does not include open highways, major cities, or other unpredictable environments. Manufacturers come to the realization that true autonomy requires true explainable AI.
Inside China, as part of the CCP's efforts to dominate the global EV industry, the government has provided about 30 companies with national licenses; it is important to note that the government neither provides nor allows any reports on deaths from these autonomy experiments. Outside of China, autonomous vehicle vendors are now running small but increasing numbers of constrained tests (depending on vendor), generally limited to racetrack or highly constrained environments (i.e., only part of a city, or only one or two well-mapped areas). While, for example, GM's Cruise was essentially shut down nationwide after bad experiences in San Francisco, Google's Waymo has - through successful tests in Phoenix, San Francisco, and LA - taken the lead in this category. But even Waymo continues to have to operate only in limited geographic areas (SAE Level 4). As of late 2024, no system has achieved full autonomy (SAE Level 5).Whether manufacturers recognize their need for XAI as the answer to these challenges seems to be a work in progress. Elon Musk's xAI, for example, does not have explainable AI (XAI) - it is a GPT/GAI technology - but his Tesla car firm is projected to be its first customer. Research papers are beginning to show the dependency of autonomous driving on true XAI; for example:
From the abstract:However, intelligent decision-making in such vehicles is not generally understandable by humans in the current state of the art, and such deficiency hinders this technology from being socially acceptable. Hence, aside from making safe real-time decisions, AVs must also explain their AI-guided decision-making process in order to be regulatory compliant across many jurisdictions. Our study sheds comprehensive light on the development of explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) approaches for AVs. In particular, we make the following contributions. First, we provide a thorough overview of the state-of-the-art and emerging approaches for XAI-based autonomous driving.
While it is harder to measure, because it is in transition, this trend is very much under way, and on track.
8 pts.
GRADED ACCURACY OF PAST SNS PREDICTIONS
2005-2023 (Inclusive) Average = 95.3%
Est. 2024 Year Score = 98%
Total Average Since 2005, Including 2024 Predictions = 95.44%
[Math: (95.3 x 18 + 98)/19 = 95.44%]
QUOTES OF THE WEEK
"Before the pandemic, the rules were set down by the Western carmakers. Now it's the opposite." - Felipe Munoz, Global Analyst at JATO Dynamics; quoted in the New York Times
Yes, that would be the beginning of the Great Export Attack on the West, led by cars, starting in March 2020.
"Therefore, the military has basically turned against Xi." - Yao Chang, former Lieutenant Colonel staff officer for the PLA Navy, referring to the military's resistance to invading Taiwan; quoted in the Epoch Times
"Xi Jinping's ruling crisis lies in the extreme decline and precipitous fall of his political prestige. [Like Mao's, Xi's] personal political authority has completely collapsed." - Yuan Hongbing, former Peking University law professor, now living in Australia; ibid.
"People no longer doubt it will be done. The question now is: When?" - Mikhail Lukin, Harvard physics professor, on the new Google quantum compute scaling error-correction technology; quoted in the New York Times
ETHERMAIL
Subject: Elon Musk Says He's Leaving Electric Vehicles Behind - MITechNews
Mark,
MIGHT BE OF INTEREST.
"Elon Musk, the Electric Vehicles pioneer and lead investor in the multi-billion dollar enterprise Tesla, announced his company will be shifting its focus"
https://search.app/TV4oVXQFY2NSSb7X8 (Source: MITechNews)
William C. Harris
Co-Founder & Board Chair
Innovation Advisory Partners;
Founding President & CEO (fmr.)
Science Foundation Arizona;
Co-Author (with Pete Mackey),
How to Change the Future: Lessons from Ireland
Phoenix, AZ
Bill,
This is the second time I have seen notice of this, so I suppose one should take it seriously; the date is recent as well, so it seems to be more than a repeat of the last.
The only time I ever had a disagreement with Elon was over brunch at SXSW one year, when I suggested that he pay attention to hydrogen fuel cells.
At that time, and for all the time until now perhaps, he was extremely dismissive of the technology. I think he was looking at it from a physics / efficiency perspective - as in, Why add another step and associated energy loss? My point was that hydrogen was an energy currency rather than a source; that it could address range anxiety; and that the Japanese had a then-decade-old secret project working on it.
Perhaps I won that argument after all . . . :-)
Thank you for sharing this. I'd be interested in your views on the Irish election, once the dust has settled.
Mark Anderson
Subject: COVID-19 Origins
Mark,
You were right, and now it's official:
The Official Government Report finds:
COVID-19 Origins: The COVID-19 pandemic likely originated from a laboratory or research-related incident.
Misinformation: Public health officials and the Biden administration engaged in misinformation and disinformation campaigns to suppress the lab-leak theory and promote specific narratives.
Government Overreach: The Biden administration's mask mandates and other restrictive measures exceeded its authority and were often not supported by scientific evidence.
School Closures: The decision to close schools during the pandemic was not supported by science and had severe adverse impacts on students' academic performance, mental health, and physical health.
Vaccine Mandates: The government imposed vaccine mandates that were not supported by science, ignored natural immunity, and caused significant collateral damage.
Erosion of Public Trust: Actions by public health officials and the government led to a decline in public trust in institutions and a rise in misinformation and anti-science rhetoric.
Financial Mismanagement: The government's pandemic relief programs were vulnerable to significant fraud, waste, and abuse due to insufficient oversight and outdated financial management systems.
WHO's Failure: The World Health Organization (WHO) failed to uphold its mission, caved to pressure from the Chinese Communist Party, and did not hold China accountable for violating international health regulations.
Economic Impacts: The pandemic and the government's response had severe economic impacts on individuals, communities, and businesses, including job losses, business closures, and supply chain disruptions.
Unintended Consequences: The government's pandemic policies, including lockdowns and vaccine mandates, had severe unintended consequences that will likely have lasting effects on society.
Might be a good "I told you so" for the GR. <SMILE>
The full 527-page report can be downloaded here.
Scott Schramke
CTO
Strategic News Service & Future in Review
Seattle, WA
Scott,
Here is another list, from the summaries at the top of this long report:
Mark Anderson
Subject: Re: "SNS: The Productivity Wasteland in Our GPT Future
Mark,
It might also be possible to do "original enough" primary research with ChatGPT o1:
Steps-
1) "Give me public datasets that are available in the domain X and subdomain Y."
2) "Do statistical analysis on this dataset (attached) and formulate a few interesting hypothesis."
3) "Do deep analysis of this dataset (attached) and price or disprove hypothesis H."
4) "Prepare an IEEE style paper with the hypothesis, analysis, and results."
It seems [as if] to increase Bucket 2, one needs (in order)
a) Relevant data - 1)
b) Rigorous analysis - 2) and 3)
c) Reporting and formatting - 4)
Although ChatGPT can't do the a) (yet!), it is pretty good at b) and c)
Therefore data does seem to be the bottleneck here, and increasing Bucket 1, in so far as in to increase the data ingestion into these AI factories, does seem like a good long term strategy to me.
Best wishes,
Saurav Bhattacharya
President
The New World Foundation
Seattle, WA
Saurav,
Thank you for this. I will respectfully disagree with the methodology you are suggesting, in the following way: While it is true that data retrieval could be an o1 problem, or for any locally run version of GPT or other LLMs, the really dangerous part is based in the analytics, which are neither trustworthy nor transparent. In other words, even if you use clean data, such as Lexis/Nexis, the system will still make stuff up (hallucinate), as has been proven early on in court in NYC.
Mark Anderson
Mark,
Brilliant article. Regarding the energy / water requirements of AI data centers, you might add the requirements of Bitcoin mining data centers, which is even more of a useless waste to society than GPT. At least GPT can answer questions drawn from your Bucket 1 of known information, while Bitcoin has turned out to be simply a speculative investment vehicle based on zero underlying value. Sigh.
Best,
Rick LeFaivre
Board of Directors
Pattern Computer Inc.
Past Managing Director, OVP Ventures
Past VP, Advanced Technology, Apple and SUN
Sun Valley, ID
Mark,
Great thoughts, and I think we have a run-away train on our hands. This is what happens when we have too much surplus money that's been cheap to acquire at the expense of the average investor. One good thing is it will cause nuclear [energy] to make a major come back. It will be the primary source of electricity worldwide.
I think this time we will get it right. It will be a lot of fun to watch all this unfold no matter how it settles in.
May God bless humanity,
Ward Phillips
La Conner, WA
Subject: Your predictions for 2024
Mark,
I just thoroughly enjoyed your [podcast] review and assessment of your 2024 predictions with Berit. I was smitten by the huge number (34K if I remember correctly) of satellites that need to be employed to simultaneously communicate with all the folks on Earth. Did you know that if you employed them in the Van Allen Belt only 3 cells would be needed to cover the entire planet. Unfortunately, if they were made of Si they would only last 10 minutes. Covering them with a glass window would only extend their life by 100x. However, if InP (indium phosphide) were used even the bare InP cells would be rad hard in the Van Allen Belt (maybe even last for >20 years if Russia or China didn't shoot them down).
Guess what? My graduate student, Yaning Sun, and I invented, fabricated and measured the rad hardness of our InP cells and published the results: "Y. Sun, J.M. Woodall, J.L. Freeouf, and R. J. Walters, 'Radiation Hard and Gravimetric Efficient Thin Film InP Solar Cells,'" IEEE Photovoltaic Spec. Conf. 29 (2002) p. 994. A copy of a later version is attached. As you can see, our credibility is shown in the reference list.
Unfortunately, for whatever reason, Elon and his brain trust did not see it. He could have saved billions of $$ if he had. It's still not too late. I have the know-how to make them. :)
Jerry M. Woodall
Consultant, B&B Gulf LLC
National Medal of Technology Laureate
NAE Member and Fellow: AAAS, NAI, APS, IEEE, ECS, AVS;
Distinguished Professor
UC Davis
Davis, CA
Jerry,
So glad you enjoyed the predictions conversation.
As far as satellites go, you have the know-how and Elon famously called SNS "the most interesting publication I know of." Perhaps he will read this correspondence and follow up.
Stranger and less likely things happen every day.
Berit Anderson
Mark,
Russia has announced plans to collaborate with BRICS nations and other partners to counter U.S. dominance in artificial intelligence. The initiative, led by Vladimir Putin, will create an AI Alliance Network aimed at fostering international collaboration in research, regulations, and market opportunities. Key partners include Brazil, China, India, and South Africa, signaling a global effort to reshape AI leadership.
Charles A. Richardson
Chief Data Wrangler, Pattern Computer
Friday Harbor
San Juan Island, WA
Subject: Re Attribution for discovering and inventing the term CRINK:
[After The Week named SNS as the first to identify and name CRINK]
Mark,
Wow, kudos to [article author] Harriet Mardsen
That's some serious journalistic integrity
Paul Shoemaker
Executive Director, Carnation Farms
Consultant & Author, Can't Not Do and Taking Charge of Change
Founding President, Social Venture Partners Int'l.
www.paulshoemaker.org
Seattle, WA
Paul,
Mark forwarded me your email. The story is a bit less straightforward than meets the eye: I stumbled on a May article published by The Week in which "CRINK" was misattributed to a speaker at a 2022 conference. Mark immediately sent a note to the main desk, and we heard back from the Week's Executive Editor-UK almost as quickly, asking for background. I compiled and sent her the evidence you saw in this week's GR's "Takeout Window." It only took her about a day to reply with a note of apology and make the change.
So, yes, I agree - they showed integrity, but in this case it came into play 6 months later and from UK Executive Editor Hollie Clemence, at our request (and with our expressed gratitude), not author Harriet Mardsen.
But thanks for paying attention, as usual. :)
(The false attribution, by the way, is still being perpetrated by Google AI. I wonder who to write to ...)
Sally Anderson
Editor-in-Chief, SNS & Future in Review
Managing Director, FiReBooks & FiReFilms
Sally,
Well damn, I shoulda known. I'm glad that the record is straight now and going forward at least
As for Google, good lord. I actually know one guy there that I can ask. I have low hopes but if anything looks promising, I'll loop you in ASAP
Your work matters now more than ever
Paul Shoemaker
Subject: Concern about Chinese-made home routers
Ken Kreutz-Delgado
Senior Technical Fellow
Mathematics & Machine Learning
Pattern Computing
Redmond, WA
Mark,
China: Still as brazen as ever…
John Petote
Founder, Santa Barbara Angel Alliance,
SNS Ambassador for Angel Investing,
and Board Member, Pattern
Santa Barbara, CA
Subject: Re: TOMORROW: SNS 2025 Predictions Reveal
Berit,
Thanks! You did a really great job, by the way, on the [podcast] report-out for 2024 predictions!
Jody R. Westby, Esq.
CEO, Global Cyber Risk LLC
Contributor, Forbes
Adjunct Professor, Georgia Institute of Technology, School of Computer Science
Washington, DC
www.globalcyberrisk.com
Jody,
Thank you so much! Hope to see you [at the SNS Predictions event]!
Berit Anderson
WHERE'S MARK?
* On January 13, Mark will be presenting Pattern Computer's new diagnostic and drug discoveries at Biotech Showcase, with meetings there and at JPM, in San Francisco.
In between times, he will be wondering where all those new goats and horses came from in the lower field. Is there such a thing as a "Maxwell's demon" of animals?
