AI: The end of the socioeconomic rainbow or business as usual?
It’s 2025, and virtually all of the US economy stopped growing, stock market values notwithstanding, except for the AI sector. Unreal investments in datacenters, a $3 trillion-dollar valuation of Nvidia, a chip war with China, and US attempting to partake in socialism through IBM are some of the signs you’ll see of the AI boom […]
The inevitable unpredictability of the current moment
S&P 500 in correction territory. Tesla losing half of its value in the last 3 months. Tens of thousands of Federal employees fired. Trade wars just began and show no signs of easing. Inflation going back up. Consumer confidence lowest since 2022. Weakening retail sales. A rise in unemployment. Inverted Yield Curve. A rise in national debt. A decrease in housing activity. Interest rates are still high. Personal debt increasing. Risk of defaults for US Companies at the highest levels, since the Great Recession. Big Tech, and seemingly everyone else, is laying people off. The Salesforce CEO has no hiring plans this year, opting to utilize AI instead. Anthropic CEO declares that in a few months, 90% of all code will be written by AI. Klarna going public, while boasting the savings from fired employees being replaced by AI. Hiring for technical employees hasn’t been this low in 15 years, the very period of time, which birthed millions of new technical workers. Job searches for most take 3-6 months, while some take far longer to find anything. Employee engagement hasn’t been this low, since 2014, and it’s easy to understand how being stuck in the same job, unable to find the next career opportunity, may discourage some of the most dedicated employees. Recession is no longer just a long-forgotten fear, with JP Morgan and others predicting the odds of one being as high as 40%.
2025 is here
2025 is here. It seems that as far back as anyone can remember, economists used past indicators to look into the future to make predictions on what to expect. This year, however, seems more unpredictable than possibly ever before. Quantitative trading formulas used to offer insight into what’s to come, based on past behavior. What happens when past behavior becomes unpredictable? Future plans become even more murky, as the result.
The rise of fake… everything
Trump hitting Biden with a golf ball. Taylor Swift pornography. Celebrities endorsing products. Russia getting involved in producing fake videos portraying Kamala in unfavorable light. Trump, Musk, Swift, Biden, and many more were just some of the targets for deepfakes in 2024. There were celebrity warnings. There were government warnings. Still, people fall prey to scams, based on fake information, constantly, despite warnings from the FBI and many other sources. Americans lost $12.5 billion to scams in 2023 alone. From the race for elusive love, desire to get rich quickly, or just finding reasons to disapprove of someone, like seeing a politician you dislike do the unthinkable, people oftentimes choose to live in la-la land, instead of being grounded by reality. In 2023, despite the inflation and a struggling job market, spending on home entertainment in the United States reached a record $42.97 billion, sports betting got legalized, illegal drug trade increased, money spent on alcohol went up to $37.7 billion, and multibillion-dollar jackpots became a commonplace occurrence.