This will be the year of Super Algorithms…the election, fake news, cyber disinformation,
all have caused the programmers to realize their algorithms suck. Huge push for new ones
that more accurately cull the data. And, of course, to shape the data for specific agendas.
This will play out in the stock markets first…greed being the prime motivator of the new
Robber Barons of Silicon Valley, thus the 1%, who underwrite it all. Not much ethics involved here, an algorithm doesn’t care. If you pause to program one that does, you lose out in the ‘gold rush’. But, by the end of the year ‘ethical algorithms‘ should be a next new thing.

Boundaries and battle lines will be drawn. The big take away of the 60’s was “You can’t throw stones at tanks”.

But, now, “you can throw bits at bytes”. Game on! Cyberwar is going to take on all kinds of
new targets and it will be a sort of 60’s redux (cue Rolling Stones’ Street Fighting Man; Rod
Stewart’s version if you are a pacifist ).

There will be a lot of fighting and territory grabs in cyberspace before we get to collaborating for something collectively good. It should be obvious to all, by now, that the big 5 Stacks are the new General Motors, IBM’s of the past and intend to grab all the cyberspace they can get. Individual players have too much power at their disposal, right now, and are able to upset the apple cart. The grid is too porous, any hacker can get in and muck it up. So the Stacks will play along with Trump, or whoever, to get their “unfair share” of the New Cyber Frontier. They are in it for the long haul. (And, I haven’t even got to China yet!!)

Hence, loss of Net Neutrality and Privacy, as nations, corporations, and private individuals get attacked and clamor for security and stability. Some of this will be staged, but a lot of it will be lone wolves just ‘doing their thing’ with no regard for who it hurts…think Columbine with a digital AK47 spewing out viral bits and bytes. It’s already out of control and only going to get worse. Unless you control the Net, and even if you do, you are in ‘open territory’ and fair game.

So, at the smart level, a move for personal servers, networks, control of your access, in and out, to the Net…shields, firewalls, VPN’s, yada, yada…but that will mostly be governments, corporations and Net savvy folks who are paying attention. The hoi polloi??? Running around like Chicken Little, “save me, save me”. Pushing icons, “feed me, feed me”. Click, click, click. So wittingly, or not, nations, international coalitions (UN,
NGO’s), Corps and Orgs, will have to shut it down. And this is to no avail, as the IOT has
already opened it all up. More backdoors than you can shake a stick at.

Some Luddite movements to get off the grid. More folks coming up with a combination strategy for on and off the grid. Data preservation at all costs, blah, blah. The important topics will be around the issue of maintaining and creating stability…you can’t operate in a minefield. So… the world will be looking for techno-saviors. Think Dune with AI’s. Mostly, tho, folks will be trying to keep their heads above water and not drown in the data.

Parallel to all this will be the good stuff, medical breakthroughs,nanotechnology, peace
applications for all of Darpa’s toys, some energy breakthroughs and steady progress
on the AI/symbiotic front. AR/VR will get a lot of hype, but still not ready for
prime time….more a push to make people hunger for it….whole new connotation
for Hunger Games and Marketers !!

THERE!. HAPPY NEW YEAR.