Our 5 Predictions for AI in a Wild 2024

For regulators and the general public, 2023 was the year AI took center stage and grabbed everyone’s attention. Here's what we think is in store for 2024.

Welcome to 2024. By now, you all are probably woken up from sugar-induced comas, tired of seeing posts about New Year’s resolutions on social media, and still trying to catch up on your to-do list from when everyone last left the office.

AI couldn’t have had a bigger year in 2023, leading to countless fears and hopes around the technology’s ethical impact. As we rub our crystal ball, we think 2024 is the year those ethical conflicts translate into messy, real-world situations - grab your popcorn!

Prediction 1: AI Will be a Central Issue in 2024 Elections. Thought the last presidential election was messy? What about if we run things back but throw AI in the mix? While most pundits are focusing on whether 2024 will result in a Biden-Trump rematch, we’re worrying about how AI will be used in what could be the messiest, most divisive election season in decades. This year offers a perfect storm where AI capabilities have advanced to create effective campaign tools but are new enough that we do not have clear ethical guidelines or laws for their use (credit to Washington state for passing a law on this last year). The arms race has already started. A candidate in Pennsylvania has already deployed AI chatbots to call and persuade voters. Pair that with deep fakes, AI-generated images and video, and this promises to be the year where no one knows whether the election images they see and hear are real or not. 

Prediction #2: States Will Lead the Way. In 2023 the focus was on DC, but we think this year it will all be about state capitals. Sacramento and Albany may not be the hottest tourist destinations, but we expect the hotels there to be packed with tech executives and lobbyists working to shape legislation. We have already seen states willing to lead on privacy rules, and it appears AI is going to be similar. Last year we saw President Biden’s Executive Order and a number of high-level executive meetings led by Senator Chuck Schumer, but there’s no reason to believe our divided Congress will pass major AI legislation in an election year. Instead, states like California, New York, Connecticut, Colorado, and Washington are eagerly introducing legislation that will shape the industry in the near future. 

Prediction #3: Companies Will be Lured Into Collecting Even More Sensitive Data. If 2023 was the year that the tech world was focused on building the biggest models, 2024 will be the year companies extract value from AI models with larger, novel datasets. Instead of ushering in a new era of privacy rights, AI might kick off the wild west of data collection 2.0. Companies will be tempted to collect and retain more data than ever before as they look to train their AI models. Not only that, but the current wave of wearable technology and AR/VR technology going mainstream will allow companies to start collecting sensitive biometric data ranging from pupil dilation to eye tracking. Brands will be tempted to train advanced models on this data to accelerate message optimization without taking time to consider the potential for bias and privacy risk. At what point will these efforts cross the line from optimization to outright consumer manipulation?

Prediction #4: A Company Will Pay a Major Fine for Bad Data Policies. Even though it’s a new year, some things never change. Companies will continue to collect data they shouldn’t have and keep it longer than they are allowed to do. However, we have been encouraged by the recent willingness of U.S. regulators to give out fines so that companies who break the rules face real consequences. Last year we saw Amazon get hit with over $30 million in fines for their data deletion practices. The record for the biggest privacy penalty in the U.S. was set by Facebook in 2019 with a $5 billion penalty for a lack of transparency and accountability regarding how users could control their own data. While it’s unlikely we will see that record broken this year, anything is possible! The FTC has already gotten off to a hot start in 2024 by banning several data brokers from selling people’s location data. We are willing to bet U.S. regulators have more fines up their sleeves before the year is out. 

Prediction #5: Unions Will Get Increasingly Involved in AI Battles. Labor unions have already been involved in the fight over AI as it relates to job automation. Unions fought back against AI in last year’s Hollywood strikes, have worked to stop port automation, and had, shall we say … colorful … language for California Governor Newsom after he vetoed the Teamster’s bill related to autonomous trucking. While much of last year’s AI hype focused on software applications, this year, there will be increased attention to AI being used in industries that are more heavily unionized. Many of the big blue states that want to be AI leaders are also the ones where unions are the most politically influential, so look to labor to be more active in 2024. 

Tell us your thoughts! What’s your top AI prediction for 2024? Which of our predictions do you think is most likely to be true? (or false!)

What We’re Reading On Ethical (and Non-Ethical) Tech This Week:

• The 2023 Good Tech Awards - New York Times

• The New York Times sues OpenAI, Microsoft over use of its stories used to train chatbots - Politico

• Congress warns science agency over AI grant to tech-linked think tank - Politico

• China is shoring up the great firewall for the AI age - The Economist

• Beware of Botshit: How to Manage the Epistemic Risks of Generative Chatbots - Business Horizons