AI, Musk and Trump add up to a turbulent 2025 for tech

Expect a step-up to ongoing battles over social media and artificial intelligence.

- Dave Lee

You may have heard that the Oxford Dictionary's "word of the year" for 2024 was "brain rot".

I found that interesting for two reasons. The first is that it is clearly two words. The second is that unlike prior words of the year - like 2013's "selfie" or 2023's "rizz" - "brain rot" is neither new nor changed from its original intended meaning. Its first use was recorded in 1854 and said to be "indicative of a general decline in mental and intellectual effort" - which, well, yeah.

Since the selection for Oxford's yearly word is done by public poll, this leads me to my first prediction in this column of observations for tech in 2025: The brain rot economy will show signs of weakness as people grow more wary of what is being served up to them by algorithms as they scroll endlessly. In the past year, the flood of artificial intelligence slop content has made looking at Facebook even more pointless and eyeballs will go elsewhere.

Along the same lines, we can expect more anti-social media and anti-smartphone legislation from governments and the local authorities around the world, following the drastic action taken by Australia to ban users younger than 16 from social media and more and more bans on smartphones in US schools. Momentum is growing, and I expect more sweeping directives will follow - along with more spirited debate over whether such bans are justified or effective. See also: well-intentioned but poorly executed age verification efforts.