Ask HN: What are your 90% / 50% / 10% predictions for 2025 and beyond?

90% - stunning federal government corruption, but not clever. Really dumb stuff.

50% - mild to severe recession

10% - jaw dropping revelations that cause major executive branch resignations, or even impeachment convictions

90% - People here will continue to put 2024 in forms that require the date.

50% - Data-center growth will stall due to AI power demands until such a time more sustainable sources of power are added.

10% - More insurance companies will pull out of states that are being impacted by climate change.

90% Massive wildfires in Northern California the likes of which has never been seen. Hope I’m wrong.

50% Ukraine ceasefire but no peace treaty, negotiated by France + US

10% a new social movement sweeps the globe

90%: I'll get a tech gig that makes me significantly more money than I make in my regular Job that I can quit.

Given you said and beyond I decided to start at Q1 2027 and work back. :D

The robotics landscape is something I track very closely, I don't know people realize that space is progressing very quickly, just in terms of the lego being there and the supply chains really coming together, couple that with stable diffusion... interesting. 90% chance the most "shocking" to non-tech people stuff will come from there.

I also think a breakthrough could emerge in atomically precise manufacturing[1]. There's a 30/40% chance we'll see commercial viability for specific semiconductor components. Not yet real production but enough to demonstrate potential for chip fab. I've been reading about selfhealing polymers, I think those have 80% chance of becoming viable for applications like deep sea cables.

I think quantum computing continues to be a dark horse. Very low chance we'll see a 1000+ logical qubit system demonstrating quantum advantage in narrow but commercially valuable chemistry simulations, but the possibility will probably accelerate look for quantum resistant cryptography in finance/generally (80% likely imo). Also watching to see when topological bits become practical, but guessing that's 2028 thing.

We're already seeing the hints that linical trials for Cas9 engineered specifically for human microbiome editing, seem reasonably likely (60%), programmable bacteria (40%). Drug discover will really take off this year I think, and custom medicine will become huge in 2026/2027. I think apple will start conducting clinical trials using their devices with FDA approval this year (80%).

The socioeconomic landscape could shift dramatically. 100% chance increase in terrorism and civil unrest. 100% chance of UBI conversation becoming forefront by the end of the year. I think generally we'll see more like DOGE that the states are doing. 100% chance autonomous vehicles gain traction in more markets, 70% chance international expansion in a major way, 100% chance of a new entry into the autonomous transit space we didn't expect. 0% chance there is meaningful progress in sonic transit. 50/50 on gravitic propulsion ;)

Wildcard predictions: 15% chance of discovering a room temperature superconductor under specific magnetic fields, and a 15% chance that memristor lead to analog neural networks outperforming or at least being udserstood as relevant vs digital ones in specific applications, 80% memristor arrays are used at the edge by the end of 2026. solid state batteries hit 500Wh/kg+ in production samples (25% likely).

Most important thing that will happen in 2025/2026: quantum enabling radically new understanding of protein folding.

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsnano.3c10412 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adi9405

(I did Fred Wilson's too because I find these types of things very fun - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42569690 :))