Every year I dedicate the last article of the year to reflect on the year gone by. Seeing as this article goes to print on the very last day of 2025, I thought I’d take the opportunity to look ahead instead — and try and predict what the next 25 years will bring.
The recent advances in de-extinction technology offer hope for endangered species. But before we leap to deploy these technologies we should consider the legal and ethical consequences of what we are about to unleash.
All we need to do to address our food insecurity is learn to better preserve food after it has been harvested. However, the technology we rely on to do that comes at a great cost. We need to find an alternative approach - one that prevents spoilage without harming the environment.
My last column of the year has traditionally been a review of technology policy developments of the year gone by. Even though I had hoped to see the data protection law come into force, at the time of writing it still has not. And so, instead of privacy, the year was dominated by developments in DPI and AI.
The decision to ban the use of camera traps in private estates is typical of the kind of reflexive over-reach our government officials often resort to. In this instance, not only is there little legal substance behind the order, the long-term consequences are misaligned with the objective.
While synthetic biology offers us many significant benefits, there is a risk that these benefits will accrue to the wealthy nations and corporations that currently control almost all cutting edge research in the field. To secure our interests we need to participate in global discussions on the subject. And increase our investments in the sector.
One would have thought that digital technologies might have made this world a more inclusive place. As a matter of fact it has not. But there is a need for us to do better. A moral - and even economic - necessity to make this a more disabled friendly world.
We tend to think of technology as either “good” nor “bad” based on the outcomes it has. This is futile as in most instances any harms that may be caused by technology is on account of how it is used and by whom.
New Technologies require regulators to think innovatively about safety. To find a way to encourage experimentation and yet not do so at the cost of human safety. This is a difficult line to draw but draw it we must.
As artificial intelligence enters into the music industry, incumbents have already begun to resist the transformation it will inevitably bring. But change is inevitable and it is only those artists who are able to embrace it who will survive the transition.
