Ask HN: What tech prediction do you think most people are wrong about?

5 pointsalissa_v11mo ago3 comments

I've been hearing a lot of bold tech predictions lately - some in conversations at work or with friends, others here on HN, and others from podcasts and articles. Things like:

-LLMs reaching human-level reasoning within 2 years

-Self-driving taxis taking over major cities by 2027

-AI replacing most programming jobs within 5 years

-AI personalities becoming household names

-AGI arriving before 2030

-Apple Vision Pro doing for AR what iPhone did for smartphones (despite its current flop)

-Voice interfaces becoming the primary way we interact with computers

-The end of traditional cloud infrastructure as serverless takes over

-Code becoming mostly AI-written with humans just reviewing

-Vibe coding replacing traditional coding

-The four-day workweek will become standard across most tech companies by 2027

-Tech regulation will force the breakup of at least one major tech company

-Quantum computing will break most current encryption by 2030

Some of these are things I could see happening (or are already beginning to happen), but others seem exaggerated to me.

What tech prediction do you think most people have totally wrong and why?

I'm not looking for generic tech pessimism; I'm more interested in specific predictions you think won't pan out and why.

3 comments

bigyabai11mo ago

People are too long on Apple - their revenue comes from increasingly fragile sources and in all likelihood their current businesses may not exist in 5 years. Tim Cook didn't skate where the puck was headed, and as a result he's operating a uniquely disadvantaged business in 2025. Their hardware margins are jeopardized by tariffs and their software revenue is mostly backstopped by an illegally monopolized App Store. In a realistic scenario where Apple is deprived of these advantages, no amount of lifestyle branding or privacy prestige can prevent them from being unprofitable.

alissa_vOP11mo ago

Honestly totally agree with this take. Apple's in trouble and most people don't see it yet. Just look at Vision Pro - $3.5k for a headset nobody wants. I've read sales are basically non-existent now that the early adopters are done. They've completely missed the AI wave too. Selling iPhones won't save them if everything shifts to AI and they're playing catch-up. App Store monopoly getting challenged + tariffs eating their margins + no leadership in emerging tech = way more vulnerable than their market cap suggests.

bediger400011mo ago

Urine powered batteries. The chemistry is all wrong.

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